After staring for too long at a man at the playground as our kids ran thither and  yon, seeing no ring on his hand, and exchanging one pithy line (“Does your daughter go to Longfellow?”  ”Yes, 4th grade.”), I came home and looked him up in the school directory. Married. At least, as of last August he was sharing a residency with a woman of the same last name. But he was staring – I swear. I’m dense about such things, so if I notice, I figure someone is truly staring. 

“God,” I blurted to a friend on the phone an hour later – being sure to shut myself in the upstairs bathroom out of my kids’ earshot, “I just want someone to fuck me!”

She laughed. In a similar situation, she agreed. But, she said, you need to find someone who is going to be nice to your head and your heart, too. I harrumphed: “Well, that’s not going to happen because there aren’t any men out there who can do that!”

“You’ll probably have to work through that belief until you can find someone,” she sagely proffered.

I don’t LIKE being down on men. In fact, I find it exhausting. And I cherish the good moments with men that I share and observe – my neighbor who has selflessly  helped me re-do my kitchen;  my self-effacing, kind boss. But, still, I find quotes like this one from a sociologist on why the rate of single mothers in the U.S. is sharply rising to be a learned confirmation of my worst fears:

“While this news is not surprising, it is sad. Kids lose out on fathers. Women lose out on husbands. And men lose out on the one institution — other than the military — that can pull them out of their extended adolescence. All of it reveals how little our communities actually expect from us anymore.”

Communities of women still expect a lot from each other. I find the bar that is set among my female friends to be admirably high. And kids, of course, expect the world of us. But men? Not so much. And I think the sociologist hit the nail on the head when he used the phase “extended adolescence.” That’s very much what Alex’s African boondoggle strikes me as.

In one of the many repetitive conversations we had before he left  -  me not believing he was going, him not really understanding what all my fuss was about – he said, “You can go somewhere when I get back. I’d be happy if you’d go somewhere for a few months. That would be great.”

I could have kicked him. I DON’T WANT TO GO ANYWHERE! I shouted more than once.

Sure you do, he’d say, and then he’d proceed to name places where I could go that I would surely love. He was right about the places. What he didn’t get – never on a gut  level – was that I cannot and will not leave my kids for that long.  Parenting isn’t something  you do as the spirit moves you:  This week Provence, next week the second grace teacher-parent conference. It’s a day by day, hour by  hour commitment. Because I will not leave my kids, much as a month in Paris sounds inviting, he has had the luxury to do as he pleases. I envy his freedom, but I don’t really want it. What I want is a partner who does his job. Oh, and a decent fuck.