I have already found “the one” — it’s me! I had one goal in life: to find a husband. Almost everything I did was with that intention. I joined the dance team in high school because the cute and popular boys were on the football and basketball teams. I dressed in ways I felt would […]
To my surprise, once I stopped centering my life around romance, I was happy on my own. I’ve always loved Valentine’s Day. When I was married, my then-husband and I spent the holiday at our favorite bed and breakfast, and it was always just a little bit magical. Now that I’m single, I still love […]
Do I give you unsolicited advice on your marriage? It was at my 10-year high school reunion when I was first hit with a singledom stinger. “Liz Best!” my former classmate trilled. “It’s so good to see you! Is it…are you still ‘Best’?” “Yep, I’m still a Best,” I replied happily. “Oh…well that’s OK!” Cue […]
Why resign yourself to the dull pain of a mediocre relationship when you’re doing just fine on your own? During Rebecca Traister’s many single years, she was often irritated when the men she dated disrupted her routine. She didn’t like it when they urged her to leave work earlier than she wanted, or when their […]
Dear Dana is a bi-weekly advice column for humans who engage in romantic relationships. Please send your dilemmas, issues, conundrums, assumptions, conflicts, anxieties, worriments, obstacles, complications, predicaments, queries, questions, and any other synonyms for “problems” to deardana@rolereboot.org. Dear Dana, I recently (about 6 months ago) ended a long-term (4.5 year) relationship. Over the past 6 months, […]
Married people do not have to prove why they’re married, so why do people have to explain why they’re not? Dear Concerned Family, Friends, Friends’ Nanas, Co-workers, Strangers on Planes, Hairstylists, Taxi Drivers, et al: I can’t take it. The number of people in my life telling me about the number of times they have been concern-policed […]
I’m not mourning my old life; I’m merely coming face-to-face with what might have been if I hadn’t experienced an unintended pregnancy. All eyes in the enormous, bustling foyer of New York’s Museum of Modern Art are burning the back of my head with judgmental stares. My defiantly exhausted 2-year-old son is mightily shrieking and […]
The beauty of divorce at midlife is that we are free to create the life we want without societal expectations of what it “should” look like. “Do you think you’d still be married if all the bad stuff hadn’t happened?” a friend asked me several years ago. “I don’t know,” I answered after a few minutes, […]
