Excerpt from "Eternal September":

I liked the beach, but I didn’t love it like she did. I’d meet women there for first dates, where we’d find a bench and watch the sunset as the crashing waves create an ambient soundtrack. I can’t spend my days sitting on a beach, it makes me nervous to not use my time productively- a horrible consequence of too much time wasted- but at night I like listening to the stories of women.

Typically divorced, but not always- the ones who were married are usually the more mentally stable- they’ll cite a dead bedroom and an unmotivated husband as their chief concern for initiating the separation. There will usually be a pang of regret over disrupting the lives of their children, and the inconvenience of sharing custody, although this is understood as collateral damage. They had all heard of Tinder and were “excited to try it,” with the initial burst of male interest serving as enthusiastic confirmation that they had made the right decision. You’ll know how long a woman has been on her own by the way she talks about meeting men.

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