Single File: Embrace your single core

DEAR SUSAN: You were one of the very first people to respect singles as responsible and trustworthy members of society. Now that they have achieved majority status in this country, has your devotion to us changed in any way?

From the "Single File" blog

DEAR BLOGGER: If there's been any change in my devotion to the unmarried, it's been a deeper tilt toward the universality of the single core.

More and more couples -- many of them married -- are convinced that melting personhood into their romantic relationship is a sure way to lose the spark that first drew them together. So they are making a conscious effort to bring their individuality with them into wedded bliss.

Temporary separation, once the sign of marital distress, is now being recognized as signaling mutually agreed "single spaces" within even the most compatible twosome.

Lovers are embracing the wisdom of spaced relationship, coming around to believe that the partners in even the closest relationships need occasional timeouts. (In fact, they may need them more than others.)

In yet another experiment by the unmarried, the success of retaining one's individuality while in a coupled situation may turn out to be a hugely compelling factor in longtime marriages built on mutual love but in need of the spark of separation. (Hint: My exercises in singleness are designed to do just that.) So yes, my devotion to the single world is even deeper -- and more inclusive.

DEAR SUSAN: "The next time you go for a walk (alone), deliberately go by a playground and observe the children at play." That's your advice, but it's probably not very good. Kind of creepy.

From the "Single File" blog

DEAR BLOGGER: How about quoting the rest of my advice? "They are a perfect example of true single fulfillment because they live in the present moment only and are totally absorbed in their playing."

The Deitz advice you quoted is pointedly asking single people not to see themselves as first and foremost single but to make their single status incidental when considering the bigger picture of themselves. Any creepiness is personal, wholly read into my words by a creepy reader. (Ahem.)