I’ve been sitting all day at this bloody computer screen thinking of something new to say in this Valentine’s day issue of Hot Press, and all I can hear is the sound of my brain cells collectively refusing to consider the topic, putting their fingers in their ears and going “ner ner ner” loudly. I’ve done to death the issue of being single in a relational world, and I’m tired of it.

I could look on the bright side, and list the number of sweet and kind people I love, declaring love is not reserved for couples; or I could go dark and twisted, and find clever ways of blaming everyone else, while secretly thinking it’s my fault. I could go on about loneliness blah blah the exclusivity of couples blah blah the search for Mr Right blah blah. Men’s incompetence in relationships, our poor emotional literacy, how we have to be enticed into being intimate and vulnerable, how we won’t be the ones to do it first, because we feel weak when we do, unmanly, not how we are supposed to be. How most men resist losing control over their own lives (which is one way of describing entering into a loving relationship) and are incredibly protective of their sense of freedom and independence, holding out as long as they can, unless it’s advantageous to them. How, despite ourselves, when men look to each other for sexual romantic relationships, the sweetest of gentlefolk, the sweet-hearted carers, the ones our female friends say are so perfect for us, aren’t lover material. If we wanted effeminacy, we’d have chosen women, say the worst offenders. Cold men are hot. Damn Eros.

Ach, I’ve been there, wrote the book, printed the T-shirt. I neither want to apologise for being single, nor explain it, justify it or defend it any more. It is what it is, I am living the life I have and it’s fine, thanks very much.

See, the defensiveness has crept in already. Even if, in the recent Men Today poll for the Irish Times, a full third of men declare themselves to be single. That’s a heck of a minority. And, of course, it follows that there’s a similar proportion of women who are single, too. It’s a large enough proportion of human beans. We shouldn’t be defensive, should we?

Do I fly the flag for “Single Pride”? Do I challenge the heteronormative orthodoxy and agitate for the dissolution of the nuclear family unit in order to liberate the individual from suffocating conformity and repression? Do I go all queer-anarcho-syndicalist and agitate for the destruction of the institution of marriage? Do I picket churches yelling “down with that sort of thing” as the confetti is being thrown on couples getting into their white limos? How about spreading hippy-dippy-free-love from the sixties, and going for polyamory? Or do I go the hedonistic route and argue for the return of the ideologically-driven promiscuous gay lifestyle of the seventies, when paradise moved to earth for a few years, promising lots of cake and eating it too, until cake made us sick?

Do I heck.

Do I start waxing on about the many kinds of love, how we need to expand our consciousness and stop thinking we’re missing something because we don’t have a wife or husband? Do I talk about the multi-faceted aspect of love, how arranged marriages work very well, how one can love a perfect stranger, how one can love our friends deeply, how there is love in a child’s giggle, a rabbit’s fluffy tail, a kitten…

Oh god. I mentioned kittens.

Do I take the spiritual route? The one that says that carnal love is impure, that we are never truly alone, that the godhead/Jahweh/Higher Power/Allah/Aphrodite/Elvis is always with us, guiding us, and as long as we live a good life and devote ourselves to Him/Her/Them, Brides of Christ, we can find contentment like no other. There are a lot of people in Ireland, and across the world, who live that sort of life, or aspire to it. It’s not for me. In some ways, if I wasn’t queer, I might have ended up a priest. But then, if I wasn’t queer, I mightn’t have any spiritual inclinations whatsoever. Queer as both cause and effect of spirituality.

Bless me, father.

Do I take the psychoanalytic route? Fall in love with my analyst, use him like romantic training wheels on a bike? And after I’ve polished all my rough edges, practised being mean and angry and coy and seductive, do I thank him and promptly go out and find a real person to love? Life’s too short to waste time paying someone to love. Especially when they don’t love you back.

A friend of mine told me, when she was single, that she believed it was “none of her business” when she’d find someone to be in her life. It was a helpful thing to say – because she, rightly, placed the mechanism of fate outside her control, where it belongs. There are too many people out there who believe it’s their fault that they are single – that they aren’t good-looking enough, or therapized enough, or masculine/feminine enough. They’re too fat, too thin. Too tall, too short. They’re too needy/depressive/controlling/clingy – as if by erasing these traits then the right person would then come along and sweep them off their feet, as if on cue. There is no right to relationship, love does not come to everyone.

If only.

Love is luck. But, like luck, one can make one’s own.

Romance and rage are but two sides of the same coin. The romantic love of fantasy is that someone will be there for them and match all their needs. It’s impossible, and rage that our needs aren’t fully met inevitably follows. Romantic obsession is not a pretty sight.

But real love is a decision, a choice to be loving is one that we can make at any time. If you’re lucky, and some of us are, we can get over the disappointment of not having a partner and just get on with things. And even smile as couples gaze into each other’s eyes all around them.

Happy Valentine’s. You lucky, lucky bastards.