out in my headstraights by appointment only

We need to talk.

I joined LinkedIn years ago, in the hopes that mingling with the high profile names of the corporate world would land me a job at my then dream destination – Microsoft.

It did not.

But I continued to stay on LinkedIn, ‘connecting’ with colleagues and other people in my industry, all the while trying my hardest to obtain the elusive “100% complete” profile badge.

However as of late, I’ve noticed that LinkedIn has become a complete joke. Or at least I’m ‘networked’ with people who think that LinkedIn = Facebook.

It is not.

I’ve come across the below posts a bit frequently on my LinkedIn, and every time I see them I cringe a little bit. I also them promptly delete that person from my network.

So I decided to respond to these kind of posts in the only way I know how – through gifs.

A table for just one sir? No one else is coming?

I’ve had to endure this line every so often when I arrive at a restaurant and have to be seated. On one hand, it’s almost always easy to seat a table for one – there’s bound to be a single seat tucked away, near the bar or even towards the back, where the bustle of the kitchen warps any sense of actually enjoying your meal. But on the other hand it gets irritating when you have to stare back at the maître d’ who’s looking at you with raised eyebrows as if a second person is going to materialize out of thin air.

For most of my adult life, I’ve been single. I’ve done the long distance relationship thing, I’ve had great relationships with people who’ve suddenly decided their true calling is halfway around the world, and I’ve had a few psycho cases along the way. But for most part, I’ve been rocking the singles boat. At parties, weddings, events, clubs – I’m usually descended upon like some kind of rare specimen, to be poked and prodded to no end. You’re still single? Oh you’ll meet someone great, don’t worry! The dialogue is always the same from my friends but it’s rarely convincing. But the funny thing about being single is that eventually, you just embrace it. And that’s when you truly start to enjoy your life.

Of course there’s always Grindr for those looking for a gentleman’s company, but you pretty much know what kind of company you’re going to get from there. I love it when I see guys who’ve written that they’re on there for ‘networking’. What the heck kind of networking can you do with a headless torso and a picture of your family jewels?

I have a fair amount of friends who start to get all mopey in the run up to Valentine’s Day. Something about it just turns them into bickering, bitter human beings, and to be honest it can be quite toxic. For these people, Valentine’s Day is a not-so-subtle reminder that they don’t have a ‘significant other’ in their lives, and for some reason this scares the living daylights out of them. For a long time, I was one of these people, always worrying about when I would meet this other person who would give me a reason for living, and who I could share every special moment with. Truth be told, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Speak to any couple in private and they’ll confess that they often envy their single friends. Why? Because as single people, we write our own rules. We go where we want, when we want, and we go with whoever we want. There’s no obsessively texting someone that we’re going to be home late, or spending twenty minutes deciding which movie to go for or which place to order dinner from.

I choose to celebrate being single, and of course it’s taken me a while to get there. Sure, I could be a complete nutcase and join the various ‘Anti-Valentine’ brigades that seem to be popping up everywhere, or burn all memories of my exes in some kind of ritualistic dance, but neither of these are going to end well. Valentine’s Day is just like any other day for me – I see couples and people in relationships on any other day, so there’s nothing different this time around (except that flowers go up in price by 135%).

If you’re single on Valentine’s Day, don’t make a big deal about it. Life is meant for living, and right now sitting around worrying about when and where you’re going to meet a partner isn’t helping anyone, least of all you. Go out and enjoy your single life while it lasts – meet up with your other single friends and treat yourself to a night on the town, or just do things that make you feel good. In fact, why wait for just one particular day to treat yourself? Do it any day of the year, any time you feel like you just need to unwind, or blow off some steam, or just to remind yourself that there are greater things in life you should be worrying about than heart-shaped candy and roses.

So yes, I’ll take a table for one – just me and my fabulous self.

You just fucking don’t.

Despite what your friends may say, despite how awesome the venue sounds, despite your brain telling you “You’ve earned this night out”, don’t do it.

Clubbing in your 20s is different. When you hit 21 you can finally saunter into a club without having to bribe the bouncer or sneak in with your older friends. At 21, you’re officially a member of the night crowd, and your nights blur together as you become intoxicated with the clubbing scene. You have no problem leaving the house at 11pm and coming back at 8am before downing a latte and getting on with your day.

But when you hit your 30s, things are very, very different. Going to a club no longer becomes a fun night out with your friends, but is instead an absolutely exhausting exercise. Before you even get started with anything, you need to figure out what to wear. Fashion has taken a convoluted turn in past years, where suspenders, bowties, drainpipe pants and rib-crushing vests have become the norm (I will confess that I own at least two of these wardrobe staples). A club’s “smart casual” dress code could mean anything from figure-hugging denim paired with a wild-print polo to flat-front chinos held up by red suspenders.

