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What Not to Say If You’re Single

I sat at the foot of the bed with crossed arms and my mind made up while I ugly-cried: “I will never meet another guy who likes me.” I was 20 and mildly dramatic and my path — one I briefly walked with a blue-eyed, black-haired bass player — had been pulled out from under me.

By text message.

On New Year’s Day.

Single, and I didn’t want to be. Perpetually, too — I was certain. My sole shot at someday becoming a spouse had expired because a boy who smelled like smoke and wore eye liner said so. I grieved, which is natural and good. But then I threw a pity party.

The same pity party I threw when I had never dated before and worried I never would, which I also throw when I am periodically tired of how single I am, again. At the foot of the bed, I told stories to myself about my relationship status. The stories I told were a lot of things (sad, frustrating, neverending). But the stories I told weren’t true. Continue reading “What Not to Say If You’re Single”

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Virtue is good, but…

St. Thomas calls the cardinal sin sloth “a sadness arising from the fact that the good is difficult.” Sloth paradoxically affirms a person’s belief that a choice is good simultaneously as it underlies his or her resistance to making the choice.

It’s “chastity is good, but…”

“Prudence is good, but…”

It’s believing in the existence of the merit of a choice, but not making it because making it would require you to transcend an urge, for instance, or to defeat a fear. Continue reading “Virtue is good, but…”

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An Excerpt From Chapter 5 of ‘Chastity Is For Lovers’

[callout]This post is an excerpt from chapter 5 — “Love: The Hardest Thing You’ll Ever Have to Do” — of my forthcoming book, Chastity Is For Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, (Ave Maria Press, 2014).[/callout]

Chastity_is_for_Lovers_3DIn the dark on the seventh deck of a Miami-bound cruise ship, I curled into a comfy chair to the left of the stage in the Latin club.

A Dominican quartet played live music. I sat alone, up late for the last night of my trip.

I tipped back my glass of ice water to take a swig, and the giant white napkin I at first didn’t know was stuck to the glass’s bottom shone like a beacon in the night.

Smooth.

I laughed at myself when I noticed the napkin, tore it off the tumbler’s sweaty bottom, and made another, more startling discovery: the Dominican quartet’s drummer probably saw it happen. He had a smile on his face, at least, and a güiro in his hand, while he watched me from behind his drum kit. I smiled back and nodded to the beat of the merengue he played.

While we held eye contact, my heart stopped before it pumped faster, and I blushed and got butterflies. For no sensible reason, I wanted to meet him. I had to meet him. I also had to get some sleep, in order to be ready to debark at the port at 7:00 a.m. Continue reading “An Excerpt From Chapter 5 of ‘Chastity Is For Lovers’”

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PRIESTS ARE COOL! | Fr. Victor Amorose edition.

[callout]This post is part of a monthly series called PRIESTS & NUNS ARE COOL! in which I interview a priest or a nun about his or her vocation — and about how adults who haven’t discerned a vocation yet can discover their own. This edition features Fr. Victor, a parochial vicar at Nativity Catholic Church in Brandon, Fla.[/callout]

It’s worth noting that the first time I met Fr. Victor IRL was while we crossed paths at a Christian music fest at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. I said hi as he passed by, but I didn’t discover until later that he — who I saw not far from Space Mountain — is totally a priest I follow on Twitter!

Fr. Victor — who enjoys playing guitar, bass, piano and a bunch of other random stringed instruments and listening to music, watching movies, playing video games, and anything and everything related to baseball (especially the Tampa Bay Rays) — is gracious to discuss his vocation for this series, and to tell us how an adult who doesn’t know his or hers yet might discover it: Continue reading “PRIESTS ARE COOL! | Fr. Victor Amorose edition.”

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An Excerpt From Chapter 3 of ‘Chastity Is For Lovers’

[callout]This post is an excerpt from chapter 3 — “Providence: A Reason For Reckless Abandon” — of my forthcoming book, Chastity Is For Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, (Ave Maria Press, 2014).[/callout]

Chastity_is_for_Lovers_3DI am single, and I am happy, but I am not always happy to be single. It isn’t fun to feel like a third wheel, or a fifth wheel.

There are no warm and fuzzy feelings in discovering, while walking and talking with a friend and her boyfriend, that I am talking to myself because they stopped ten feet back to hug.

. . . Being single is especially difficult during holiday seasons, or at theme parks, where—nearly without fail—I am sandwiched between couples in lines for rides, uncomfortably privy for upwards of forty-five minutes to all the ways they can publicly display their affection. What they are is a reminder of what I’m not: taken.

But I have had to learn to snap out of self-pity when it hits, because feeling sorry for yourself when you’re unhappy doesn’t make you happy. Changing your perspective does. When we feel unhappy, is it because we’re single or is it because of what we say to ourselves about being single?

“Nobody wants to be with me.”

“I’m clearly not attractive.”

“I’m going to be alone forever.”

First, prove it. And second, when you can’t prove it (and I promise you can’t), consider, is it possible to feel happy while thinking thoughts like that? Continue reading “An Excerpt From Chapter 3 of ‘Chastity Is For Lovers’”