I’ve never understood God’s logic in deciding to give me a small set of tits and other assorted girl junk. I can’t seem to hang onto a girlfriend for more than a couple of years because I get tired of the banter never developing beyond clothes, boyfriends, or issues with her personal image. Or I get abandoned because she either gets knocked up, engaged, becomes an obsessive homemaker, or indulges in shopping, tanning, hair, and nails (…I’m out of breath…) to gain a man in order to gain the kid, ring, and home to obsess over. Follow me? I am seriously annoyed by my own kind. I’ve been “over it” since I grew out of playing house and miming wedding ceremonies with my sisters and have more than a few bones to pick with my fellow uterus-owners.

I don’t want to get my nails done. The one time I did, after being exposed to the chemicals for over an hour, I came out of the salon and threw up on the sidewalk. It wasn’t meant to be. I don’t know why women get their nails done. Everyone says they do it for themselves. To make themselves feel better. About what? It’s cosmetic. It’s nothing more than a ritual. And it’s expensive. I feel I’ve accomplished nothing, and loathe the idea of having to do something differently or not at all so I don’t mess up my nails. 

I hate the idea of having to change my wardrobe every year. I don’t want to become a slave to anything. When I do shop, I spend one long day every six months, buy what I need, and come home and throw out old crap so my closet and drawers don’t become overcrowded. I buy things that won’t go out of style in three years. It saves money and agony. I’ve read that we buy things based on how we think they’ll make us feel. Yet a new pair of shoes has never made me feel like a better person. It’s still just me in the mirror.

And then there’s the hype surrounding getting engaged.  Recently, a former girlfriend of mine posted on facebook a copious amount of pictures of her engagement night: she and her fiancée in front of the restaurant, then at the table, and then on a dock. And then the collection of photos went from overrated to just bizarre: we see a picture of the menu from dinner that night. Then we see an album of just the ring. Not her wearing the ring, but the ring itself–the object she’d apparently waited for her whole life, because fuck the actual relationship or direction you’re taking together in life. It’s about getting a ring. Pictures in “The Ring” album include the ring on the kitchen floor and on her lap. And then the ring takes a ride on a branch. And then a fern. And then a piano keyboard. Because really, it’s a still life object instead of a tiny detail in the fabric of her entire life.

Also. Fuck weddings. I’ve been to some really sweet ones, but so many women miss the forest for the trees and turn into detail-obsessed bitches. I wish I could make them step back and see what the process makes them become. I want nothing of it. And I don’t want to hear them talk about it.

I am happy with my friendships and yet I don’t have a single girlfriend. I didn’t purposefully count women out. I just don’t click with most of them. I have no need for ritual or playing house. I don’t want to talk about fluff. And by fluff, I mean superficial bullshit. I like substance. I like to talk about what one is reading, or writing, or making. I like to explore. To network. To ask questions. To listen and learn and try new things. And to relax with someone without needing to fill the air with words.

I cannot grasp why friendships with other women are filled with gender-specific activity or why they never seem to develop beyond that. It gets old. Lately it seems like only men are good company and that only the men are real. I’m not interested in being a real woman. I’m already there, with tiny, nippled flesh lumps on my chest. I just want to be a genuine person and enjoy what I enjoy with whoever will share it with me. I thank God for golf, cigars, boats, good meals, catching creatures from the creek, and uncensored conversation. Lately it’s been with men that I’ve had meaningful, platonic fun instead of silly rituals during which I endure two hours of empty conversation and then following two hours re-capping it all. God help me, because apparently I should have been born with a dick.