Finally when you reach the club and get in, the first question you ask yourself is why the hell everything is so fucking LOUD. Seriously, you don’t recall the music being so loud that you can feel the fluid in your inner ear starting to vibrate. You try to mouth your drink order to the bartender (who is now referred to a ‘mixologist’), but this goes mostly ignored since the chick with boobs pushed up to her face has just flagged him down for another round of shots that looks like small servings of mouthwash.

Apart from the insanely loud music, you become aware of how everyone in the club is impeccably dressed and presented, and how you can feel at least seven pairs of eyes judging you already. If they’re not judging you for your outfit, they’re judging you for your age. I’m sure there are plenty of people in their 30s who can rock the clubbing scene, but let me tell you something honey, it’s not going to last very long. Going to a club in your 30s means that you enter into some kind of timewarp where your watch may say it’s 10pm, but your body thinks its 2am and is already entering shutdown mode. You try to dance a bit to stay awake, but your so-called dance moves are dwarfed by the slender guys writhing around on the dancefloor as if they’re possessed. This, apparently, is what’s called dancing. Eventually the noise and crowd begins to overwhelm your brain, and you wish you were at home catching re-runs of Games of Thrones interspersed with The Mindy Project. But you fight the urge to crawl under a table and curl into a ball, and try to stick it out for another twenty minutes, flashing a smile to your friends so they know your consciousness isn’t slipping away. The worst part is when you actually recognize a dance tune, it’s being played because the DJ considers it ‘retro’ when you could have sworn it was something that you heard on the charts only yesterday.

Or in 1998.

Dear Sis,

At this very moment I’m sitting in church, surrounded by strangers. Your husband kindly arranged for an anniversary service for you, because let’s face it, the man will do pretty much what he wants to. I’m sitting here listening to the priest talk about how death is never the end, how there’s a hopeful and wonderful Kingdom in the afterlife. Your family is sitting in the first row, while we’re sitting a few pews behind. I know mum and dad would rather not be here. They’d rather not have to go through people walking up and trying to tell them how life gets better as you go on. They’d rather just say a quiet prayer for you at your grave and call it a day. But instead we all showed up here, we all stopped what we were doing to attend this service in your name.

Because that’s what families do.

When you passed away I wondered when the moment would come that I would break down and cry. I thought it would be when mum first called me that night. I thought it would be when I went into your room to say my goodbyes. I thought it would be when I saw you being lowered into the ground. But the tears never came and I felt an immense guilt over that. You were supposed to cry, to mourn, to be inconsolable, to show the world how much you were hurting. But in silence I mourned your loss and we comforted each other through something none of us really knew how to cope with.

Because that’s what families do.

For so many, many years after you got married, we paid the price for your decisions. We couldn’t understand how or why you would use each and every one of us to finally get what you wanted. Your wedding day was the first time after years that I had seen you again, and there were so many things I wanted to say but couldn’t find the right words to describe. We sat at your wedding reception with people coming up to congratulate us, not knowing how much it broke us to be there. But through it all, we smiled and posed for photos, and accepted everyone’s well wishes.

Because that’s what families do.

Years later you would bear a daughter, and we put aside our differences to welcome a new soul into the world. Mum and dad never forgot or forgave you for what you did, but for the sake of their only grandchild at the time they were able to look past everything, even if it was briefly. I never did like kids to begin with, but in time I learned to have a little bit of fun with your daughter, and she enjoyed seeing us. You were then blessed with a son, and it was only in his second year that you came to me and said to keep my distance from your children. I never quite understood why at the time, but as weeks and months rolled by and I saw less and less of your kids, I knew that you were serious. Of course we would all come to visit as a family every so often, and everything seemed so simple and perfect for a few precious moments. But you would rarely bring the children over to our house, keeping them in the living room if I was home at the time. There are parts of me that still don’t quite understand why you wanted to distance your kids from me, but I silently accepted your decision and let you have your way.

Because that’s what families do.

It’s now been ten months since I’ve spoken to or even heard from your kids. As they sit a few rows in front of us, none of us really know what’s going on with them or if they need anything. Mum and dad are still so hurt and angry that they can’t even talk about you without starting to cry or choke up. Their anger is unrelentless and I do not know what I can do to help them. I fear that they will always have this hatred and anger deep inside them, bottled down within them until they can no longer hold it inside. And while at times I do miss your kids and wonder how they are, I cannot spend my life trying to tiptoe through the landmine that is our family. I cannot and will not subject myself to that all over again, because frankly if I’ve learned anything from all this, it’s that life is too short to go around pleasing everyone all the time. You were a champion of trying to please people, always being front and center as this shimmering beacon of the community. You loved everyone so much, yet you would tell our mother that one day one of her sons would confess something that would break her heart. I’ve always loved you sis, even through everything that you put our family through for so many years. There are so many people who know you, but there are so few people who know you. And those few people are your family members, who you’ve left behind with so many questions unanswered. But in the end, we mourn, we cry, we grieve, we love, we live, we heal, and we withstand.

Because that’s what families do.