Back in the airport in Toronto. Seems like just yesterday I was here last. Oh yes... It was just yesterday. D'oh!

So I've started Thirty Nothing and it is indeed just like High Fidelity, except written by a woman instead of a man. In the genre of angst-riddled 30-something relationship novels, this distinction is important both for the things that are different as a result -- clearer-headed analysis of messed-up teenaged muddles from the girl's side of the picture, of course -- as well as for the things that are the same. In both novels the central thesis is that we 30-somethings are just about getting old enough to figure out ourselves and behave sensibly towards one another, for the first time in our lives, even though we're (of course) incurably messed up inside. Everybody's incurably messed up inside, so we're ok.

I don't know if this thesis holds up to stringent analysis, and I certainly know a few very happily married 30-somethings who've never seemed messed up at all to me, but I do know that reading these books, while entertaining, is hard on me personally as a 31-year-old single man with no current prospects. Are the authors trying to make me feel bad, or was that just a lucky side effect? Yes, I know, I'm avoiding the issue day to day by travelling across the continent for work and not looking for any relationships anywhere in particular. But I was taught (by my peers and my own experience) that the best relationships are those which are not planned, that just happen through good chemistry and lucky circumstances, and I'm not sure that my recent run of no circumstances at all puts the validity of the overall strategy in doubt. (It definitely puts the wisdom of my short-term tactics in doubt, but that's another question entirely.)

Anyway, this rather rambling post is dedicated to any single romantically inclined 30-something women who should, by some bizarre chance of fate, ever come to read it.

Back to Thirty Nothing. I sure hope the author is single, because if someone wants to point out the pain of single life to me, I'd rather they were in the same boat. No offence, mom.
posted by Tom at 4:09 PM | link |