Single, Sick, and Shy About Asking For Help? Do a Worksheet. May 19, 2014
Posted by Onely in blog reviews, Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought, Just Saying., Reviews, Single with chronic illness.Tags: Beth O'Donnell, How to allow people to help you, Single and the Sweet Side of 40, Singles and chronic illness
4 comments
Copious Readers, as you can see from recent posts, Onely’s new Thing is writing about singles with chronic illness. Our goal is to encourage a wider dialog on this topic. This is especially important in light of the fact that unmarried people are already legally discriminated against in many ways. And then a chronic illness necessitates dealing with additional heartless bureaucracy, especially the parts that already favor married people–most notably health and disability insurance and Social Security. Single and sick: potentially a double downer, at least as far as life logistics go. (Although sometimes it’s easier to be single and sick, or at least to live alone and be sick–we will write about this in a later post).
Onely has been in touch with a number of bloggers and writers who are also interested in what happens to unmarried sufferers of chronic illness (and we hope that more interested parties will contact us, please!). Today, though, I wanted to flag one particular interesting resource for any socially or legally single folks out there who are constantly sick. It’s sometimes hard to ask for help from people who are not in your immediate/nuclear family, because our society tends to teach that it’s ok to ask parents, children, or a spouse--especially a spouse–for all sorts of care and assistance–even the ongoing care and assistance often required by a chronic illness. So single people without that specific support system may feel odd or uneasy about asking their own, unique support systems and loved ones for help, even though those people would probably be happy to assist.
Beth O’Donnell at Single and the Sweet Side of 40 has created some workbook charts, called HELP THEM TO HELP YOU, that assist you with wrapping your mind around certain important issues and decisions in your life. The Chronic Illness workbook is not out yet (we’ll let you know as soon as it is!), but two of the other workbooks actually provide guidance and insight that could very relevant to a single person dealing with an unrelentingly irritable body.
First, The Broken Heart Edition: The phrase “broken heart” usually appears in the context of a separation from or loss of a loved one. But the loss of your body as you once knew it can also break your heart. You might need as much moral support as if you had gone through a terrible breakup. And as helpful as hugs and phone calls are, O’Donnell points out that “Moral support is great, but if you really want to help, clean my house.” (Or, in my case, “If you really want to help, go to my office and. . . well, do my work.”)
As a cat owner, my personal favorite is:
The vacuum is _____________________on the___________________floor.
As someone whose body seems to hate her, my personal favorites are:
The odor in the house is most likely:
a) dead food
b) dead mouse
c) me
d) ___________I’ll take a shower when:
a) water doesn’t hurt
b) my hair is so dirty it can be sculpted
c) I get out of bed
d) ___________I’ll get out of bed:
a) when I wake up
b) for five minutes, to walk the dog
c) tomorrow
d) __________
Second, The Heavy Lifting Edition:
Photo credit: saiyanzrepublik
Singles (and Seduction?) on Sailboats February 25, 2014
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought.Tags: couples-only, Marital Status Discrimination, married-only, singles blog, singles clubs, singles on sailboats
3 comments
Copious Readers,
It’s been a long time since our last post. Sorry if anyone missed us. (We hope someone missed us.) But never fear, even though we weren’t posting, we constantly had our eyes peeled for examples of marital status discrimination against singles. There are examples all over the news (thank you, Google feed), but we prefer to write about incidents we personally experienced. And our favorite kind of personal vignette is when the marital status discrimination is reversed–when married people experience a little bit of what singles live with every day. Mean but true.
You may or may not know my stance on singles’ groups. I personally find them kind of icky (I explained why here) but some people like them, so whatever. My friend Kisha is part of a beautifully-alliterated group, Singles on Sailboats (that also happens to have the unfortunate acronym SOS). But here’s the thing–Kisha is in a relationship. She’s not single.
So what’s she doing in a singles sailing club? Does this mean that Kisha is stepping out on her current man Dean and scanning the sailboats for a smarter, richer, tauter, funnier version of Dean?
Well, no.
First, because Dean owns the boat. You can be single as George Clooney, but you can’t be in SOS unless you have a boat (which is a dumb example, because of course George Clooney has a boat). Second, SOS allows couples like Kisha and Dean to join. Because they are not married.
