Meet Sara Eckel! Sara is an Author and she lives in Kingston, New York. She’s been a full-time freelance writer since 1997, Sara’s essays, arts criticism, and reported pieces have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The BBC, and The Boston Globe to name a few. For five years, Sara was a nationally syndicated opinion columnist, with a weekly column that appeared in more than two hundred newspapers nationwide. Sara has had her short fiction published in Speakeasy and Sanskrit. Sara is also a published author, which is how she wound up on my radar. One of my former guests – Gina Fattore mentioned Sara’s book, It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single. I found it on audible and gave it a listen and so much of what she writes about resonated with me. I’m so excited to bring you my conversation with Sara, we chatted about the importance of not getting caught up in trying to fit into the box society has made for women, about seeking our own happiness whether that means being single or being in a healthy relationship and about redefining success away from what previous generations have thought that means. Connect with Sara on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/saraaeckel Connect with Sara on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/saraeckel Find out more about Sara and get her book on her website at: https://saraeckel.com Learn more about the Blissful Spinster Podcast and connect with Cris on the website at: https://www.blissfulspinster.com
16. Sara Eckel - Author
[00:00:00] Cris: Hi, and welcome to Blissful Spinster. This week's guest is author Sara Eckel, Sara lives in Kingston, New York, and she's been a full-time freelance writer since 1997. Sara's essays, art criticism and reported pieces have appeared in the New York times, the Washington post, the guardian, the BBC, and the Boston globe to name a few.
[00:00:20] For five years, Sara was a nationally syndicated opinion columnist with a weekly column that appeared in more than 200 newspapers nationwide. She's also had her short fiction published in speakeasy in Sanskrit. Sara is also a published author, which is how she wound up on my radar. One of my former guests, Gina Fattore mentioned Sara's book.
[00:00:41] It's not you, 27 (Wrong) Reasons. You're single. Of course, I had to go find her book on audible and I gave it a listen. So much of what she writes about. Resonated with me. I'm so excited to bring you my conversation with Sara. We chatted about the importance of not getting caught up in trying to fit into the box.
[00:00:59] [00:01:00] Society is made for women about seeking out our own happiness, whether that means being single or being in a healthy relationship and about redefining success away from what previous generations have thought. That means. So, however you. Podcast. Thank you for tuning in and please enjoy this week's episode.
[00:01:19] Hi Sara. How you doing? Good. How are you, Chris? I'm good. I'm so excited. You said? Yes, I thank you for asking me. We have a couple of mutual friends. Yes. Caitlin and Gina. Well, I. Wanted to tell you. After, after I talked to Gina, I read your book, read. I listened to it. and I was super excited when Caitlin told me she was really close friends with you.
[00:01:40] Cause I was like, oh, ask her, cuz I think you had some really good stuff in that book for, especially for women who are single and think it's all them, you know?
[00:01:48] Sara: Thank you. And yeah. And Caitlyn is very much in the book and yeah. She's terrific. Yeah. Yeah. She and I were, we met, we were both single when we met, we were kind of each.
[00:01:58] Plus one during that [00:02:00] time, we were just, we were very close. I mean, we're still very close, but we were sort of, we were having a lot of conversations about being single and what it meant. And, and it was lucky for me that I had so many of Caitlyn's or found insights to work with when I sat down.
[00:02:17] Cris: Oh, that's great.
[00:02:18] Yeah, Caitlin's awesome. I met Caitlin cuz she's an editor, as you probably know, but for listeners, she's an editor for a film and TV, not for books. um, I was working on a true crime doc series and she got brought in for, to pinch hit for us for a few days and she, and I just hit it off and I've been friends with her ever since.
[00:02:37] She's amazing. So to, to start this often, because I don't know. Ton about you other than what's on your website and what I, the wonderful things I've heard, but can you kind of talk me through what your journey's like to become an author and how you come to become the Sara? I know today. Sure.
[00:02:53] Sara: um, I sort of got into writing, I guess, really when I was in college and I had a really wonderful [00:03:00] teacher, Berlin Lincoln board, who is also so wonderful author and he really, it was just like the first time that anyone who'd ever.
[00:03:08] you could do this, you could do this. And it never occurred to me. That would be a possibility for me. So, so that was very important. And then I just moved to New York and did the whole like aspiring writer thing for many years, really? Throughout my twenties, I worked as a new, as an editor for a news wire service editing.
[00:03:29] Coupon clipping columns and decorating columns. And as I moved up some more political columns and things like that, but was always just writing and submitting short stories and doing things like that. And I wasn't really getting anywhere, but I decided at one point I, I was dating this guy. I always, I went on a few dates with this guy.
[00:03:47] I wasn't really dating him. I went to date for the sky and I saw how he had all these great connections and he was getting all this work cause he had all these great connections. And I thought I don't have a lot of great connections, but I do work for a news wire service. I actually started writing a [00:04:00] column for them on feminism.
[00:04:02] Um, so this was like in the nineties when feminism was not like really that like cool thing I remember. And, um, I took that for about five years and at a certain point I was able to transition into freelance writing full time. It was kind of a funny transition cuz then, um, I was writing about feminism, but what I found that I could make a living doing was writing.
[00:04:27] Women's magazines and the women, um, the editors that I worked for were extremely feminists, um, and really smart together women who many of them much smarter than me, but it was just what the market was demanding was that I write about relationships, personal growth. I avoided. I avoided dieting pretty well.
