IN A TIME MACHINE, I JUST MIGHT CHOOSE THE YEAR 2020

Read an article last week about breaking up during the pandemic. I’d provide a link, but when I Googled the subject, there were too many matches. Maybe the pandemic shattered more relationships, all that claustrophobic time together and all. Or maybe breaking up is just such a common thing, no matter the time. Does that help people?

It’s not you, it’s a slew of folks.

Anyway, the article talked about how the isolating nature of this coronavirus interlude prevented the writer from receiving comforting hugs from friends, from going out to dinner or a club just to take her mind off the dumping and from getting back to it again and seeing who else is out there. The regular post-breakup channels were not in service. True enough.

It’s been six or seven weeks since I ended things with Daniel and I’m welcoming the COVID-19 barriers to normal recovery. Granted, as I’ve noted before, being single again doesn’t necessarily feel as painful to the person who calls things off. I wasn’t the one who was blindsided. Ostensibly, I’d thought about the repercussions of being single again before I ever had The Talk. Even if there were no pandemic, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be soliciting hugs or crying into shared Nachos Supreme plates as a friend tries to artfully dance around pained queries of “What’s wrong with me?” and, cue Linda Ronstadt, “When will I be loved?” I’m not much of a hugger or a sharer (including oversized appies).

I will admit that, while I’m not missing Daniel—it was the right decision—I’ve had to play a few rounds of the Whack-a-Mole game as nagging questions of self-doubt and self-criticism pop up:

Why isn’t it ever enough?

Is this about being too picky?

What makes me think I deserve better?

You know Ryan Reynolds is straight, right? And married...

Should I just settle?

Is this the end of dating?

Am I too old to fall in love again?

For me, a coronavirus gift—a dating consolation prize, if you will—is that I can stay in a state of inaction. I can just be.

That’s always been a challenge for me. Many years ago, a close friend of mine said, “You can’t ever just sit, can you? You’re always doing something.” He didn’t mean that I had ADHD; rather, I always had a To Do list, every day, every hour.

It startled me because I’d thought of myself as a laid back. Not quite as chill as a surfer dude (and that’s not just a stereotype; I had a surfer roomie for eight months when I lived in Malibu), but something chill-adjacent at least. But then I started monitoring myself...my evenings, my weekends, my vacations. Damn, I was intense. And if the task at hand wasn’t too taxing, I was multitasking. If I allowed myself to watch an episode of “Seinfeld,” I had an article in my lap or a crossword at the ready for commercial breaks. Even downtime had to be productive.

Normally, my approach to dating is just like my quest for getting a novel or essay published. When an editor or agent rejects my writing, I let my shoulders slump momentarily, whisper a profane word or two and then start preparing my next query, newly fired up, believing this editor/agent is even better. The perfect fit! Similarly, when a coffee date goes bust or a relationship ends, I log back into dating sites, I search and search, trying to find a profile I somehow overlooked and I send a new message, sure to impress with my use of full words, complete sentences and proper punctuation. (That’s what gay men are looking for, isn’t it?)

But this time around, I’m in a prolonged state of pause. The dating sites that I made inactive at the beginning of the year remain so. I haven’t once been tempted to log in again. It’s pointless. Even if there were a right guy, it would still be the wrong time.

I know people are getting back out there, returning to schools and offices, dining in restaurants, leaving their colorful rainbow masks on the kitchen counter. Heck, my octogenarian parents in Texas just hosted an indoor dinner party for friends in their complex, no one donning masks. “We get lonely,” my mom said. “We miss our friends too much.” It’s yet another example of how this apple fell oh so far from the tree. I’m pretty sure I’m an altogether different fruit.

Five months in and I’m still loving my solitary time. I feel no urgency to get back in the saddle again to see if I can rustle up a new boyfriend. It’s not like I’m spending an inordinate amount of time reflecting on why I suck at relationships...or at least why they always seem to be with neither Mr. Right nor Mr. Clearly Wrong but more like Mr. Woefully Askew. I know my dating strengths and weaknesses and, during this latest go-round, I made great gains in clear communication which had been the downfall of a prior relationship.

This time of not looking, of not even considering, has been so freeing. The coronavirus seems to be what I’ve needed to give myself permission to shelve thoughts of future dating (and fretting about not dating). While I’ve seen, heard and read about how others have resisted The Grand Pause, it’s been a great relief to me. Some greater force tapped me on the shoulder and calmly, yet decisively said, “Not now.”

Why, thank you!

It’s reminded me that being single ain’t so bad. I know that when I lived ten years on my own in a rural area, it almost destroyed me, but that was before I was ever handed my nifty portfolio of mental health diagnoses and it was during a time when my self-hate was savage and unrelenting. I still have to watch for mood dips—and there have been some this year—but generally the pandemic has lifted me. Weird, I know. This greater force has allowed me to be unapologetically, guilt-free me. I love my Me time. There is invariably a moment that comes when I’m out with a boyfriend or a friend and, no matter how nice the experience may be, my mind says, I’m done. Enough socializing. I need to be alone. ASAP.

That’s why writing suits me so well. No one questions all my time in solitary, developing stories that may never find an audience. You’re so disciplined, people say when I talk about my strict writing routine. I’m just doing what I love and it seems to come off as more palatable than the guy who spends equal amounts of time on video games.

While I hear people saying they just want 2020 to be over with, I’m savoring these days. (Let’s be clear though: I want the cases and the deaths to stop. Bring on the vaccine!) I write. I read. I work on my French and my Swedish. Depending on the day, I head out to hike or cycle or run. Days can go by without me contacting anyone else. I can feel like such an outlier in normal times but, thanks to a pandemic, I’m now a model citizen.

Single and satisfied.