Did you get that? Unmarried couples ok, married couples not ok. Perhaps SOS thinks that until a couple signs that piece of paper–until they become legally coupled as opposed to merely socially coupled–SOS should not deprive them of the chance that, while attending a SOS function, one of the unmarried pair might find, well, a smarter, richer, tauter, funnier version of Dean.
I would go to SOS myself and try to seduce some socially-but-not-legally coupled men, just to test this theory, except I don’t have a boat. Or any seduction experience or equipment.
I heard about the marital discrimination information straight from Kisha. “We’re trying to get them to allow married couples,” she said, and more power to her. Maybe if they add married couples they can become People on Sailboats, which sounds kind of stupid but at least they’d lose that unlucky SOS acronym.
(Full disclosure: The SOS website, technically you can be married in the club, but you must have joined as a single person. Which pretty much amounts to the same thing I’ve been yapping about above.)
All that said, here are the people that SOS does welcome unconditionally:
single members with all levels of sailing experience, from novice sailors to seasoned skippers. . . all single persons twenty-one years of age or older, regardless of race, color, creed, sex or national origins
Which just shows how discriminatory singlism (or, in this case, marriedism) is ingrained in our society. The club has no qualms about making policy based on marital status, but they go out of their way to advertise their lack of racism, colorism, creedism, sexism, or national originsism.
Until they fix their marital status discrimination, they cannot legitimately say, as they do on their website, “SOS is a sailing club, not a dating club.”
Copious Readers, can you think of better acronyms for this club, either reflecting their current status as a dating club, or their future status as a non-singlist, non-marriedist club for everyone?
–Christina
Photo credit: Pixabay, Public Domain
I Spent Christmas Alone December 26, 2013
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Great Onely Activities, I want to..., Some Like It Single.Tags: cabin in the woods, henry david thoreau, holidays alone, no wifi, ralph waldo emerson, thanksgiving single
4 comments
Actually, that title is not true. It was Thanksgiving that I spent alone, and which I wanted to post about several weeks ago. But I never got around to writing the piece until just now, so I tweaked the title just to make this post more timely.
I didn’t have to spend Thanksgiving alone. I could have joined some friends or my family. But I wanted to be alone during the entire Thanksgiving weekend, and be thankful for my aloneness. But would it work? Could it be done?
Answer: Kinda.
My plan: On Thursday morning, I would drive twenty minutes to Bull Run Park, where I would spend three nights camping in a Rustic Cabin, writing my Adequate American Novel and snacking (not necessarily in that order).
There would be no WiFi. I had long believed that if I could simply get away from the Internet, I would finish my book in a weekend, easy.
The nice woman on the phone at the park swore my computer would not pick up one single quiver of WiFi. “No Internet,” she said, “But there is heat, a microwave, mini fridge, futon, table, chairs, queen bed, and bunk beds.” This all seemed a bit luxurious for a writing retreat in the deep woods. But perhaps I’d get lucky and the heat would fail, and I would have to continue typing in fingerless gloves with a scarf around my neck, hunched over my keyboard, as boundless creativity flowed from my stiff white fingertips, the way I’d always imagined–correctly or incorrectly–Henry David Thoreau did when he went to Walden Pond.
Now it’s true that Thoreau did not have a down comforter, plus a down-filled bomber jacket, plus a calf-length down coat (not meant to wear over the bomber jacket, but I wore it over the bomber jacket).* Nor a frozen Trader Joe’s spinach pie (Thanksgiving dinner) and a bag of organic pears and nutmix. But nonetheless the words he used to explain his famous explanation for his retreat kept playing over and over in my head. I remembered them from the movie Dead Poets Society. Or thought I did. (I did not and will not Google them to make sure I get them right.) This is what I kept hearing as I shuffled around my little cabin, from computer to refrigerator and back again: (more…)
Single and Sick: Nika Beamon Takes It On December 12, 2013
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought, Marital Status Discrimination.Tags: bella depaulo, Nika Beamon, single and sick
1 comment so far
Copious Readers,
We at Onely are trying to write more about the issues of being single and sick (health insurance inequalities being one of the main bullsh!t factors creating a more difficult situation for singles with chronic illnesses).
So we were thrilled to see that Bella dePaulo, longtime singles advocate and social scientist, posted a guest article by Nika Beamon about dating and living with a chronic immune disorder.
We also tweeted it, so we request you retweet so that we can get the dialog going!
