Am I Better Off Single?

A friend emailed me this story today as inspiration for our burgeoning blog. It brought me back to the days before grad school when I "worked" at a horrible job for about 4 years. I got so efficient at the job that I could get everything done in about an hour a day and I spent the rest of the time googling stuff. When I was a single gal I often perused websites like MSN and Yahoo, and when I really had nothing to do, iVillage. Articles in the Single Woman content areas of these websites can generally be divided into two categories: (1) reasons you should be relieved not to have a stupid man dragging you down, and (2) ways you can change your appearance, interests, daily routine, and/or general outlook on life in order to find Mr. Right in 30 days or less. This article falls into the former.

So that brings us to Are you better off single?, which offers "10 fascinating benefits to being unmarried." I'll be the judge.

1. You have a better body. I did have a better body when I was single, and as expected I got all fat and happy when I began seriously dating Husband. While my single self was indeed skinny, I thought I needed to be in order to become un-single. I am getting back into shape again and it's nice that I am doing it for myself this time, not some man I haven't even met yet.
   
2. You are more likely to achieve great things. I think this is crap. I would be in exactly the same place professionally right now with or without Husband. I might be living with my parents, but I would still have done the whole grad school bit. I also don't like the implication that the "lack of familial responsibilities" allows you to "achieve great things." As if being responsible for a family is not great?
3. You do less housework. Also crap. I've never been really into housework and now that I'm married at least I have the option to trade sex for emptying the dishwasher if I am so inclined.
   
4. You can do what you want with your money—including keep it. In general being accountable to someone else financially wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for most people I know. Anyway, Husband and I are pretty much on the same page in this department so this isn't a big deal for us. Also, Husband makes way more money than I ever will so it would be kind of lame for me to bitch about having to make big money decisions together.
   
5. You have better sex. Um, that was not my experience.
   
6. You’re better rested and smarter. I have grown to like sharing a bed and I miss Husband when he is gone. It's just that he does this weird clicking thing with his teeth that wakes me up. And when he rolls over he takes the covers with him. And also he kicks me sometimes. And sometimes throws an elbow in my back. So I guess I will have to agree with this one.
7. You're less depressed. I think this one is more a matter of quality over quantity because being depressed when your single is much more fun than when your married. When I was single and depressed I would go to Target and buy a season of Sex and the City on DVD and a tube of cookie dough and make it a weekend. Now I have to talk about my feelings, blah, blah, blah.
   
8. You have better friendships. I had more friends when I was single, but the strongest friendships have survived. Still, I think this one is probably true.
   
9. Your travel tales are enviable. I'm torn on this one. When I was single I was adventurous but poor. Now we kinda have the means but Husband only wants to go to first world countries where everyone speaks English. So I can see this one being true.
10. You know yourself—and what you want out of a relationship. "You’re a better catch now than you were at 20... you’re more interesting and more self-aware." That sounds like a reason to be glad you're not 20, not a reason to be glad you're single.
    

Date Night: An Interactive Quiz

Husband and I have tried to make date night a weekly ritual in our house lately. It turns out I start to dislike Husband and the general marriage experience when all we do is sit on the sofa ignoring each other. Anyhoo, this week date night included a trip to the gym, dinner at Chipotle, and perusing the shelves of our local B&N. Turns out date night is a little less spectacular when you are trying to be both financially and calorically responsible.

I could ramble on some more about the specifics of date night, but I think it might be more fun to make it into a quiz I like to call "Husband or Wife?: Know Your Anonymous Bloggers." See if you can guess which spouse uttered the following little romance morsels.

1. "We're married now. I've sufficiently lowered my expectations."

2. "Should I read you the chapter entitled 'Guy-Q' or the one called 'Your Man Plan?'" (Bonus: Can you name the author and title of the book?)

3. "No, I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at the Complete Ball Workout. I'm gonna work out my balls."

4. "Can we go? My hands are really cold."

5. "Dr. Laura's first tool for marriage: 'There's no I in team.' Apparently I could have learned a lot about marriage by reading the T-shirt of that guy on the baseball team I sat behind in 11th grade social studies."

6. "Let's go to Barnes and Nibble."

7. "You mean Barnes and Nipple. Ha!"



ANSWERS:

As an aside, I wish Blogger.com would let me type the answers upside down so you people don't cheat. Also it would look more like a real Cosmo quiz.

1. Husband, upon receiving a sloppy kiss from me. Kiss was justifiably sloppy because I lost my balance due to sore ass from above-referenced gym visit.

2. Wife, when offering to entertain Husband with a reading from Dr. Phil's I Will Yell at You so You Can Stop Being Such a Loser and Find the Courage to go to Match.com and Trap a Man Already. Or something along those lines.

3. Husband upon catching a glimpse of a book with directions on using one of those giant balls to work out your abs, and as I was saying something important and meaningful I can't currently recall.

4. Husband. I like to point it out publicly when Husband says things that make him sound like a woman.

5. Wife. Husband and I share a deep and abiding hatred for Dr. Laura. More abiding, perhaps, than our love for each other.

6. Husband.

7. Wife. I did not say such things before meeting Husband. It is all Husband's fault.

You May Have Seen Us on The Onion

We were recently featured in an article on The Onion. We're so proud.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/couple_brought_together_through

In the absence of actual marital discord...

HUSBAND: [gross slurpy chewing noise so loud that it could only be deliberate]
WIFE: I don't understand how you make so much noise when you chew.
HUSBAND: What? I don't do it on purpose. Apples are a squishy fruit.
WIFE: [begins typing blog post]
HUSBAND: Oh come on...
WIFE: What???
HUSBAND: Fine.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Dinner was fun tonight. We decided to make "pita pizzas," which for the uninitiated, is pizza for people trying to lose weight. They are actually surprisingly tasty, but tonight we started dinner with a little bit of a bad taste in our mouths.

As I was in the study doing something studious, I heard Wife scream "get down you naughty girl." If we were at a party, that would have sounded promising. As such, we were at home alone, so she must have been talking to Cat. I then hear Cat hauling ass across our house to the guest bedroom (a.k.a. "kitty jail"), where she was imprisoned for her naughty behavior.

I came out to see what the fuss was all about, and apparently Cat had decided to do a little Gene Kelly in "Singin' in the Rain" impression all over our sauce-covered pitas. We had to start over with new pitas. I was feeling pretty smug about things because I considered this further evidence that Dog was truly the better family pet than Cat, a subject of constant debate between Wife and me.

But wait, the story gets better.

A few minutes after resuming our pita pizza making, I heard a shriek come out of Wife that would curdle milk. I didn't see what the problem was, but Wife was chasing after Dog shouting, "Oh, GROSS!!!! GROSS!!!!" Eventually I put two and two together when I realized the direction Dog from which was running away: Cat's litter box.

Apparently, Dog had decided he was hungry and instead of venturing over to his food bowl, he wanted to grab a mouthful of Cat by-product. Wife couldn't really move, so paralyzed by the grossitude she was. So I went after Dog to try and get the "stuff" out of his mouth before he swallowed it.

It turns out, I was too late. All I saw was a bit of stubble that looked suspiciously like kitty litter on Dog's chin, with what can best be described as a shit-eating grin on his face. I have to agree with Wife on this one. GROSS!

The pita pizzas were delicious by the way.