[00:04:50] I avoided writing about fitness. You know, that was, those were just things like how to get a better beach body. Like I never had to write that that was completely uninteresting to me, but [00:05:00] relationships and personal growth were interesting to me. I, you know, it was, I felt like I was lucky to that someone would actually pay me to interview all these great authors and psychologists and, and researchers about just basic questions.
[00:05:15] How does one have a happy life? How does one have a fulfilled life? And, and I was also pretty good at writing about my heartache and if I was, and my longing and, and, and if I was in a relationship that didn't work out, I was pretty good at writing sort of consoling things for other women about what to do.
[00:05:33] If someone breaks up with you in your upset. And I actually did find some, some satisfaction in that even just, I remember once I was working on a story for Cosmo. And I was really not into it. And it was just about, I think it was just how to bounce back from a breakup or something like that. And I was not into it and I just thought, all right, who's your reader, this woman she's worked all day at the office.
[00:05:59] Some guy [00:06:00] just dorked her over and she's on the subway. And she picks up this magazine and she's reading your story. What do you have to offer her? And so, you know, so for a long time I did that kind of thing and it was. , it was also fun and interesting because of course I had as much as on one hand, I'm working on a novel and I'm thinking of myself as someone's gonna be this great journalist or literary writer or something like this, not a woman's magazine writer, like something big, but I, you know, I had a lot of it.
[00:06:30] It gave me the opportunity to interview a lot of people about, about their. Hopes and desires and heartaches and disappointments and things like that. And so even though I didn't like that being, becoming the great journalist or great novelist didn't really happen, but, um, I wanna just add that. That was like, sort of like my 30 year old aspiration at the time, but I, I got to do a lot of these, a lot of interviewing.
[00:06:54] And even if the story itself, wasn't always something that I was particularly excited about. It was fun to [00:07:00] do. And I ended up using it as a way to work through my own stuff. Because I couldn't afford a therapist. I didn't have enough money for that. As a freelance writer, I could ask all these therapists about just like, and I kept coming back to this issue of just, I really kind of wanna find a relationship.
[00:07:16] I'm not doing it. And so I would pitch these articles about it and get these assignments to write about it. But I was of course, just trying to figure out my own stuff. As I was interviewing all these various experts about just like, why can't I make this thing happen? And I know that your podcast is not so much specifically about.
[00:07:34] I mean, this is just my journey. Like I loved being single, but I also, I was, and especially when I got to be in my early thirties, I felt like I was ready to find a partner and it bothered me that I couldn't just say like, okay, now I'm done with being single and I wanna. I, I, you know, I'm ready for this, this other thing.
[00:07:54] Um, and it bothered me that I couldn't make it happen. So I was interviewing all these different experts about it, and I think, and [00:08:00] that's what ended up being, and this is a long way of getting to that ended up being what the foundation of the book was just my journey of being like, am I too independent?
[00:08:11] That was a big thing that people would say like, you're too intimidating, or am I too picky? That was always really popular. You know, why can't I make this happen? What's wrong with. And so that was like throughout my thirties, was this like debate I was having with myself and, and was having access to various experts about why that was so anyway, so that's how it all
[00:08:32] Cris: got started.
[00:08:33] So that's, that's really cool. And, and the thing is, yeah, my podcast, I mean, to a certain extent, it's, it's an extension of me and yeah, I'm super happy being on my own and my cats and all that stuff, but I'm also. That journey of figuring out that it's not you, which is basically what your book's about is important.
[00:08:52] Whether you're trying to find a relationship or not find a relationship, because if you don't come to it, you know, happy and knowing [00:09:00] yourself, it's not gonna work regardless of whether you wanna be single or not, you know? Yeah. I think we're fed that like women especially are brought up in this society to think that it's all
[00:09:12] Sara: on us.
[00:09:12] Absolutely. And when actually I, the studies that, and, you know, I wrote this book a while ago, but the, every study that I've ever seen about it shows that it's actually men who get a lot more happiness from marriage and get a lot more out of it than women do. And I am very happily married, but, but that's just in terms of who benefits the most psychologically, mentally, physically in terms of living longer and things like that.
[00:09:35] And it's really, men are the ones who. More out of it, get more benefit from it. And yet it's always seen as something like, oh, she's not with a partner. Like you never, like really people don't seem to have that same sense of just, oh, how can, how come we can't find someone with men that they do with women.
[00:09:52] That just basic assumption. It's assumed that it's just something
[00:09:55] Cris: you chose. Well, yeah. I mean, it's even in the name, I'm a spinster, a man [00:10:00]of our age would be a confirmed bachelor. I mean, it's like, which one of those is more positive, right? Which one has a connotation of something wrong with that human being and not wrong with that human being.
[00:10:11] But I, I loved reading your, even though it wasn't the end result was that you had found yourself and had found a partner. I love that. I'm not opposed to any of that. I just, I. Would hope that we get to a spot where we don't put these preconceived judgements of what women want. Yes. When, what you're learning from is men writing about women?
[00:10:34] Yes. Whether it's a movie, whether it's a book predominantly, what are, where, where have we been learning about that? Male authors. Yeah, of course they don't understand us. Yeah. They're learning about us from them.
[00:10:46] Sara: and male culture, I think just in general. I mean, it, it just, it, there is an incentive to make women feel like they are somehow lacking or there's something [00:11:00] wrong with them if they can't find a partner or because when you think about it, when women before, when women had to be economically dependent on men, you didn't really have to be.
