A few days ago, I was sitting at a table in Strong Hall trying to mind my own business. I couldn’t help myself and decided to listen in on someone’s conversation. This girl was complaining that she’s been single for a really long time. She “felt so alone.” I thought I’m single, and I’m not alone.

My friend, Micah, once said something along the lines of “being single doesn’t make you fucking lonely.” She’s right. We are never completely alone when single. It’s nearly impossible for us to be singular in a state of singleness. We still go to work, pass people on the sidewalk, bump into strangers’ grocery carts, and live life with a community of people. Ian has a philosophy about community that accompanies this particular philosophy of Micah’s. Ian’s philosophy needs to be pounded into some heads. We go our whole lives ignoring passersby,  passing up the chance to invest more in our neighbors’, and forgetting people who we consider more than an acquaintance. It’s our fault people are so lonely. It has nothing to do with their exclusive relationship status.We, whether or not we’re single, have plenty of people in our lives to extinguish loneliness. We just have to get off of our asses and quit complaining that we feel alone.

Stop hugging trees for once and hug your friends.

36 days into this journey and things finally start to get juicy.

“Captain Crunch” has his way of swindling girls into a state of intoxicating infatuation. Nobody would expect someone like sugary sweet Captain Crunch to do such a thing. He’s too reserved, stuck in his cardboard box. Once little pieces of him come out of the box and pour into a bowl of life, all hell breaks loose. I’ll admit it. I’m addicted to Captain Crunch. I want the whole bowl.

That was one……goofy….metaphor.

It’ll be interesting to see how this turns out.

I can’t give in. I can’t give in. I can’t give in.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

“But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” Elizabeth Gilbert

Let’s be honest, kids. The skin I’ve been hiding in is shedding. It’s time to stop hiding what’s really on my heart. Part of the reason I’m fasting this year is so I will be celibate. I can name a few people who have been my own scratching post. I didn’t love those men. Hell, I didn’t even like half of them. But I used them. I straight up took what they had so I could fill a void. What a bitch. For my most recent case, I’m sorry that you were just a cat-toy for me to play with for a while. I’m sorry that I had a closet full of friends that begged me to invite you to the party. Those friends, mainly Loneliness and Desperation, have all gone home.

I’m not telling you these things to gain pity. I’m saying this because I’m not that woman anymore. My heart is vulnerable to tell the truth and this journey is doing wonders for me. I wish I could say that in the most humble way ever, but I can’t. Maybe “there’s no room for love in a prideful heart,” but there’s joy in this heart of mine. And I’m more than grateful for the fact that I don’t need a man to fulfill a duty that I thought nothing else could. All I ask of you is to trust what I’ve said.

Here’s a pretty picture that punched me in the face today.

Forgive me for whining, complaining, and hating in previous posts.

I was going to make this about our post-marriage culture, but Christians have struck again! Christians 117. Beth 0. I’m playing this game with Christians. They get a point for every time they anger me. (THEY!…..God, I’m at the point where I’m excluding myself from them.) I get a point when I’m able to confront and handle my emotional conflicts. I’m not doing so well.

Here’s the story.

I’m at Icthus. Surprise. This married couple talked about relationships and marriage. BIG STINKIN’ SIGN FROM GOD, RIGHT? There couldn’t have been a more convenient time to talk about it. I’m thinking, “Man, this goes great with what I’ve been blogging/researching about.” They had some good points. She quoted Kierkegaard, although she mispronounced his name, I’ll give her credit. I sat there with Tyler, cracking jokes about their message the whole time, even though some of it did apply to me.

After the couple’s message, I went up to them to recommend, you guessed it, Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. I explained Elizabeth’s story, my story, and how I was thankful for their purpose of the message. Little Mrs. Married stopped me dead in my tracks to say, “BUT Elizabeth isn’t a Believer.” (Don’t even get me started on the term “Believer”) A believer in what? Hypocrisy? Judgment? Sweeping your filthy sins under the carpet?

Elizabeth is a believer. She believes in love. She believes in spreading that love. She believes in learning about love. So what if Elizabeth Gilbert hasn’t accepted Jesus Christ as her Savior. If it were up to me, Liz would go to Heaven. Heck, she can have my salvation. These days, my reserved seat in Hell is probably getting warmer and warmer. My point is, Liz is more of a “Christian” than most Christians I know. She’s a hell of a lot more creditable to be my mentor for marriage than the popular statistic of divorced Christians.

Well. After that rant, I’m going to hear “Isn’t the Bible supposed to be your guide for marriage?” lsajfewlrndfaljfew…disgruntled growls. Yes, it is. I just let a lot of things be my guide. You have a pastor that cheats on his wife, and you still look to him for guidance. AH-HA! My post-modern and liberal viewpoints are the bricks that make up this wall between myself and the modern church. I think?

I should stop. I’m getting really worked up.

I’m not mad at this lady. I’m mad at Christians who have hurt me in the past, and taking it out on other Christians. It took a lot to admit that. All this rage and anger against Christians is due to a few Southern Baptist Odessans. It’s more  my fault for saying “shit” in their precious church and leaving on bad terms because they think I’m going to have an affair with the married man I live with.

I want to scream.

Clementia, please forgive me.

Now that I’m “unattainable,” I feel as if my body is sending off a signal to men saying “I dare you to try to make me fall in love with you.” There’s this guy, Cameron, who I met the first week of classes. He came up to me this morning and said “Hello, Beautiful.” He’s blind. How in the hell can this guy call me beautiful when he can’t even see me? My automatic assumption was that he wanted in my pants or somewhere near there. Because that’s every single man’s objective. (I am being mildly sarcastic here, folks.)

Here I am, during a man-fast…, slowly formulating this hypothesis that if a man even speaks to me, he is scum. (This hypothesis, of course, excludes male family members and close friends. I.E. The 4 men who have read my blog. Love you guys. End spiel.) I would like to hope that most men are not scum. I believe that a part of me is trying to convince the other part that men are scum so that I am not susceptible to fall in love this year.

Have you ever fasted from chocolate, fast food, etc? When you do so, you seem to crave those things more than you normally would, right? That’s how most people think my dating fast is/will be. They also tell me that this is when “the one” will knock on my front door. On the contrary, it’s 28 days into the year, and I’m going strong.

Aside from occasionally making myself think that men are scum, there are a few things that suppress the desire to date:

1. Eating LOTS of sweets. (As if I don’t do that anyway) My mother makes this delicious “Better Than Sex” cake. I shall eat a slice of it every single day.

2. Hanging out at Martha’s Vineyard. (It’s a bonus that I’m confident it’s nothing more than a compliment when the guys tell me I’m pretty and have cute shoes.)

3. The prerogative and opportunity to do stuff. It’d be a lot harder to spend the summer abroad, go out with friends, or even maintain my eating, sleeping and TV watching schedule with another person in the picture.

4. Call it selfish, but I’m going to take advantage of this time of being worry-free about not shaving my legs.

Maybe those things have a slight fictional twist to them, but it boils down to liberty. I am free to do whatever I want. I will be a kid for the next year and not regret a thing.

On a more serious note, my spiritual side definitely helps rid me of my desires to date. That’s the biggest suppressor. I won’t go into any further detail with that right now.

I’m exhausted.

P.S. I feel like I could be the butt of a really awful bet. “Fifty bucks says she’ll fall for you.”