The gifts of singleness
It’s an odd intersection of dates on the calendar. It’s the day before Chinese New Year, in the Christian calendar it’s Ash Wednesday, and of course, unavoidably, it’s Valentine’s Day. Having the day off (for Chinese New Year), I did a lot of ‘adulting’ stuff—laundry, spinning class, meeting with friends. I arranged the delivery of a medium-sized appliance to my house because it would be too heavy for me to carry home myself. I considered purchasing a smaller vehicle because, 90% of the time, I’m the only one using it. Oh, and I did most of these things in my second language. I’m a single, 30-something expat. Because of the time difference, I’ll have about 36-hours worth of Valentine’s Day posts on social media to avoid. And so here I sit in Starbucks on Valentine’s night writing one to add to the mix. I occasionally check my peripheral vision for eligible-looking singles, because wouldn’t THAT be a story to tell. I was actually in the coffee shop to write an article about singl