[00:11:10] The men, the bar was not too high for men to be a good husband. You had to sort of not if you didn't hit her. And if you didn't, you know, if you earned a decent paycheck and were like, you only had to really be decent. Um, and now the bar's a lot higher because women can say, no, I, you have to actually offer something because my life is pretty good as it is.
[00:11:33] And so the barn's a lot higher. So I think that's part of why our culture. Has puts this kind of pressure on women is because it's really, it benefits men. If women feel like this is their only option, and this is their only chance for happiness is to just hook up with a guy, whoever it is. And I, I mean, and I say that, I think that that's at least been the traditional idea that it benefits men.
[00:11:56] I'm not even so sure it does. I don't know that any real happiness comes [00:12:00] from people marry. Because they wanna be safe or are afraid. I'm not sure. I think we can, a lot of people can look at previous generations and say, yeah, they weren't necessarily the happiest marriages. And in fact, marriages are now like statistically speaking as a guy.
[00:12:15] Oh, his name Elah. I can't remember his name, but he researches marriages. Then marriages are happier now than they were because people don't. People because people have options and you're only really marrying if you really want to. And if you really wanna marry that
[00:12:29] Cris: person. Yeah. And that's, I think that's a good evolution.
[00:12:32] And I also think to a certain extent, I do think people like it's starting to open up more in the respect of, oh, someone doesn't necessarily want a relationship. Maybe there isn't something wrong with them. maybe it's just that person, you know, like I think the judgment are starting. To crack, you know, regardless whether it's that or whether it's, I wanna love whoever it is or I want, I don't feel like myself in my own skin.
[00:12:59] So I [00:13:00] wanna be something, you know, all of that. I'm, I'm hoping we're seeing the signs of that stuff, regardless of what our Supreme court is doing right now, it's coming in a societal way up to the forefront. Allowing people to seek their happiness the way they want, you
[00:13:15] Sara: know? Yeah. And it seems all, all the, and this is not something I covered so much in the book.
[00:13:19] Cause it was a while ago. But like, I think just the, the way that there's been so much more openness about gender nonconformity and, and just there people there's so many. Yeah. I think there's a lot more openness. And even just the book was published in 2014. About the different ways that people live their lives, the different ways that people wanna be and how there's just so many, there's so many different ways to have a good life that it's this, this little narrow prescription that people my age were raised with is just, is just not accurate.
[00:13:51] And I think that, so I'm hoping also that, that then that sense of, well, I'm not fitting into the mold. So what, what is my what's wrong with me? [00:14:00] As opposed to just like you. You don't fit in the mold. That's not wrong. That's just not fitting into this preconceived idea of what you're supposed to be and this, why would
[00:14:08] Cris: that be wrong?
[00:14:09] Yeah, it's, I'm just me. Yeah. That's what I like to say. I'm just me, you know, and it took a long time for me to get there. You know, I spent a bit of my thirties and I would say it was probably my early forties where I woke up and I was like, why am I trying, like I figured out that I was trying to fit into something that society had built for me, like this box, that wasn't, that was never.
[00:14:32] I didn't even chase after boys in high school for relationship or girl. Like, I didn't, that wasn't something that I was into, you know, and it was like me getting back to myself to a certain extent, shedding the expectations that, that we grow up with. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. And I think, and, and you said it was in some of the interesting, cause you said women of your age.
[00:14:54] I will, I have shown my script, which is very much about shedding. Some of that stuff. [00:15:00] To young women who are in their twenties and they'll, I'll get, I just got a message the other day from a she's 30, I think a young woman who thanked me for starting my podcast because she's never been in a relationship and was wondering if it was something wrong with her.
[00:15:19] and has got something to listen to. That's telling her there isn't, that's priceless. I, I almost cried when I received that, cuz that's why I wrote the script and it's, it's not just for women my age or your age or older than me to see themselves. It's also to give a pathway to those younger who are pro.
[00:15:38] Possibly still getting the same messaging because we all get it. When you put in a Disney film. Yeah.
[00:15:43] Sara: There's so much still out there. There's so much res it's gonna take a long time before all of that residual culture is gone and, and so much of life is yet getting to cuz to be in your late thirties or early forties and figuring out like, oh, this is all just a lot of [00:16:00] programming.
[00:16:00] Yeah, it does. It takes a long. To, to see it to kind of step outside of it. And so that's, that's amazing. That's amazing that we were able to, to shorten the path of that.
[00:16:12] Cris: yeah, no, that's partly why I'm like, I think this is important to try to short circuit that, but I, I, I often refer to it as the patriarchy has been gas lighting us for centuries.
[00:16:22] Basically. Oh, no, no, no. You really do want this. This is what you want. And I'm like, well, wasn't marriage, a business contract. Initially, you got money because you married me, you know? yeah. That's why it was created. it, wasn't some love, whatever, you know, and I'm not saying there's, I love it when my friends get married and they're the right thing.
[00:16:41] And you can tell they're gonna be together forever. There's also marriages. That that was the time you were supposed to be together. And it's dissolved and you're gonna go find other people or not, but why are we putting undue pressure on all
[00:16:53] Sara: of us? Yeah. Yeah, no, it's, it's like, I mean, women used to be used to be a property arrangement.
[00:16:58] And so, yeah, it's a [00:17:00] very complicated institution and some people find a way to make it work and that's great and people, but there's just so many. to be happy and to live a fulfilled life. And it really does just start with just like being able to center yourself and be like, what do I want? What is, what is what works for me?