–CC
Guest Post: A Take on How to Be Single and Happy December 5, 2013
Posted by Onely in Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought, Guest Bloggers.Tags: Guest Post Singles, happy singles advice, Veronica Hayes
4 comments Copious Readers, remember that we always like guest posts expressing different writers’ feelings on being single and happy (or not). Here is one from Veronica Hayes. We welcome comments!
–Christina and Lisa
Being single and happy means taking advantage of the fact that your primary responsibility is to yourself. It also means that your time is to yours to do with as you choose, so choose wisely. Sitting around the house playing video games, going online, or watching TV are all options. A great option for most people is to get up and out on a regular basis and mingle with other single people. Join a gym club, find local social events, or get involved with sports teams – professional or local. Staying active will keep you from wondering what to do with all the free time you have available to you.
Since you live alone, there is no one else to consider when choosing the type of sound system, size of the big screen TV, or how comfortable the chairs should be. There is no one else’s mess to clean up, so you take care of yourself. Take advantage of this and create the type of single person environment that makes a statement about you and being single. I once lived in an apartment that had a massive living room which I turned into an entertainment room, complete with big screen TV, surround sound stereo, and uber-comfortable furniture for lounging. I didn’t worry about someone rearranging things or telling me to turn the volume down.
Be Real! (more…)
Single and Sickness–The Personal Side November 16, 2013
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Guest Bloggers, Guest Posts, single and happy, Singles Resource.Tags: being single and sick, chronic hunger, chronic thirst, single with chronic fatigue, single with chronic pain, willpower
1 comment so far
Copious Readers, please don’t forget that we always love to hear from your and encourage guest posts from all our readers (even those who disagree with some of our content). Lately we are trying to explore the issue of singles and sickness.
Today’s contributor is Yolanda, a longtime supporter of Onely and the driving force behind the active and supportive Footloose Femails email group and the new Facebook group Happily Single Women’s Group. She also happens to have many medical problems including chronic pain, chronic fatigue and chronic hunger and thirst 24/7 but she doesn’t let those physical challenges define her. In fact, sometimes she laughs in their faces:
I’ve got a new boyfriend!! I’ve known him all my life, but we’ve gotten really close since I got sick 16 years ago.
His name is Will Power.
But I heard that he’s got a lot of other women “on the side”, so I’m sure that he’s seeing a lot of YOU out there too. I don’t know how he does it!!!
I might be unmarried but I honestly believe that Will Power will be someone I’m going to spend a lot of time with!! He’s probably going to be almost like a husband – sticking with me through thick and thin, in good times and bad. Hopefully he’ll never desert me.
Yolanda
P.S. After a few hours I’m actually thinking of ditching him!!
He abandoned me as soon as the going got tough. When I was feeling sick & tired he just ran away into another room. And that’s when I needed him most!! Oh well, “in good times and bad times”. Hopefully he won’t abandon me too often!!
Maybe when you’re asked, you can say you have a boyfriend called Will Power too? Saves you having to justify being single.
Thanks, Yolanda, for sharing your thoughts from your unique perspective. I hope one day Will Power will cheat on you with me. (No offense.) –Christina
Photo credit: NogarKhaz
Shared History: What’s it Worth? Who With? October 8, 2013
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought.Tags: are you seeing anyone? why aren't you married?, mother in law, shared history, singles blog
6 comments
Copious Readers, is it worth it to hang on to a “meh” or “blech” relationship (romantic, platonic, or hairstylist) because–and only because–you’ve been together a long time and shared many experiences? Let me tell you two parables. Then consider who you share history or histories with, and what they mean to you, and whether you should continue, end, or try to reinvigorate those relationships.
(1) My friend Beulah was peacefully shopping in Target in Boulder, Colorado when she rounded the corner of the Hair Notions aisle and ran smack into. . . AAAHHHHHHHH! Her best friend’s mother!
Now, many of you Copious Readers may wonder, what is so inherently frightening about one’s best friend’s mother? (Mother-in-law jokes aside.) Well, Beulah of course loves her best friend, Shawna, but Beulah has repeatedly told me, “You couldn’t pay me enough to be part of that family.” I never really understood why, until she told me this story.
Shawna’s mother, Monique, is a wiry woman with an intense face where her cheekbones make arrowheads up to her huge eyes. Right now she stared down Beulah waiting, just waiting, for a chance to ask her The Question. And as Beulah held her breath, there it came:
So, are you seeing anyone?
