Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics

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Overview

quirkyalone (kwur.kee.uh.lohn) n. adj.

A person who enjoys being single (but is not opposed to being in a relationship) and generally prefers to be alone rather than date for the sake of being in a couple. With unique traits and an optimistic spirit; a sensibility that transcends relationship status. Also adj. Of, relating to, or embodying quirkyalones. See also: romantic, idealist, independent.

Are you a quirkyalone? Do you know someone who is?

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More About This Book

Overview

quirkyalone (kwur.kee.uh.lohn) n. adj.

A person who enjoys being single (but is not opposed to being in a relationship) and generally prefers to be alone rather than date for the sake of being in a couple. With unique traits and an optimistic spirit; a sensibility that transcends relationship status. Also adj. Of, relating to, or embodying quirkyalones. See also: romantic, idealist, independent.

Are you a quirkyalone? Do you know someone who is?

Do you believe life can be prosperous and great with or without a mate?

Do you value your friendships as much as your romantic relationships?

Do gut instincts guide your most important decisions?

Are you often among the first on the dance floor?

Coupled or single, man or woman, social butterfly or shrinking violet, quirkyalones have walked among us, invisible until now. Through the coining of a new word, this tribe has been given a voice.

Meet the quirkyalones.

Read about:

The quirkyalone nation: where we live, what we do

Quirkytogethers (quirkyalones who have entered long–term relationships)

Sex and the single quirkyalone

Romantic obsession: the dark side of the quirkyalone's romantic personality

Quirkyalones throughout history (profiles in courage)

Editorial Reviews

Toronto Globe & Mail
“Cagen has put her finger on [society’s] pulse…a positive spin on flying solo.”
Publishers Weekly
The morning after Cagen, founding editor of the independent magazine To-Do List, attended a "New Year's Eve Party Totally Devoid of [the] Midnight Kiss," she had what she calls a "spontaneous exclamation." She and her friends were "quirkyalones." The word came to her fully formed, and in this zany, untraditional book, she explains the word and the movement it spawned. "Quirkyalone stands in opposition to saccharine, archaic notions of romantic love. It stands for self-respect, independent spirit, creativity, true love, and confidence," Cagen writes, her words echoing with the uplifting message that it's not strange to be single; rather, single is the new norm. Cagen speaks out against dating for the sake of being in a couple and highlights the celebrities who fit and don't fit the quirkyalone mold (Oprah: "of course"; Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks: "[E]nemies of quirkyalones everywhere"). The primary text is spiced up with quotes that zip sideways along the margins, profiles of self-proclaimed quirkyalones, rough pencil drawings and jazzy lists, and the book ends on a suitably quirky note-with a short story Cagen wrote when she was 13. Fun, inspirational and provocative, this book is the perfect antidote to the Valentine's-inspired coupling craze. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060750619
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 1/3/2006
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 176
  • Sales rank: 580,259
  • Product dimensions: 6.12 (w) x 8.12 (h) x 0.39 (d)

Meet the Author

Sasha Cagen's essays have appeared in the Village Voice and Utne. She is the founding editor of To-Do List, a magazine that uses the idea of a to-do list to explore the details of daily life. To-Do List was named the Reader's Choice for Best New Magazine of 2000 in the Utne Alternative Press awards. A native of Rhode Island, Sasha Cagen lives in San Francisco.

First Chapter

Quirkyalone
A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics

Chapter One

A Girl and Her Word


"It's okay that I am alone."

"But maybe there is something wrong with me?"

"Maybe I'm just too picky."

"I'm young, I should be out there having sex."

"But I hate having sex with people I'm not really attracted to."

"Except when I'm traveling."

It was amazing how many times I could run through the same thoughts without arriving at any resolution.

I was not a social leper at age twenty-five. But I was not the most accomplished dater or girlfriend either.