[00:17:18] Not what am I told
[00:17:19] Cris: will make me happy. So the book was based on a series of essays you had written previously, or how did that come about? Like what, why did you feel the need to write? It's not you 27 wrong reasons. You're single, which I love that. Thank
[00:17:32] Sara: you. Yeah, it, I wrote a piece. I wrote a modern love.
[00:17:35] I had written this proposal because I'd written about it. This. In kind of a roundabout way for an article for self that was quite popular. And then I'd also like really when I, I had written a really early iteration of this same piece when I had a, a boyfriend in my late twenties after having a long, dry spell.
[00:17:55] And I wrote a book piece called like how I had a boyfriend, but I still more [00:18:00]identified with my single self when I called it my inner single girl. So that I'd written that, and that was like the first thing I ever published or one of the first things I ever published was in glamor. And I just thought, and I got tons of mail.
[00:18:12] This was back when you got mail and the, they were faxing me the letters that people wrote. And I just thought, oh, this is what happens when you write for a big magazine, like the world opens up and everybody writes, you tell you how wonderful it was. But then that didn't happen again for 20 years because it was just like, it was just that topic was this that really people really identified with.
[00:18:31] And then I. But I think I had anyway, it was just around the time that mark and I were getting married or something, but I just, I just like realized, like, was trying to figure out what I was gonna do with myself. Oh. Cause I I'd written a novel that I couldn't. and a single woman and I thought, you know, this is the thing that I write about that like the world responds to and people.
[00:18:51] So I thought, I think this is something that now that I'm kind of closing out my single years, I think I can really write about it in a way [00:19:00] that, that people, that it's. And, and this is okay, so I'm just gonna say, this is like the unfair thing is that to write, you know, I thought there was something wrong with me and there wasn't, when you're still single people are.
[00:19:12] Sure. Mm-hmm when you write it when you're married. Oh, and that's that sucks. But like it, I knew that being, having the safety of being married, like all it, it like short circuited, anybody who would say, oh, well, no wonder she's single. And I remember shortly after the book came out, somebody I published a piece in salon that didn't say I was now married.
[00:19:33] And it was like a torrent of just like, no wonder she's single. But anyway, so I, I wrote this book proposal and then I couldn't sell it. And then. I sent, I, I edited the first chapter and sent it to the New York times, modern love column. And it is still one of the most popular columns in their history. So that's what got the book deal.
[00:19:53] So that's how I got the that's, how I ended up writing the book. And then it was a different, the book proposal was different. It was more of a [00:20:00] journalism book about women who married after 35. And the editor says we, we would like an inspirational book for single women. And at, at first I did not really love that idea.
[00:20:11] But I thought, well, I'm just gonna do it the way I wanna do it. And they probably won't like it, but
[00:20:15] Cris: they did well, thank you for one for doing it the way you wanted to cuz your instinct was right and kudos to them for publishing it.
[00:20:21] Sara: It was the only way I could and, and you know, I, I suppose in a way I didn't give enough credit to my terrific editors at Perge who they had read the column, they were single, they had read the column and they had me in.
[00:20:32] And so it was a great
[00:20:33] Cris: experience. That's good. So what I'm hearing from that is I've gotta, I've gotta prepare myself for the Torrance. That's why she's single. Okay. That's good. it's
[00:20:43] Sara: yeah. I mean, it's, it's I think maybe it's not quite the same as it was at the time. Yeah. But like it, cause I was really saying like, there's nothing wrong with me.
[00:20:51] Which it's a hard thing to say when, so when I remember, I would say that to like a, a varied friend of mine who was a good friend and I liked him a lot, but he would be [00:21:00] like, uh, yeah, whatever. Sorry. it's just, it sounds like protesting too much, but anyway, that's, that was, or maybe, maybe a better way to think of it is.
[00:21:10] Maybe I was just too cowardly to really put that out there when I was actually single. And I was only had the bravery to do it when I kind of had the, when I was going from this sort of like safe place. So I think that's probably a more, yeah, I think that's
[00:21:25] Cris: probably more right. I mean, putting out to me, putting it out either way.
[00:21:29] You're. It's still a very, I think, controversial idea. So kudos to you. And I know as I was even writing my script, you know, I'd have to rewrite. So I go, you didn't go deep enough. And it is, it's like, but I'm getting more and more like this podcast is coming in at year four of my journey, trying to get the film made and I just keep getting more and more.
[00:21:51] In it, because I think it's a message that needs to get out there. My, my film's a, a coming of middle aged story wrapped in an unromantic comedy. Hmm. And [00:22:00] it's built very carefully. So that by the end, it builds to a giant proposal that you would expect in a, in any one of these films. And she says, no, and it's built in such a way that the audience should be cheering for her to say no, And to find themselves on that side of it where they've never been before.
[00:22:19] Yeah. On a film like this. Right. And I, you know, I've shown it to all kinds of people as I was developing it. And meaning like friends that are in relationships, friends that are different races, genders, all of that. And it it's about being seen and the biggest arc, and it took quite a few. Versions to get to that distilled biggest arc is she is happy at the start of the film, but doesn't know it.
[00:22:46] And the journey is her finding out that she is in fact happy. And I think in building it that way, I'm hopeful that even those people who, or, um, might wanna say, oh, but of course there's something wrong with her, cuz she's still single or [00:23:00] whatever, because that's at the core of. They'll understand what, what that journey is and that it's not, it's about not making someone fit into a box that makes them unhappy.
