Change in Status

I want to petition Facebook to add another relationship choice for my status.  Single is such a lonely word.  If you’re young, then to be ‘single’ means ‘available’.  When you’re middle-aged, single means ‘bad relationship history’, or ‘too much baggage’, or ‘was always chosen last for sports in school and nothing has changed.’  To have a status of single is camouflage for the ugly ‘divorced’ term or the sad ‘widowed’ term.  None of these evoke attention or enthusiasm on the part of the beholder.  Over a certain age the question isn’t, “Are you single?”, but “WHY are you single?”  In other words, “What is wrong with you?”  Then anyone checking you out starts searching your Facebook albums for photos of a huge number of children who don’t match each other, or a long suspicious gap in your employment dates.  To be listed as single when middle-aged is negative; its depressing.  Its lonely.

That is why I want to change my relationship status from ‘single’ to ‘unsupervised’.  How much more freeing and exciting is it to be unsupervised than just single?  It conjures up wild abandon, mysterious trips, breaking rules, being silly and being old enough to get away with it all.  Unsupervised: the no-no of the classroom, the parental horror of the teen years, the anathema of the workplace.  How fun is that?  Single + middle aged = rocking chairs and increased doctor visits.  Unsupervised + middle aged = spontaneity and surprises.

So I will consider myself unsupervised and see if the change in term also liberates my behavior even a little.

But then, I have cats, so maybe I can’t consider myself unsupervised.  Especially at dinnertime.