Pop Quiz

Why is SSG still single?

A)  She hasn't met the right guy.

B)  She's not sure if she wants to get married and have kids.

C)  Her parents got divorced after 25 years of marriage confessing they never loved each other.  After which her mother dated a slew of alcoholics (recovering and uh ... not recovering) and proceeded to kick SSG out of the house at the age of 15.

D)  She is happy as a single girl.

E)  All of the above.

"Why are you still single?"  A question I hear more often than I care to admit.  It has been said lovingly, by a new beau.  Flatteringly, by close friends and family.  Questioningly, by Rock Star Therapist.  And fiercely by a few, as if they'd be PERFECTLY happy to go ahead and list ALL of the reasons.

The real answer?  

E.  All of the above.

If you were to look at those answers as percentages, which SSG will do because she is an analyst (allegedly) by day, they change.  Sometimes it's 90% A, 2% B, 3% C and 5% D.  Sometimes it's 75% D ... and well, you get the picture.  But the truth is, they're all there.  

The difference?

Context.

A)  Said flirtatiously to a cutie over cocktails.

B)  Said to close friends, while curled up on the couch in pajamas ... also over cocktails.

C)  Said to her therapist.  Sans cocktails.  (Damn it.)

D)  Said to herself.

E)  The truth ... said to the interwebs.

The Right Guy

It used to be, that younger SSG would be out with her friends where they'd meet a group of guys.  SSG would pick the one she thought was the cutest, could make her laugh and (hopefully!) drove a stick shift.  They'd date for a couple of months until he did enough stuff to annoy her, or she did enough stuff to annoy him.

OH IF IT WERE STILL THAT EASY.  And if tastes didn't, you know.  CHANGE.  We'd be in good shape, folks.  

But things have changed.  SSG most of all.

I could break down a laundry list of things I like--confidence and humor and maybe certain looks or outfits and jobs and hobbies and how he would handle things with me and in his life.  And I suppose all of that rolls into who a person is.  But if I'm being honest, what I really want is pretty simple.  

• I want to genuinely love the guy for who he is.  
• And I also want to jump him.  
• Repeatedly.  
• And I want him to feel the exact same way about me.

She's Not Sure if She Wants to Get Married and Have Kids

If you would have asked me ten years ago or last year, my answer would have been the same.  The end goal was to get married and have kids.  I couldn't envision a complete life without those two factors.  Without my own little family.

This is something that has slowly shifted over the past year.  It's not completely off the table, but I am entertaining the idea that marriage and kids MIGHT not be in my future.  

This freaked me out for a little while.  I wasn't willing to "give up" or "settle" or "admit failure" or the host of other emotions I went through when I merely asked myself the question "what would your life look like without marriage and children?"  

I don't know the answer to that yet.  But I will tell you this, family or no family, SSG will still pretty much rock this thing.

Her Parents

GAH.  It always comes back to blaming the parents, doesn't it?  (One check in the "Don't Have Kids" column, you bring them into this world and then they resent you for it.)

I know my parents didn't intend to create the marriage and family they ultimately did.  But I'd be lying if I said how they raised me and how they treated each other doesn't have an effect on my feelings toward relationships and marriage in general.

Everyone in my family has been divorced, many never remarried.

I knew from a very early age that I wanted something different.  I've worked hard to become the type of person that is honest with her feelings and able to express them.  One would hope that I'm able to do it constructively.  But I do worry that I won't know how to make something work and last.  How to be a good wife ... not only for my husband's sake but for my own.  

I have no idea if it's possible for a couple to fall deeper in love as time goes on.  But I like to believe that it is.

She is Happy as a Single Girl

I feel very fortunate with my life.  I've somehow survived a host of things I shouldn't have.  And I feel incredibly lucky, nee SERENDIPITOUS, to have my little place in the world.  I almost feel like I'm tempting fate to say that I want more.  So I try to make my life as good as I can possibly make it with what I currently have.  And for the most part, if it were to end tomorrow (which let's hope it doesn't), I'd look back and say ... 

MAN that was ROUGH.  

Just kidding, I'd be proud.

But I wouldn't be the SSG if I didn't want more!  And I wouldn't be the SSG if I wasn't honest about wanting more!

And I do want more.  I'd love to have someone in my life and for me to be the someone in their life.

So there, I said it.  SSG wants a boyfriend.  

Ohmahgah!

LAWD help him.