“Still single…Chances are you’re a woman."

I tweeted about this ‘just in time for Valentine’s Day’ article I read in Sunday’s NY Times the other night and it is still haunting me three days later. The article states that there are approximately 131,548 more unmarried and divorced women in greater New York than men. I read that number and it has been seared into my brain ever since. It’s all I can think about! If I wasn’t in my early twenties, I would find this number downright tragic. How the hell do women stand a chance dating in this city?! Sarah Jessica Parker made it look easy compared to what we’re really up against. Maybe texting, tweeting and facebook have damned us all to a long life of solitude. Besides the extreme unbalance in numbers, we live in a city that harbors some of the most beautiful people in the world. There are tons of women who are better looking and more successful and talented than little old me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite happy with myself. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be honest and say that the girl leaving my apartment ahead of me this morning in her sky high stilettos and wavy black hair was breathtakingly beautiful – facts are facts. And she’s getting the cute subway guy today, not me.

I read another article last week in the Village Voice (I know, I really must stop reading) that went along similar lines but was focused on telling the single women of New York, “It’s not them, it’s you.” The men of Manhattan are not the problem, it’s us ladies. This article also flashed that large, ominous number and conceded that finding a match in this large city where anything can be yours at any hour and the next best thing is right around the corner can be difficult. The problem lies in the fact that many men and women in New York are career-focused and not much more. I find that my own young career ambitions take the foremost thoughts in my mind and in my plans (but like the chicken and the egg, I’m not sure if I’m career focused because I’m single, or single because I’m career focused). Like I said in yesterday’s post, I was pleased to be in a hotel room (alone) in Connecticut on Valentine’s Day because my career was given a large boost just that afternoon. So, I get it. We’re ambitious, selfish and way too picky – all things that do not bode well in starting new relationships. We know what we want, and we will not settle for anything less. While these are good traits to have, it’s also important to be realistic. Prince Charming is an ideal that should have left our heads when we turned thirteen – a rite of passage like hitting puberty. Instead we make the mistake of watching one too many romantic comedies and believing that all things are just like the movies. Like previously stated, “Sarah Jessica Parker made it look easy.”

The article in the Times ended with a mixed message of hope and gloom. The author states, “So to all the single ladies: There’s a whole world of men out there waiting to put a ring on it. They’re just not in New York (yet).” The good news is I’m nowhere near ready for someone to put a ring on it. But I don’t feel like spending the next ten years of my life fighting against the masses for Mr. Right. I’ve read that California (and the west coast in general) has the highest single men to single women ratios. Perhaps I’ll have to venture out west when I convince myself that this wonderful, never let me down relationship I have with this beautiful city will be the closest I will come to happily ever after in Manhattan. Eh, things could always be worse, right? – I could be forced to live in central Connecticut.