Beulah said, “No, I’m sort taking it easy on the dating scene, enjoying being by myself for a while, you know.”
Monique said, “Oh, no, you can’t think like that.”
“Huh?” said Beulah, with her face if not her voice. Monique continued.
Don’t you want to find someone you can have a shared history with?
Jim (Monique’s husband) and Monique had travelled the world with USAID–they did indeed have a long shared history. (Subsequently Beulah and Shawna had a shared history, cultivated when they met in Nepal. But Monique wasn’t thinking of that.) She told Beulah, “And all the time we (her family) are hoping for you’ll find someone,that you’ll find someone you can have a shared history with. Like me and Jim.”
After that, Beulah went back to the frozen foods section to pick up a pint of Ben&Jerry’s-Double-Fudge-Super-Rum-Bourbon-Xtacy. Can you blame her? On the phone later she told me, “Monique and Jim snip at each other all the time. The tension in that house is like rubber bands all over the couches, curtains, everything. I’d rather not have a “shared history” than have a history like that.”
Unfortunately, not everyone thinks things through like Beulah. Which leads us in to Parable 2:
(2) My friend Nathan started seeing Tracy when they were in their early twenties. They were together, then apart, then together, then married. After four or five years together (and apart, and together, and married), things grew sour. Nathan wanted to leave. Tracy threatened to kill herself if he did. She went to therapy. Things got better, and then worse, and then better.
Nathan and I have been friends since childhood and he confided much of this to me, perhaps because he, like I, had a mobile childhood he felt he could tell me that Tracy was the one person he’d known for longer than three or four years, and so it was important for him to have that relationship. I didn’t feel it was my place to say that this was really stupid. So I didn’t.
But it was. They had children (twins), separated for two years, but now live together in a semi-amicable-semi-ignoring-each-other way for the sake of the kids.
Speaking of which, I should call him. Maybe discuss our shared history. Of playing with dead insects. Catching crayfish. Looking for Easter eggs. Riding bikes downhill with no helmets. Me driving a motorboat he made himself. Playing pingpong.
I myself prefer to diversify my histories amongst many different relationships. Some shared pasts will be longer or shorter than others. Some will be treasurable and others–maybe even the longest ones–will require snipping of the rubber bands. They may fly back and sting you, but you’ll always have that shared history even if you end it, and as we all know, every ending opens space for a beginning.
Just saying.
–CC
Photo credit: ChristinaDC
Onely and Only Sitting in a Tree. . . Shoving Off Amatonormativity September 27, 2013
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought.Tags: a positive blog for singles, Abbe Wright, Nilofer Merchant, Syria
2 comments
Onely, pronunced Wun-lee, is a blog dedicated to dismantling cultural stereotypes of single people and the laws that discriminate against them.
I write this little reminder because even though our Copious Readers all know our mission (and our mission should be–we hope–clear to new readers on our About Onely page), Lisa and I have been away from the blogosphere for a while, due to sickness and Syria (long stories, both).
Then I found something I thought would make for a short, smooth post (with longer, stickier posts to follow after we regain our footing). Onlyness. Pronounced Ohn-lee-ness and not to be confused with Oneliness, pronounced Wun-lee-ness.
Although the two do flatter each other. See:
In a little article in Oprah Magazine, Abbe Wright quotes Silicon Valley corporate something or other Nilofer Merchant, who tells us not to judge our lives by the timelines that other people follow. That’s so 1950s! So what if all your girlfriends have babies and you’re not married? Embrace your Onlyness!
Onlyness is the spot in which only you inhabit–a mix of the history, experiences, and ideas that make up your life story. If you deny it by engaging in ‘comparisonitis’, you’ll miss your true value.
Copious Readers, such is my dedication to you that in order to bring you this bit of wisdom I even admitted that I buy Oprah magazine though only that one time in the checkout line and I swear I can quit whenever I want except she tells me how to be happy and not worry and I really really need just one more fix of that. . .
–Christina
Citation: Oprah, October 2013, 140.
Snark: I may have to cite her, but I don’t have to Tag her.
The Great Diaper Debate September 8, 2013
Posted by Onely in Bad Onely Activities, Food for Thought.Tags: diapers, single blog, single fathers, single mothers
8 comments
Copious Readers, I have never changed a diaper.
Is that weird?
