The Single State Of The Union
Single Women Speak Out on Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

Edited by Diane Mapes, with an essay by Suzanne Schlosberg

• About the anthology • An excerpt from Suzanne's essay • Buy it at Powell's or Amazon

So step aside, Carrie. Move over, Bridget. It's time for the rest of us to be heard.

Are single women happy individualists? Neurotic man-hunters? Crazed cat ladies? Are they confused, or content? Bitter, or better off?

No one seems to know. The popular media gives us shoe-shopaholics, ditzy desperados, wannabe brides forever making cow eyes at The Bachelor. But what do actual single women have to say about their lives? With sass, humor and style, Single State of the Union paints a provocative, playful, and complex portrait of today's single woman, with 37 edgy essays on such topics as sex, celibacy, single motherhood, houses without spouses, faux boyfriends, commitment freak-outs and silly media stereotypes.

In addition to Suzanne, contributors include Margaret Cho, Susan Jane Gilman, Wendy Merrill, Laurie Notaro and Sue Shapiro.

Excerpt From Suzanne's Essay

By Suzanne Schlosberg

True story: In my early thirties, I went 1,358 days without sex. To save you the calculations, that’s three years, eight months and 23 days – longer than the combined length of Jennifer Lopez’s first two marriages PLUS the number of days that Lisa Marie Presley was married to Michael Jackson and Nicholas Cage. It’s 278 days longer than the duration of the Kennedy administration.

Now, don't get the wrong idea: I am not especially virtuous. In my twenties, I’d always been able to nip my dry spells in the bud — a fling with a snuff-dipping sportswriter, a spur-of-the-moment tryst with a coworker in my Honda on company property. When, at age 30, I dumped my commitment-phobic boyfriend, I assumed there’d be plenty more before I found the man of my dreams. While searching for Mr. Right, I figured, why not go for a test drive or two with Mr. Remote Possibility?

But what started out as a normal dry spell somehow evolved into a drought of epic proportions. Eventually, around Day 600, I even gave it a name: the Streak. No, I didn’t keep a daily tally, like Ted Koppel during the Iran Hostage Crisis, but on my birthday and holidays — those benchmarks that remind you that you’re older and still single — I’d instinctively do a recalculation.

For a while, I used The Streak whenever I was in need of a little sympathy from friends, and the strategy worked. The number made an impression on people, eliciting both shock and condolences. But then, as it entered high triple digits, the Streak began to backfire. Sentiment started to shift from "Gee, that’s really awful" to "Gee, Suzanne, what’s your problem?"

It was a fair question. The statistics alone suggested something more was at play than simple misfortune. By this time, I had screened thousands of potential boyfriends on match.com, and of these, I’d corresponded with at least 300. Eliminating men who sent e-mails like "My best friend is my hairless little dog" and "I can spot a Degas at 20 paces — can you?" I had met for coffee with about 40. Yet I’d only made it past a first date once, with an architect who treated his fork and plate as a percussion instrument.

Clearly, something was amiss.