[00:23:10] Yeah. Let's just let people be where
[00:23:13] Sara: they're happy. That's amazing. That sounds fantastic. It reminds me of something. A friend of mine said, she said the only real problem that with being, I ever had a thing, single was just all the time I spent worrying about it. That's the only thing I do differently is just like, just like enjoy.
[00:23:30] What my life was because he was great. And I feel that way
[00:23:33] Cris: too. Yeah. It's, there's an awful lot of misspent energy and I'm being looked at, I'm being, you know, I've always loved going to the movies alone. I've always loved eating alone, you know, like all of that stuff, but there does get a, a moment in your life.
[00:23:48] Um, if you're, if you let the D in of expectation where you're like, oh, maybe there is something wrong with me, or maybe I shouldn't do, maybe I shouldn't go to the movie. When you really want [00:24:00] to yeah. You know, like you stop yourself almost because you don't wanna be a bother to those looking at you that, or to be the, yes, there is something wrong with her.
[00:24:08] Like giving them the answer, whatever it is. And it really does take waking up and realizing to step outside of all of that, because all of that's manufactured, you know, it's
[00:24:18] Sara: all manufactured. And I think one thing that I. Have thought about a lot is a lot of it was these outside voices in my head that were kind of messing me up.
[00:24:26] But a lot of it was also just like manufactured. Like I was doing a lot of the manufacturing and one thing I love to do, especially if I'm traveling or, you know, I live a hundred miles. I used to live in New York city, but now I live about a hundred miles north of New York city. So sometimes there's like one of my favorite things to do when I go down to the city is sit at a bar and have a have dinner by.
[00:24:49] At the bar and it feels so luxurious and wonderful. And the weird thing about it is that because I'm, I'm because I'm traveling and because I'm married, I don't think about it at [00:25:00] all. And I don't worry about what anybody's saying, but I'm thinking about I could have done this exact same thing. People don't know I'm traveling people.
[00:25:07] Don't like, it's just, it was interesting to me how it was the same, the exact same thing, woman sitting by herself, having dinner at a bar and my own like self-perception is D. Simply because I'm like, not at home and not, and it does that make sense? It just realized it was like, it was just like my own story that I was telling myself mm-hmm and I'm not even sure that anybody else is really looking at me cuz what,
[00:25:31] Cris: what are they say?
[00:25:31] Well, yeah, that's the thing is I think it's sometimes we are getting in our own way because we think. O others are looking at us the way we've all been taught to look at something, right. And someone could very well be having a chat like that. But most of the bar is probably paying attention to their own drink or the own person that they're talking to.
[00:25:51] Or the bartend they're chatting with. Cuz they're waiting on a friend. Are they really looking at. You the lone lady eating dinner there? [00:26:00] Probably
[00:26:00] Sara: not. Yeah. They're just in their own. They're just in their own thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I've had so many, like a lot of times when I do that, I think one of my favorite things about doing that is then like I talk to people at the bar, sometimes they don't, but it's just, I, I do know like, like the world is so you're so much more, one thing I do in this is like, you're so much more in the world when you're single, you're just like interacting more in the.
[00:26:22] And if I go to dinner with my husband, it's really nice. And it's really pleasant. We have a good time, but we're probably not like interacting with others that much. Maybe if we see people we know, because we live in a smaller place, but, but it's different. Especially like when I was on, when I was like on the book tour, I was often like just going places by myself and I would end up.
[00:26:43] Talking to people, not because they knew I was an author. I was just a woman sitting at the bar, like having a hamburger, but it was, so it was, it was really interesting and I realized it was how
[00:26:52] Cris: much, how fun that is. Well, it it's, I mean, you're touching on a little bit of something. I think you wrote about this in your book.
[00:26:57] I can't remember, but that there's this [00:27:00] perception that if you're a single woman in her forties or fifties, you're lonely and you're alone and that couldn't. Further from the truth. I have very, very many friends and, um, I can hang out on my own or I can hang out with friends. Yeah. You know, like that's all in my own choice.
[00:27:18] And yet when you have friends who, you know, have become couples, you often see them become a little more insular. In their own relationship and who, and, and when they hang out with others. So it's almost the opposite perception is being thrown onto the, the single person. Partly I think because when you're a couple, you've got each other it's so you don't see yourselves as alone, although I've, I've known more friends of mine in relationships that were lonelier than I've ever been sure.
[00:27:48] As a single person. I think that when you're in
[00:27:49] a
[00:27:49] Sara: couple you're kind of investing you're, you're just, yeah, you're getting. So much of your social interaction and simulation from one person. And it's very nice if you like [00:28:00] this person, you get along with them to have that person always there, but you also, it makes you kind of lazy and, and, you know, sometimes, and, and, you know, and I know like I really need to.
[00:28:10] To get out and just sometimes I'll tell a friend, like, do you wanna get together for a drink? And she'll be like, yeah, I'll see what she'll talk like. Yeah. Like, she'll assume it's like the four of us. And I'm like, no, it's just the two of us. And not because I have any problem with any of the guys, it's just like, it's just like two, two women having drink are having dinner out or just, like I said, like, it, it.
[00:28:31] Yeah, it's a different kind of you, you just, I think you just interact with a lot more people when you're single, because it's like, you've had a big meal, so you're not gonna, you know what I mean? It's that makes, yeah, you're just kind of getting it off from a person, which again, that's nice, but if you can get to Intel, for
[00:28:46] Cris: sure.
