Why I Don't Lie About Being Single

Last week, after an appearance, I found myself asking the question I'm sure women whose jobs entail meeting lots of strangers ask themselves at some point:  should I just wear a fake engagement ring already?  99 percent of the guys who were at the place were nice and fun and etc, but it was a singles mixer so of course it brought out the Predators. The ones who just won't take no. The ones who can't comprehend that a woman who is there working is not there to meet singles. Which would have been the antithesis of my actual function at said mixer, which was to facilitate the hooking-up of other singles. That would have been like a waiter taking a bite of the cheesecake before taking it out to the table (I mean, there was a cover charge. I can't swoop in for free and take all the men.  Plus I ate the free buffet, so I had already stolen enough for one night).



The tricky part is, I have to explain all of that to this guy, who's been in my face for ten minutes telling me I'm the most beautiful woman he's ever seen so WHY won't I go out with him if I'm single he's a NICE GUY he SWEARS, and I have to do it in the absolute nicest way possible.  Because if I give him the sliver of an argument against me, say by telling him politely but directly that, "I've said no to you already and you have to leave now," he might tell the client and my boss that I was a huge bitch to him, and then it doesn't really matter what did or did not get said because Bitch Always Sticks.


Wouldn't it be easier to just wear a fake ring?  Wouldn't it be easier to just lie and say YES when they ask if I have a boyfriend?  Yes, yes.  It would.  But I can't.


I can't speak for anyone else and what they choose to do about things like this, but I really just hate the idea that I have to lie about myself, to conjure an entire other person out of thin air, in order to have a valid reason to say no to attention I don't want. I am a single woman who simultaneously does not want to date you.  Why (why do they always ask why?)? Because I don't. And those two thoughts create absolutely no contradiction in my mind.


Also, I hate the idea that being Single is an illness that needs to be cured.  Because if being single is always the wrong answer and being attached is always the right answer, then why not any man? Why not someone who will stand in my face for ten minutes and swear he's a nice guy while not taking no for an answer, because the only right answer is yes? It gives the Predators a license to feel that they're owed something from me simply by bestowing on me their attention: they're doing me a favor by trying to save me from singleness, and I should be grateful.


And again, it would be so easy to lie.  I know it wouldn't save me from the juiceboxes who see a ring as a dare, but it would cut down on a lot of frustration. But it would make me feel like I was giving currency to the warped idea that being single is something I should be trying to change about myself.  That something about the way I am, now, just as I am, is inherently wrong.


And I shouldn't need a man to protect me, even an imaginary one.





Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net