This came to me in an email so no link. Herewith the article:
'Quirkyalones' are this year's answer to the 'metrosexual'
By JANET K. KEELER
St. Petersburg Times
Published: Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2004
Move over metrosexuals, make room for the quirky-alones.
Metrosexual was last year’s “it” label. The word, which originated in England and gained popularity in the United States, describes a straight man, usually a city guy, who seems stereotypically gay because he spends more time than his fellow Joe on grooming.
This year, it appears we’ll be talking about singletons - not the lovelorn kind Bridget Jones wrote about in her diary, but singles who live full and fun lives. Like Oprah and Cher, or George Clooney and Steve Martin. Maybe even like you.
Author Sasha Cagen, 30, calls these happy, solitary people “quirkyalones,” a term she coined on New Year’s Day 2000 to describe herself and some friends who’d rather be single than date for the sake of being in a couple.
The idea spawned an essay in the alternative magazine Utne Reader that caused an avalanche of mail, electronic and snail, from people who connected with Cagen’s quirky view of single life and the pressures to couple-up.
“It wasn’t just people in their 20s, but in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Both men and women,” says Cagen. “They had never seen themselves described like that before.”
Described like what? As single and fulfilled, she says.
Weirder still, Cagen found, was that many of the people who contacted her had eschewed labels all their lives and were stunned to find one that applied to them.
Cagen’s “Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics” (Harper San Francisco; $19.95) hit bookstores last month.
The Web site,
http://www.quirkyalone.net is drawing plenty of hits, and there’s even an International Quirkyalone Day. Surprise, it’s Feb. 14.
The growing awareness of the word is novel, because it’s not fueled by the celebrity culture that spawned “metrosexual” or the political jousting that gave birth to “soccer mom.”
Yes, Ally McBeal and Carrie Bradshaw could be described as quirkyalones, but single, interesting people were around long before those characters popped up on TV.
We just called them old maids and spinsters, or if they were male, we used the more charming term of bachelors.
“Studies show we spend about half of our lives single, so it’s kind of absurd to make people feel weird or bad because they are not in a relationship,” Cagen says.
And though some people might feel “alone” is too depressing, Cagen views it as a “declaration of independence, a willingness to step out from the crowd to follow one’s own instincts.”
Well, OK. But aren’t all these quirkyalones just being too picky and wouldn’t they jump at the chance to get married? Both the men and women?
Cagen scoffs.
"You know, some of us are actually attractive,” she says, laughing. “I know one person who’s turned down six marriage proposals.”
Plus, quirkyalones always have their friends, who are as important, sometimes more so, than their families. Quirkyalones, Cagen says, follow in the steps of the gay community, which has done much to introduce the idea of friends as family.
“Gays have more freedom to create relationships from scratch,” she says. “Because they have been excluded from legal marriage, they’ve not had the sort of pressures single people have to be in couples.”
All this talk of being alone and satisfied makes one wonder why so many desperate men and women turned to TV for hookups and why millions of us watch the shenanigans of reality shows.
“I think it feels very schizophrenic,” Cagen says. “You’ve got single women out there who are very sexy, powerful and choosy, and then they are bombarded with these catfighting, desperate women. It’s not reality.”
OP