Of course there had been flings, obsessions, dalliances, some of them even temporarily earth-moving, but none that had ever transformed me into someone's girlfriend for longer than four months. Being constitutionally incapable of halfhearted romantic involvement, I rarely played the dating game. Sometimes, while walking alone and getting lost in my thoughts, I felt strong and complete and good, at home with myself in my city and with my friends, but there were also moments when I would question my patterns and my confidence would ebb. Faced with some of my friends' steady relationships, I would wonder, What's the difference between them and me -- or me and the consumers of Modern Bride magazine and Cosmopolitan? Why is it so much easier for them to find romantic partners? If there is a whole population of people who are running in and out of long-term relationships, how do they do it? And finally, the kicker, Am I the only one who feels this way? I might have convinced myself that I was, except for Tara, my soul mate during my first year of college. We spotted each other as kindred spirits during orientation and had been friends ever since. She matched me year for year in almost perpetual singledom.

Cut to New Year's Eve that year, 1998, almost 1999. In retrospect, it makes sense that quirkyalone was a New Year's baby. New Year's Eve at midnight -- like the senior prom and the buddy system at camp -- is one of those moments when we are all asked to line up two by two. It's also one of those turning-point holidays when we are asked to appraise our lives. That New Year's, I visited Tara for the holiday. We reminisced about our college-era zine, Cupsize; we dissected that wacky new show Ally McBeal; we checked in about the continued mystery of our singledom. The universal question seemed to be hanging in the air: Why was it always this way for us?

We'd lived long enough to start setting patterns. I was relating the last tragic story of my love life, she was relating the last tragic story of hers, ending with, Hmmm, didn't work out. What next? It was cathartic to recount another round of failed attempts at relationships and reveal the depths of our confusion, but we had no answers still. It felt like a rerun. How many times can you end a story with, "But it didn't work out"?

We had been talking since October about what we would do on New Year's Eve. We always had high hopes for such holidays even though we knew most New Year's Eves turned out awful or, more to the point, spectacularly awful, with us freezing to death in the streets of Manhattan. This year we decided we would take a new, more adult approach. Instead of trying to find the Shangri-La of New Year's parties in Manhattan, with an unending vista of unattached, charming New Yorkers dying to meet us, we would take a safer approach. We would wed ourselves to our friend Marissa's party in Brooklyn and lay down some roots. After a lifetime of New Year's searching, we were ready to make it one party, all night long.

I still expected to find a midnight kiss. How hard could it be? Stunningly, after my third reconnaissance mission around the apartment and on the roof, by 11pm I was forced to make a negative assessment. Things were not looking good. Many friendly familiar faces, but no mysterious strangers. At this point, all I had left was hope for a wild card, a late arrival. My only prospect was the mysterious, as yet unseen unarrival. Even at 11:45, my eyes were trained on the door. I'm not a quitter, and if there was any chance of a midnight kiss, I was going to find it.

As we began the countdown to 1999, I called a halt to the search, and my vision broadened to take in the whole room. Looking around the room, I saw something I hadn't seen before. I realized what I was looking at. A sea of people not kissing. In all my obsessive searching, I had never considered this possibility: a New Year's Eve Party Totally Devoid of Midnight Kiss. I like to think of that as the click, when I moved from thinking that Tara and I were the only ones to seeing us as part of a group, a moment, and perhaps even a movement.

The morning after, Tara, Marissa, and I met at a diner for our traditional New Year's Day brunch. We talked resolutions, of course, and again tried to figure out why we had just witnessed a whole party of people not kissing at midnight. After polishing off our coffee, pierogies, French toast, and home fries, we bundled up to walk to the ATM. That's when and where it happened: in an ATM vestibule on a brutally cold, windy New Year's Day. I punched in my code. While waiting for the money to spit out, I turned around to them with a spontaneous declaration: "You know who we are? We're the quirkyalones!"

Quirkyalone
A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics. Copyright © by Sasha Cagen. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 29, 2004

    Creating a new movement

    I loved this book and read it in one sitting. After finishing it, I felt validated, comforted and not so 'odd' when I realized there are a lot of singles like me who don't feel this is just a stage in life until they partner up with another person. The perfect antidote for this love-crazed, couple-obsessed (witness success of shows like Joe Millionaire, The Bachelor/Bachelorette) American culture we live in! Great, fun read.

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