I had a very, shall we say, impassioned discussion of this topic with a friend of mine whom we shall call ‘Trent’. (Every blogger–nay, every writer–knows that the best part of writing is making up pseudonyms.)
Fate chose for Trent to walk the married-with-children path. Result: a seven-year-old son and a sixteen-year-old daughter and lots and lots of diaper-changing experience. Fine. (Smelly, but fine.)
The argument (I’m upgrading it from ‘impassioned discussion’) happened while I was talking to Trent on the phone–he was at a beach house with some friends. (Strike one against him.) Also present in the house, according to Trent, were one male friend with two small girls and another male friend—hmm, how about ‘Derek’!–who had no children. Trent told me that Derek was good with the little girls but that he wouldn’t really be the best person to watch them alone, because he’d never even changed a diaper. Trent told me this and laughed, as if it were a funny and surprising fact.
“But I’ve never changed a diaper,” I said.
“Are you serious?” he said.
I won’t recreate the dialog here because it went pretty much along those lines, with a couple interesting twists. He said that diaper-changing was a right of passage. He said 95 percent of Americans do it. He said, didn’t I ever babysit? (No, not since I had to chase that naked four-year-old around the house with a toothbrush and pajamas.) He said diaper changing was a way to show love, to overcome the grittiness of life for a greater purpose. (I’m saying it better than he did.) He equated it to never having travelled outside the U.S. With nearly every sentence, he intimated that I had missed out, and that I was a lesser person for it.
I tried to argue back, but I argue best on paper (or on pixels, I guess) so most of my words came out “but. . but. . .I. . uh.. no. . .” So sure was he of the order of things, that he didn’t even realize he was making me nuts. He laughed harder and harder, while at the end of the conversation I was practically screaming into the phone, near tears and feeling frustrated and offended.Copious Readers, what would you have done? What would you have said? Below is a slightly edited version of the email I wrote to him once I calmed down (sorry for any bad formatting juju):
Dear Trent, (more…)
Craigslist Killer Caught: When He Stereotyped Singles August 31, 2013
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought.Tags: alternative families and single men, Atlantic Magazine, craigslist killer, David Pauley, Hanna Rosin, Ralph Geiger, Richard Beasley, Scott Davis, single men, Timothy Kern
1 comment so far
The long story is in this Atlantic article, but the short story is this:
Serial killer Richard Beasley targeted middle-class, unemployed, *unmarried* men. He lured them with a Craigslist ad where he asked for someone to manage a small, isolated ranch with some cattle for 300 dollars a week and free board. He made it sound like an easy, reliable way for a man (and it had to be a man) to earn some money and get a leg up in life, possibly after having been beat up a bit by fate (divorce, unemployment, etc).
However, he was actually planning to kill these single men because he wanted to steal their possessions and make some money by selling them. Applicants who didn’t intend to come to the ranch with a big trailer of large-screen TVs (or whatever) were turned away. His favorite applicants: single men. He figured no one would come looking for them.
He figured wrong.
****
In Memoriam:
Ralph Geiger: Single. The killer (out of disrespect for the killer I will not use his name anymore) stole Geiger’s identity. Geiger is survived and remembered by his longtime daughter-like mentee Summer Rowley.
David Pauley: Single. His best friend Chris and twin sister Deb notified the police, which helped them track down the killer.
Timothy Kern: Single. His sons Zack and Nick realized immediately that he had disappeared and notified authorities. By then, the killer was doomed.
Respect:
Scott Davis: Single. He escaped the killer even after having a gun pointed at his face. Though unmarried, his mother was expecting him soon to come fix her house. His experience alerted the police to the killer’s existence.
****
When the killer was seeking out single men, he was actually seeking out what might have been his toughest victims, the ones most dangerous to his mission. Author Hanna Rosin describes this phenomenon:
As traditional family structures are falling apart for working-class men, many of them are forging new kinds of relationships: two old high-school friends who chat so many times a day. . .; a father who texts his almost-grown sons as he goes to bed at night and as he wakes up in the morning. . . When the old structures recede for men, they find ways to replace them with alternative attachments. . . these improvised families can prove *more* intense because they are formed under duress and, lacking a conventional domestic routine or recognized status, they must be constantly tended and reinforced.
Copious Readers – particularly our male readers – what do you think of this phenomenon? In what ways do you find yourself building these “alternative attachments”?
Onely.Org 