I know many single, middle-aged women, and I don't know any who are that way by choice. I also know plenty of women with a partner who's less than satisfactory, but they stay there because the alternative is being alone. I chose being alone rather than stay in a bad marriage. The single men I've dated since have had significant issues; lack of employment, debt, substance abuse and, yes, fear of commitment so huge that the behavior was beyond description. The single women I know are healthy, working, home-owners, very together. Doesn't anyone else see a disparity here?

I, for one, have been in relationships and not. Even though I feel pressure to be looking for the next relationship, I have to say my history has shown that I'm happier alone.

is to remember that "alone" and "lonely" are not synonyms. "Alone" may or may not be your choice, "lonely" is a matter of choice and you can chose to add appropriate activities to your life -- or to be lonely and whine about it.

Deborah, in her late 50s, has never married, but "she has been in a monogamous coupled relationship with Jim for more than 10 years." Angie "has been in a relationship for twenty years with a married man." Dorothy was married at 22 for five years and again at 35, for 10. During the 13 years since her second divorce, "she had averaged about one affair a year."

In other words, one has a man who makes no committment, one is dating another woman's husband, and one can only mange short-term serial relationships. Is this the kind of behavior we want to exhort? Lacking committment, respect, or loyalty?

You know what this leads to? The rise of the Conservative Christian movement. Just the same way marrying gays illegaly in San Fran got Bush elected.

* Note: Such anectodal popular works are worthless from a scientific standpoint. In California we could find two dozen movie stars cohabitating with cheetas and extrapolate a new national movement from it. Salon ought to have higher standards to backup its femi-nazi agenda.

I suppose there's something to be said for transforming the dreary and tragic into an uplifting narrative about progress. On that count you've got to admire Trimberger for her single-minded, so to speak, resourcefulness.

What's absent from this particular progress-narrative, however, is the blood and guts of day-to-day human life as most of us know it.

(Was anyone else spooked by how pleased Trimberger seemed to announce that in the absence of regular sexual contact we might lose sexual desire?)

People fall in love. People desire each other. People have "unrealistic" hopes. People pair-up with "inappropriate" partners. This is all part of being human. And it's why, by and large, we have things like opera, poetry, and literature.

The world Trimberger conjures is chilly and antiseptic. You can't imagine it as a place that would admit rock 'n' roll, or, much less, the blues.

I am so delighted to read about a book finally addressing

the reality of women's lives today. As a therapist and a

woman, it is so disheartening to constantly hear women

bemoan and society demean the status of single women.

Women waste so much of their time feeling inadequate and

socially inferior because they have not redeemed themselves

through the blessing of a man's proposal. And because of

the change in women's economic status, because of their

increased independence, they are no longer forced to marry

simply to survive. But the ideology that buttressed that

constriction of women's lives still lives on; there remains

a potent stigma against women remaining single. Moreover,

most women's ideals of who they are supposed to

marry are patently unrealistic. They look for some

idealized form of a man, someone larger than life to

transform them as if marrying an ordinary man will consign

them to further ridicule, if not pity. Back when women's

lives were thoroughly controlled by men, when women were

cloistered, dependent, uneducated, it didn't take much for

a man to be impressive. His superior level of freedom and

power alone gave him an aura of glamour. Now, as women

gain more freedom and power, men are revealed as no less

and no more than human. The only way for a man to maintain

his mystique is to remain aloof and rejecting. And so

many women fall for that, clinging to the unavailable, non-

committal man as if there's something special about him,

and, in their terror of "settling”, dismiss any man that

actually can engage them in a loving, reciprocal

relationship. This phenomena is not only about sexism and

changing sex roles. It's also about our culture

of narcissism. So many women want Daddy's, they don't

want husbands. They want someone to magically grant them

self esteem, free them from financial and other adult

responsibilities, and fill all of their emotional needs.

So I am delighted to hear of a book that finally admits

that the emperor has no clothes. When more than half of

all American women are single, being single is no longer

a failure, it is in fact the norm. If women (and men)

want to find a partner, if they want sex, if they want

love and intimacy in their life, they're going to have to

accept the reality of modern life and make their choices

accordingly.

This article (and the book it's written about, presumably) amount to nothing more than cheerleading intended to make women feel better about the fact that they haven't found partners yet, by putting forward the premise that they want to be alone. I'm here to speak the shameful truth that not all of us are happy to be alone.

I'm saying this irrespective of the fact that there are some women who sit at home watching dating shows on TV, or are pressured by family to hurry up and get married, and that most of us are bombarded 24/7 by images of happy couples walking on the beach or curling up on couches or snuggling infants. I'm speaking from the personal, sociological, psychological perspective of a woman who has been without a partner (I don't use the word "soulmate", either) for much of her adult life.

Let's be realistic for once and forget the political ramifications of speaking about single women in their 30s: humans are social animals, and it doesn't befit (most of) us to spend our lives alone and without companionship, emotional support, a shared vision for the future, someone who will ask us how our day was, etc. Of course you can get many of these things from trusted friends and close family members, but you'd be lying if you said it wasn't qualitatively deeper and infinitely sweeter, coming from someone with whom you shared a private, romantic love.

I understand that relationships are hard work, and that some people do prefer to be alone, but I am tired of being made to feel ashamed of the very natural emotion of loneliness. I don't need to be told not to feel this way, that someday I'll find someone. I no longer believe I will, and now I'm reconciling myself to that. If you scratch the surface of this article, it appears that many of the research subjects are struggling with the same conclusion. It's not triumphant - it's tragic.

Yes, I do have friends and a support network and have done meaningful things with my life, and pursue passions that keep my mind off my perpetual singlehood, and I'm a reasonably fun/intelligent/attractive person, but regardless of whatever circumstances have led up to me being here (past hurts, bad timing, personal faults), I remain pessimistic.