Single File by Susan Deitz

DEAR SUSAN: Here are my answers to your questions for the never-married (and just single?):

Questions: Have you remained single because you believe it's easier to develop your individuality outside of marriage? Do you think it's possible to grow as much within a married relationship?

Answers: Easier? No, it's perhaps even more difficult, especially if one has no living family or children. But I am a woman, and for women it may be easier. Growth occurs wherever sunshine and oxygen are. It happens anyway, anywhere in life, as inevitable as mortality. What is significantly different is that single life is a life led, forged and created by the single person. This yields a feeling of fulfillment, amazement, contentment, self-reliance and confidence. This is me, solo, and this is what I have brought to my life by working in concert with nature and with God.

We come in alone, and we go out alone. In between, we create, and I choose to do all of it with as much skill, love and grace as possible. — Inge Y., Long Island, N.Y.

DEAR INGE: You made a great case for singleness, but you didn't answer the questions. Do you think it's possible to develop your individuality as quickly and as deeply in a married relationship as you can when single? I guess what I'm hinting at is — gasp — it might just be possible that all (OK, most) of us need single spaces in, say, our 20s to explore these people we are becoming and make the most of it. It's not that we stop growing when we couple, not at all. It's just that becoming half of a dyad brings with it distractions and responsibilities. (No doubt about it, with partnership also come great benefits, emotional and otherwise. But for the moment, let's concentrate exclusively on self-development.) We need space, as you say, Inge, and air to breathe freely. Some of that needs to be restricted when we partner. Not a bad thing, but not a good thing for full development of self.

So let's move back to space, i.e., the period between marriages, the period between moving out of the parental home and moving into a married role. Let's face it; the 20-somethings are creating a new sort of space age by insisting on later marriage. And the 40-somethings aren't in any hurry to marry again after having their children and ending early marriages! As for the 60-somethings, well, they're living solo and apparently loving it. My take on this new space age? It's not an anti-marriage campaign so much as it is a quiet, insistent rebellion against the stifling effects a wrongheaded marriage can have on the individuals involved.

DEAR READERS: I promised you the second part of the letter from "Single by Choice," a reader who tunes in to this column from time to time with provocative thoughts that are always worth newsprint. In my response to him, I asked for the reasons for the great divide between men and women. In no particular order, here they are:

The notions that "I don't need a man," all men are dogs, all men are sexual harassers and all men are oppressors; any number of court rulings on child support/alimony designed to stick it to the male; the large number of Google hits and blogs devoted to misandry (sometimes badly disguised as "satire"); the notion that every guy is a "player" out just for sex; equating nice and decent with "boring"; some women's having been badly burned in prior relationships and blaming it on all men; the struggle for equality's having mutated into an all-too-fashionable hatred of men, regardless of the fact that men today had nothing to do with past oppressions; and the classic anthem "men just don't get it."

Susan, this is a pretty good (but by no means exhaustive) laundry list of why relations between the sexes have sunk to an all-time low and why a great many guys have run screaming from the dating farce. As I've said a zillion times before, any time a man speaks out against male-bashing, he's automatically written off as a bitter, cynical, controlling madman. Against that backdrop, how is it possible to even think about a friend/dating/marital relationship when most women are openly hostile to men?

At this stage of the game, I think the wounds cut too deep to ever heal. I just can't believe that men and women are helpmeets to each other anymore. Again, if the female half of the human race really and truly believes that men are usually worthless — inept at best and horrible at worst — reconciliation just isn't going to happen. This is what I've seen over the past 25 years — and what persuaded me to throw in the sponge a long, long time ago. Sorry, I just don't believe. — Single by CHOICE, New York City

DEAR SINGLE BY CHOICE: One good laundry list deserves another. So I'm willing (and eager) to devote an equal amount of newsprint to — you guessed it — REASONS WOMEN ARE ANGRY/HOSTILE TOWARD MEN.

Yes, I'm giving up equal space to the counterpunch. The purpose? Reconciliation. It's not out of the question, and it's definitely not too late. Send me your lists by e-mail, twix, tweeter or good old-fashioned snail mail. Write to me in care of this newspaper or in care of creators.com. No names necessary, just honest and open venting. This is a major problem that needs to be fixed. Fast.

Write to Susan Deitz in care of this newspaper. She will answer all letters that come with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Or you may e-mail her at info@creators.com.

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