[00:28:46] So I talked to Caitlin before we talked. She wanted me to ask you to, to talk about her rule that ended up in your oh, the Caitlin rule. Yeah. And cuz that actually speaks to what we were just talking about a little. [00:29:00] You
[00:29:00] Sara: know? Yeah. So yeah, during one of our many conversations where Caitlin and I. Just like we were probably, I think we were like, yeah, we were like around 35.
[00:29:10] We were like in our mid thirties, just trying to sort it all out and, and really facing that and really talking about hashing out that question of I two picky, which when I was interviewing women for the book was definitely the thing that more, most women her or the thing that women heard the most was about why they were single was like, oh, you're too picky, which is kind of a nice thing to say in a certain way.
[00:29:30] Like, you know, you could have anybody, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so. We were talking about this question, like, are we actually too picky? And Caitlin said, I just wanna find someone who delights this surprises me as much as my friends, but I also wanna kiss. And I thought that is exactly right. And again, it's like the bar now is a lot higher for partners and for husbands and for it's just, you have to, why would you settle for anything [00:30:00] less than that?
[00:30:00] It's not. How much money that person makes or how their kind of car they brought. We didn't care about any of that. It was just like, we just, we already had these amazing friends. So why would you commit your life? And I said like so much of your social interaction to someone that wasn't as fun or sweet or interesting.
[00:30:23] It is the people you were already hanging out.
[00:30:24] Cris: It was such a cool. Thanks. We were talking about that. The other thing, cuz I I've added this little thing where sometimes I'll ask someone to ask a question for the person. And so she wanted to know if you could talk about, I think, guess you guys have had this conversation a little bit before, but that balance between you as the creative and then you as the.
[00:30:44] Like what she was talking about is you guys used to talk a lot about how to balance being that professional person or your creative life, and also wanting to find this partnership, possibly that, that kind of a thing. Yeah, because
[00:30:57] Sara: it was, it was kind of like a part-time job. It [00:31:00] could be, it felt like, I mean, there, there were times when you were just because yeah, Caly and I were both like we were doing.
[00:31:06] Dating apps at the same time. And it was exhausting. And I think Caitlin would be fine when we telling this story, she just said, she, she, we were talking about after the fact and she said, I remember at one point being sick and there was this party happening. And just thinking like, can't miss a party.
[00:31:20] Because there might be somebody there and it just felt, so it was a lot of, it was a lot of energy that was taking time away from our creative work, for sure. Was that because, and it, it was also, but in some ways it could also fuel it. It's always dating stories are easy to write because so often they're so gloriously awful.
[00:31:41] And then. You're writing about a person that you'll probably never see again. So in some ways that was easier. I mean, some ways writing about my life was a lot easier when I was single, because they're really like, I was, I didn't have to worry about violating somebody else's privacy, which is like, it's like a little harder, like as married [00:32:00] person to write about my own life because somebody else's life is very.
[00:32:03] Intertwined with that. So I don't know if that answered the question, but I did definitely use, as I said, when I was writing for glamor and for Cosmo. So I think that, that was the thing that as I was writing these stories, that was what was getting me to the point of like, you know, this is kind of all bullshit.
[00:32:22] Like this is just, we. Have our lives and some things go, well, some things don't go so well, some parts of our lives, we like some parts of our lives. We don't like, that's pretty normal. Like it's just because I have like a thing in my life that isn't going exactly the way I want it to doesn't mean that there is a problem with me.
[00:32:42] That just means I'm a human being because whose life is going, you know, perfectly and all. So, so I think that was part of like writing. All those stories definitely was what. Was making it click for me that there was no, there was nothing to
[00:32:56] Cris: figure out. Yeah, there is no, there is no solving a problem like Chris [00:33:00] or Maria.
[00:33:01] Yeah, yes.
[00:33:03] Sara: We're stuck with ourselves for
[00:33:05] Cris: our whole lives. And so is everyone else yeah. And I, and that's actually a pretty beautiful thing. Yes. What are some of your favorite misconceptions about women who remain single by choice?
[00:33:17] Sara: I mean, I think the biggest one is just that, that it's not a choice. I think that's the biggest misconception about it is that people still, because a lot of people I think are.
[00:33:28] Just are afraid. They're afraid to be alone. So somebody who isn't afraid to be alone is just baffling, I think. And, and that was always, and, and that's this whole idea, and I don't think it's said as much anymore, but I was definitely that whole, those ugly old stereotypes used to have she's D. It's just like, well, no, if I was desperate, I just would've married some dude that I was not that into the desperation.
[00:33:56] And this was something that, that there was the historian. Stephanie Coots talked about [00:34:00] desperation is hi, hiding your bruises when you go to the market, because you don't want anybody to know that your husband. Hit you, you know, desperation, you know, there's a, you know, desperation is like marrying somebody a lot older than you because you have to rely on him financially.
[00:34:16] And then, you know, and that's like, she talks about like historically most modern women could never even imagine being desperate the way that women used to be desperate, but even someone who just varies because. Are afraid of being alone, which is a lot of people that seems to me more desperate than saying no.
[00:34:34] And maybe sometimes it'll be hard to be alone, but I, it would be, I like this much better than that kind of desperation.
[00:34:40] Cris: We've kind of talked about this a little bit, but have you, have you kind of noticed the change in how remaining single is being perceived these days?
[00:34:47] Sara: I think so. It just seems like, well, well, as we were talking about before, there's just.
[00:34:53] So much more just nonconformity across the board, which I think is great that I [00:35:00]think that it does seem to me, there is just a lot less people it's a lot less hung up on behaving in a traditionally female way, a traditionally male way and doing things the way that our parents, and really just like for someone like me who was gen X was, was raised to think about things.
