Next Halloween I’m dressing like a divorce. What’s that look like?
I think in the eyes of the inexperienced, it’s a festering boil ready to explode, splashing it’s sticky stench on everything it touches and infecting all that’s clean and good.
“Boo!”
“What are you?”
“A divorce.”
“AAAAAHHHH!”
That’s right, drop your candy and run kiddies cuz nothing stains the Underoos of the uninoculated like a viral divorce running rampant through our country. It’s funny because for those who’ve never been through one, divorce is a terminal disease worse than leprosy. I mean yeah, after MyEx left, my sex life did dwindle, but I swear, it only felt like the little guy fell off; every morning I check, and every morning he waves hello. He is still there.
I think it’s a fear of the unknown. It’s bigotry. We’ve seen it in every other part of our culture, from race, to sex, to zombies. I think it’s time we recognize it in the eyes of undivorced and educate them before they panic and ship us all to Alaska. I hate Alaska. Well not really. I mean, if you live in Alaska, then it’s your choice–not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Two years ago I went to the writers’ conference trying to pitch a book about the Los Angeles riots. People liked the concept and the chaos and asked to take a look. This year I went pitching my friendly divorce concept, and everybody backed away faster than I could say, “irreconcilable differences.”
“Uhm, who would read something about divorce?” askes one agent as her eyes glass over.
“Well, divorcing people would.”
“Can they read?”
“Well, I use simple words.”
“Because you’re divorced?”
“Uhhh.” I grunt, and shake her hand. She freezes, and then moves towards her wrist like she’s considering gnawing it off. Thinking better, she jerks away.
“Excuse, me I need to use the bathroom.”
I swear the non-divorced don’t know how to handle us. I had hoped to bring a peace between our cultures, to let them know that we aren’t that different, but I couldn’t.
“Can’t we all just get along?”
I wanted to believe we could. I wanted divorce harmony and hand-in-hand love between our native brethren. I even tried to spread my message of love through my agent consultation.
The agent consultation is like a speed dating sales pitch. You go in, sit down with an agent for 10 minutes and then a bell rings, you drool, you leave. They stay; somebody new comes in. The one they like, they keep. Nobody kept me. They couldn’t appreciate what I had to offer.
It’s ok. I mean I’ve been single before. I know what it’s like, and I still say it’s better to be single for all the right reasons than with somebody for all the wrong. When I sat down with my first agent, she smiled up at me until she heard my pitch. She wasn’t repulsed; she just didn’t see the divorced as a viable market.
“Other than divorced people, who do you reach?”
“uhm, my family?” ping!
“Times up.”
I leaned in for the kiss but she gave me the cheek. I tried explaining that almost 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce, but by that time the stormtroopers had me by the armpits and were dragging me backwards out the door.
I didn’t find my match. It’s ok. Like I said, I’ll wait. Somebody out there will understand that divorced doesn’t mean less vital.
Because of my recent run with pirates, I met a friendly privateer. She commented on the same issues in her life while playing gin over a bottle of rum. She laid down the gender card.
“Argggh! Guys react different,” she said hook-skewering the draw pile.
“How so?” I’m all about keeping things equal.
Women either run away, or over-relate, even if they’ve never been divorced.
She was right about that. I remembered women who’d done this when I mentioned my divorce. They’d tried making it theirs.
“I’m divorced.”
“You know what, I had a goldfish that died once too.”
Yeah, it’s not the same thing, but you can’t tell them because they’re now regaling the glories of Flipper and the toilet bowl of destiny.
“Flush!” The pirate said.
“No, this is gin. You say ‘gin.'”
She pulled off her peg, and after threatening me, she explained how guys react differently to divorce.
“They apologize.”
“I’m sorry?”
Yeah, exactly. Guys act like suddenly they’re a diplomatic emissary for the whole male gender. They say something like, ‘yeah, we guys can be such jerks,’ then shake your hand on behalf of mankind before excusing themselves for an afternoon of self-flagellation.”
I never knew this. Is it true? Are there other forms of bigotry against the divorced? Agism? Racism Antidisestablishmentarianism? How far will people go to separate the wheat from the divorced? I know that for most of them it truly is a fear of the unknown. Maybe that’s why dressing up as a divorce will help. I can scare and share and let them know that divorced people have been through something horrible, but that we’re just the same as everybody else. It doesn’t kill us. We continue, and most of us even thrive. We live, we grow, and we love again”just like everybody else.
