Quirkyalone

Brazil Travel Writing, Coming Up!

Apr 14, 2010 - Written by Sasha Cagen  |  Filed under: Single Life, Travel

A preamble before more posts to come: Hello dear readers! Since mid-January, I have been traveling, or wandering with my intuition and Lonely Planet as a guide, in Brazil in the South, the Northeast, and back to Rio again. About three months remain in my unplanned adventure. I resolved not to write much (publicly) while I was traveling because I wanted to keep my experience private. Something inside me told me that my experience needed to be completely my own, and not turned into a work product for worldwide consumption. The Internet makes us free, but also more constrained when the audience is potentially everyone and the work forever etched into Google’s memory.

Now I’m changing my mind. I want to take the next three months and see what it’s like if I share more of my experience with an online audience. I can’t promise consistency because the lure of experience is so great, who has time to write, edit, proofread, create links, and post photos? Somehow all these other travel bloggers like Sherry Ott and Two Backpackers and many others document their daily adventures. I don’t quite understand where they find the time, but they do. In the interest of adventure and shaking things up, let’s see what happens when I let my thoughts roam beyond my fantastically light little netbook. My writing will probably be less travelogue, and more meditation on the things I’m learning about Brazil and myself. The perspective will be de facto quirkyalone, since it’s just moi, right now, traveling Brazil in search of some transcendent experience–who knows what, at times!? Stay tuned. I look forward to seeing what the journey is like when it’s shared (with you).

Dear Quirkyalone: Send Us Your Questions and Concerns, Compliments and Complaints!

Sep 21, 2009 - Written by Onely  |  Filed under: Personal Growth, Quirkytogether, Single Life

Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving is a weekly guest column by Lisa and Christina at the singles’ advocacy blog Onely. Our column appears here every Monday — but we’re running low on questions!

So, dear readers: Do you have dilemmas, conundrums, burning (or mundane) questions about quirkyaloneness and quirkytogetherness? What questions do you have about optimum quirkyliving? What’s come up in your life recently where you could use some advice, a pep talk, or maybe even some tough love? When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you — and more importantly, we want to HEAR from you!

Please send your questions and concerns, compliments and complaints to: onely AT onely.org

In the meantime, Happy National Singles’ Week! We’re celebrating with a blog crawl sponsored by Single Women Rule — check it out!

– Lisa and Christina

Dear Quirkyalone: Where are all the Quirkyalone men?

Sep 14, 2009 - Written by Onely  |  Filed under: Single Life

“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a weekly guest column by the authors of the brilliant blog Onely. It appears every Monday. When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. Quirkyalone and Onely welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.

Dear Quirkyalone,

Why are there so many more Quirkyalone women than Quirkyalone men? –Cynthia

Dear Cynthia,

Let me start by saying that the Quirkyalone movement–and the singles’ advocacy movement in general–needs and wants more men. More men! More single men’s blogs! More single men commenting on blogs! More single men writing about, talking about, thinking about, and waving a banner for Quirkyaloneness. The concept of being happily single and not settling is not unique to women.

While not unique t0 women, the experience of being able to hold out for one’s dream man or woman (and being ok if that person never comes) is a relatively new experience for them. For most of this history of the human race, females were usually forced to settle. What choice did they have? They were not fully allowed into the workforce or given control over their own finances, inheritances, birth control, etc. Sometimes they even did more than settle: they connived, competed, and prostrated in order to snag a man, any man, who: wanted them; could feed and clothe them; could care for the children the woman would inevitably conceive. If the woman had luck, she married someone who refrained from abusing her out of his own moral sense, so she didn’t have to rely on the vagaries of a patriarchal law system to protect her.

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Dear Quirkyalone: Am I Too Picky?

Aug 31, 2009 - Written by Onely  |  Filed under: Dating, Single Life

“Dear Quirkyalone: Advice for QuirkyLiving” is a weekly guest column by the authors of the brilliant blog Onely. It appears every Monday. When you’re making up your own road map for (quirky)living, you need thoughtful advice. We’re here for you. Quirkyalone and Onely welcome your questions; send them on to onely AT onely.org.

Dear Quirkyalone: Are single people over a certain age too picky? Is that so wrong? – Special K

Dear Special K,

Here’s my short answer: No, and No.

But to be more specific:

First, I’d like to consider the phrase “too picky.” The way I see it, being “picky” is not in and of itself a “bad” thing, though our culture often seems to say so. Let’s say we’re talking about food: If you order the specialty burger at your favorite restaurant that comes loaded with toppings – in this case bacon, blue cheese, arugula, avocado, and mushrooms – but the taste and texture of mushrooms make you want to puke, it’s pretty reasonable to ask for the burger without the mushrooms. If you are too shy, uncertain, or simply unaware to articulate this taste, you’ll likely leave the restaurant dissatisfied and/or hungry.

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