[00:35:18] So I hope so. I mean, There's never really a golden age for women. Is there, I mean, it just something, one good thing happens and then they, and they kill Roe V. Wade, you know, I think that it's things like the bad things and the good things are happening at once. But I almost wonder if I've been thinking about this a lot just in, in, just in general, not just about the issue of being single, but just, I spent a lot of my life thinking about.
[00:35:47] Why don't I measure up to whatever this standard is and why, you know, and deciding it, it's making me feel bad about myself, but now you just look out and see what's happening in this country. And [00:36:00] you think, how could I have ever felt bad about myself? Like, how could I have ever said, gee, I'm not really making it in this world.
[00:36:07] It's just look at who is making it in this world. It's depressing on one level. But I also think that underneath it, there is. Maybe it can also just help all of us get a little bit more out from under that lie of that being, having all the things we're told to be rich, successful, married parents, all of those boxes.
[00:36:32] We're supposed to chick tick that say like this person is a success. I think that we just keep getting example after example. Uh, why that's not it like, there's something else. There's something that that's not, those are not the measuring sticks that we should be using.
[00:36:47] Cris: Yeah. I mean, there. Like, especially when it comes to, I think a lot of people put being in a relationship, getting married, like all on a goal on a goals list.
[00:36:57] And I always find that super [00:37:00] interesting because you're setting yourself up for failure, you know, for feeling failure, if you know, and that's how another reason people stay in relationships too long too sometimes is. They don't want the specter of a failed marriage. And part of that's the way you're looking at it, it's this, that's how you're successful.
[00:37:14] It's on that list of how to be a successful adult. And I'm like, why don't you put that in the, the pocket of if this happens and it's making me happy, it's making me happy. You know, and to know that if it dissolves at some point, it was meant to be for the time period. It was meant to be. But yeah, the world itself.
[00:37:33] Country is a bit of a dumpster fire right now. And we're learning just how much control is more the culture. I think like who's being controlled. Who's being given more freedom than, than whoever's in charge wants. And how do they put that box back together that kept us, and I hope we're strong enough to break free of it.
[00:37:57] I do. I don't know if we are, but I hope so.
[00:37:59] Sara: Yeah. [00:38:00] Yeah. I hope so too. I hope so, too. I think that whatever happens it. And like I said, it's, it may just be a small comfort, but we can, I think at least it can start to at least break us free from this idea of that, whatever. I feel like I may not have. achieved in my life or whatever way that I feel like I am not measuring up to what society says is like a good life.
[00:38:29] It is. I mean, we can just, it's just so clear now that it's all bullshit. Yeah. Like it's just plain this day now. Yeah. I
[00:38:34] Cris: mean, what's important is, is figuring out what makes you happy. What's important is who can you be kind to today? You know, like to me, those are successes. Uh, you know, if I don't get another email about or message about my podcast, but that one.
[00:38:48] Touch that one person it's a success. Yeah, absolutely. If I don't go beyond 25 listeners, it's still a success and that's, it's a, I think it's healthier to live [00:39:00] that way, saying that, looking back at living unhealthily. For, you know, trying to fit into those boxes as we have. How important do you think you've heard a little bit about my film.
[00:39:10] There's also like Gina's book intra diaries that I met. I read your book. That's a part of that to me, you know, you're telling your own story, like how important do you think us telling these stories and being open is for women to see themselves, whether they're single or not, you know? Yeah. It's
[00:39:27] Sara: really important because I remember.
[00:39:30] Wanting that when I was single and really wanting to hear stories of single women who yeah. Where the happily ever after was not meeting a guy. I really, I was always hungry for that. And I used to get frustrated a lot of times when I would see a movie and I would think, oh, it's just like another movie where they solve the character's problems by giving them romantic.
[00:39:55] Partner mm-hmm , you know, and, and, and it just was like, it, it just, it got boring in a [00:40:00] way to me, just like, I, I want to see. More interesting stories about the way that people live their lives and figure out their lives and deal with all of the various challenges and difficulties we all face. And that just, if it's just, and then these two people met and that was it, that's just boring.
[00:40:18] This has
[00:40:19] Cris: been awesome. Um, I'm wondering, do you have any advice for our listeners, whether it's in like trying to become somebody who writes a book or from whatever. Part that you want, if you have anything to impart, I guess, you know, I
[00:40:31] Sara: think something that resonated that, that I said in the book that I think resonated with people, and this could fall into really, you know, about anything, but like if you were ever in a position for whatever reason, not this is sort of about dating of asking, like, what's wrong with me to maybe just flip the question around and say what's right with me.
[00:40:48] But it, it, cuz that was something that I came to at a certain point. I remember. I was out with some friends and it was kind of similar to what you're just saying. Like they were talking about their, um, [00:41:00] relationships and these guys did sound like assholes. They just sounded awful. And I just couldn't understand why they were putting up with it and I was walking home and I thought maybe there isn't anything wrong with me.
[00:41:13] Maybe there's something right with me that I'm not like gonna put up with that. So I, I just thought, like, you know, you know, the woman who didn't settle for. Perfectly nice guy that she wasn't into or the really hot guy, person, whatever, but who also made them feel like shit? Like that's something that's that's right with you.
[00:41:33] And I think that maybe I, I guess maybe it's it's to do, as I say, not as I did like that. I wish I had leaned into that more when I was single and stopped with the what's the issue. What's the problem that I need to fix, as opposed to just, this is, as we've been saying, this is who I am. And so take it or leave it as is
[00:41:51] Cris: I wouldn't beat yourself up for it.
