So I’m sick. I’ve got the flu or the worst cold of my life, and I’m a sloppy mess of snot, jammies, and tissue. It couldn’t be worse timing, as I’ve got 10 – 20 hours of contract work to complete before Monday, and I’ll be traveling all day Sunday (during the Super Bowl) to Manchester, New Hampshire. I’m sure some of the guys that took offense to this post find my current state of being poetic justice.

There’s something inexplicable about the weakened immune system that simultaneously weakens my strong independent woman persona. Every time I get really sick, I find myself fighting against the emotional wreck buried inside me. Ex-boyfriends magically become saints who I never should have discarded, new prospects offer the hope of a relationship, and the sight of me in the mirror makes me question my beauty and my success (or lack their of) in life.

You girls remember the episode of Sex and the City where Big has heart surgery and Carrie takes care of him? Big, the biggest of detached and unemotional male pigs, was rethinking everything in his life including the nature of his relationship with Carrie. He goes to sleep a changed man, ready to commit, but he wakes up feeling better and it’s like those thoughts were never real. Samantha suffered the same malady, but quickly rediscovered her sexual diva when the sickness faded away.

All this nonsense is the product of inactivity. I hate being inactive. The cliché “the mind is a terrible thing to waste” should read “the mind is a dangerous thing to leave unchecked.” The problem with being out of regular commission is that your life as you know it stops. Meetings, email, dates, and drinks are replaced with sweaty naps, pounding headaches, and extreme body temperature fluctuations. The inactivity settles in and individuals not in a relationship find themselves painfully laboring to make a cup of tea. A sick single gal is nothing more than a germ infested pool of hormones and loneliness.

I know what I’ll be doing tonight, this fine Friday night that would normally lead to some form of debauchery and the promise of a goodnight kiss; I’ll be making another cup of tea and forgetting why it is I love to be single.

Browse Timeline

• « First Dates Are Like Interviews
• » Let’s Talk About Numbers