[00:41:53] I think there's a lot of programming that both of us have had to undo and,
[00:41:58] Sara: and you don't have to beat yourself [00:42:00] up also. If, and this was a thing that I did beat myself up for too, is that because, you know, like I remember interviewing like Bella DEPA, who is a very big expert on being single and she was talking about how happy she is to be single.
[00:42:13] And the thing I said to her is just like, you know, I respect that I could never live up to that standard. I actually did wanna partner and that standard of being the like, and, and definitely around like 2000 or so, like when like the sex and the city thing of being the. Gloriously happy gloriously fulfilled single woman.
[00:42:33] That was actually hard for me too, to sort of like, because it's like, well, okay, so now I'm feeling it being single too. Like I can't even get that. Right. So I think that's also to just like, and I, so I think that ultimate message is just accept all of your complexities and the complexities of life. And if you are feeling sad and down, sometimes that doesn't mean that you are a failure.
[00:42:56] It just means you're a person. Like we all. [00:43:00] stuff. And, and it's just a matter of embracing all of the complexities of our lives and not feeling like we have to just be always telling everybody how happy we are and how great our life is. Cuz they need the moment at. Not so great. You know, and, and again, it's like, when you're like, when you're married, that pressure is awful lot.
[00:43:20] That's the, that's the other like, dirty secret is that like, people don't like, oh, you're married. Oh, and are you happy? Do people don't ask you that. And you say like, you're married and they say, oh, and are you happy? it's like, I, you know, cause it's like being married, being singles. Sometimes you're happy.
[00:43:34] Sometimes you're not happy sometimes, you know, you have good days, you have bad days. So anyway, I guess I kind of made that point, but that was something that I, that was a lot of what I wanted. Convey in the book was just to be honest about the times when, when I really was
[00:43:47] Cris: not loving things, it is it's about just becoming, and it's easier said than done comfortable in your own skin and comfortable enough to know that some days you're happy some days you're not, maybe you want [00:44:00] a relationship.
[00:44:00] Some days you might want one and some days you might not too. Right. It's not even about a life thing too. It can be, but day to day too. And I don't know, I think we're more, we're cooler to hang out with and. more beautiful as human beings when we learn that, do you have any questions for me? Which I turn the table on every yes.
[00:44:18] And you don't have to feel like you have to have one,
[00:44:20] Sara: I guess, what, what made you decide to start
[00:44:22] Cris: this podcast? You know, I'm trying to, I'm in the midst of trying to find the funding for my film. And of course, as you can imagine, it's not, it's a, it's a very new type of. Romcom, right. It's the complete antithesis of every romcom we've ever seen.
[00:44:37] So it's, it's difficult now. I'm finding a lot of people who do read it and love it and all of that stuff, but finding the money and the investor is hard. And so I took that also. As an independent filmmaker, you know, I listen to a lot of podcasts and you try to learn as best you can from things. And maybe I can do this to make it easier short circuit stuff, but [00:45:00] I've when it comes to this part of making a film, you get, you know, yeah, it was super hard, but we finally got the money and then we made it and you don't find out how that happened, right.
[00:45:11] Or what the ups and downs were. And I thought, what if I combine. What makes me me as a storyteller and this story, that's literally my heart's on every page. This is my story. Is it embellished a bit? Sure, because that's what scripts are. But at its core, it is a story about me realizing I am just fine.
[00:45:33] This is what makes me happy. And I want to be seen. And I wanna be able to communicate that and I want others to see themselves in that. So the podcast is, that's what it's about. It's, it's about at least having a vehicle to be able to talk about what we've talked about, but also about my journey as a filmmaker as well, because this film gets made or doesn't, and it's also, it's also, my story either gets told or doesn't right.
[00:45:58] And those are, those are [00:46:00] stakes in and of themselves, you know, and it becomes a process of cultivating patients. knowing that things that, that the, there is a timing possibly going on that I don't know about, you know, for that journey also, is there a timing about my message getting out there too? Is everything working in conjunction that I don't know about and invite people to that journey?
[00:46:25] So my journey of awakening to loving myself and loving where I am and how that intersects with me trying to. The story of that out there. That's why I've made the podcast.
[00:46:36] Sara: That's great. Wow. What a, what a cool
[00:46:38] Cris: thing. Hopefully people will start resonating with it. And if at some point I become, I wanna become undeniably the person who needs to make this film.
[00:46:50] That's my story too. And hopefully this helps that a little. . And so, but beyond that, I just wanna, I wanna make people know that whether they're a filmmaker [00:47:00] trying to make their own story or a young woman, who's trying to figure out if there's something wrong with her and tell her no, there isn't like to reach those people.
[00:47:07] That's my success for me for this or for my film is. Simply did, did somebody feel seen? Cuz that's what art good art should do. I think should let people feel
[00:47:16] Sara: seen. Absolutely. Yeah. Well then you've already achieved
[00:47:19] Cris: that. That's amazing. Thank you so much for coming. Sorry. This is a great conversation. I hope you thought so too.
[00:47:24] Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for tuning into bliss. Spinster. If any of these conversations are resonating with you, please subscribe on apple podcast. Google podcasts or wherever you get your podcast, you can find BLIS will spinster on Instagram and Twitter. And through our website, bliss will spinster.com.
[00:47:40] Again, thanks so much for joining me on this journey and until next week go find your happy, happy.