I spent my thirties and forties in a fog of marriage and mothering and, later, just making ends meet. By the time I was 50, I wondered what happened, where it all went. I was determined to make the rest of my life, the second half, as I always thought of it, matter. And for the most part, that’s the way it went. My genes were sturdy and my parents were both in their mid- nineties, so it didn’t seem like such a stretch to believe that I too would be long-lived. Of course I had to make some concessions for those later years. I knew that after my mid-eighties, I might not be inclined to travel much. I would have to do it all in my sixties and seventies while I was still young-ish and reasonably spry. Have you heard? Sixty is the new forty.

Along the way, I’ve learned that the process (and the problem) a lot of girls go through as they mature is that they learn how to behave rather than how to live. Most are more insightful and more socially conscious than I will ever be. But these are the same women, often, who wouldn’t think of going to the theater alone or taking themselves out to dinner. Apparently, independence is not a desired trait of female behavior. Their mothers or grandmothers lived through the feminist era so I don’t know where all that went. But go it did. A lot of girls today are just as insecure in themselves as we were back in the fifties. Maybe that’s just a phase of growing up and the difference is that society (read men) has too much invested in our never outgrowing that needy stage. Or it could be an evolutionary aspect of luring a mate. Men do always go for a damsel in distress, don’t they? Clearly, I missed that lesson. When I am in distress, I keep it to myself.

Nonetheless, I’ve taken some great trips, done some unlikely things and laughed a whole lot. When I seek out the counsel of women, of course I look to those who have done something, made something happen, and what I find is that many of them were lesbian. Perhaps that lends credence to my evolution theory. Or maybe lesbians just have more to prove. I don’t know. One thing I do know for a fact is that nobody can beat a lesbian for inner strength and a can-do attitude. I would love to be one if I wasn’t innately averse to the thought of intimacy without men. They have their charms. Men are also good to have around the house as they often know how to do things that I do not know, like mowing lawns and cleaning the roof. All things considered, I wouldn’t mind being in partnership with one, so long as he “got me” and agreed to leave me alone when I wanted to be left alone. Or, of course, I could learn to hammer nails and change flats myself but I consider those unnecessary menial skills in a world too full of eager masculine helpers.

I don’t think people give men enough credit – or enough of the blame. They can’t be as simple as we are led to believe. As it is now, men don’t like to talk when they don’t feel like talking, don’t understand things they don’t want to understand, and, generally, seem to think they are gods. I think we should hold them more accountable. At the same time, their self-proclaimed god-ness cheats them into assuming responsibility for wars and all manner of other inhumane behavior. In a typical relationship, it is the man who has to decide where to go, what to do and how to do it. Then he even has to pay for it. They carry a lot on their shoulders, truly, and the weight of it too often turns them into raving maniacs, impotent addicts of one sort or another, or suicides. Women should definitely carry more of the baggage in most circumstances. We get off pretty easily in a lot of ways, and we get to reproduce other human beings.

It is possible that men and women were never meant to understand each other. In a Marvel Comics kind of world, that sort of coming-together might lead to some kind of bizzaro lifescape from which we could never escape, that of two alien creatures bonded together by a mutual goal of world dominion or having someone interesting to talk to. There’s definitely a lot of gray area, however, where we could narrow the chasm just a little and still be safe from that dreaded other dimension. Where is it written, for instance, that women don’t like the Three Stooges - or guns and trucks for that matter? What I’m getting at is that it’s so much learned behavior. We all, men and women, need to broaden our horizons a little. And that includes me. For sure, I would be a lot better off if I learned to change those flats and hammer those nails but, truthfully, the more drudgery I can skip the better. I wasn’t made for the dull physical chores that make up the weekends of most suburban middle-aged men. And it’s true. All the nonprofit boards of directors, all the charity drives, all the volunteer occupations – as well as most non-competitive sports leagues – are made up almost exclusively of white women. The men are all home performing chores. And watching TV or playing video games. One can’t blame them for wanting some respite from the drudgery. Social consciousness is a women’s game.

I sit on a citizens advisory committee and when we were tasked with achieving a more diverse make-up, we were hard pressed to identify any non-white and/or male candidates. The one exception was a couple of gay men who sat on the committee for a brief period and then wandered away in the pursuit of other interests. I’m not sure why philanthropy is so white and so female. I wish someone would tell me.

The same syndrome is at work in writing groups to which I have belonged. I just finished a six-month workshop that was a bootcamp for memoir writing. There was not one man or a person of color in the mix. The same occurred when I recently participated in a Writing with Horses session in which we all sat around in a paddock full of horses writing extemporaneously. Not one man was there. I don’t get it. Don’t men like to write? Don’t men like animals? Of course they do. It’s just that, for whatever reasons, those pursuits don’t seem manly to them. Go figure.

So, not surprisingly, that leaves me in a bit of a pickle, doesn’t it? Where am I to meet men when they are all at home working around the house or snoozing in front of the TV? I’ll have to think of something “masculine” to engage in, like a fly-tying class or plumbing 101.  But non-credit classes are also the domain of women. How am I supposed to meet my goddamned prince?

But let me get back to my original point, the art of living versus behaving. I am not a uniquely independent creature who has somehow surmounted the trappings of conventional femininity. Not by a long shot. As a child of the fifties, I don’t claim to know or do things that other women are incapable of. It’s not that simple. Rather, as I touched on earlier, I am lacking some essential “something” that makes up a woman in our society.  I can’t believe that I don’t attract men because I am uglier or fatter than all other women. I am neither. Men seem to shy away from me out of fear or at least discomfort. And there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s just me. I continue to hope that some man will come along that finds me delightful the way that I am. And he's going to have to be quite the specimen, I must say, because I don’t suffer fools. Other women seem to have an intuitive ability to read people. Hence, they know how to behave in order to have friends, attract men, find career success, etc. I am missing that elusive sense. I just am who I am with everyone and, I must confess, it does not serve me well.

But the bottom line is this: I believe I am happier living my life as I am, alone, than I would be in yoke to some average Joe. Shouldn’t every woman be able to agree with this statement? Plainly, they do not. This is the essence of my different-ness. I can’t understand why bright and charming females get partnered up with dullards, brutes and the afore-mentioned fools. The obvious answer is a lack of self-esteem, right? Can women really think so little of themselves? The answer is a resounding yes! It’s not just their choice of mates that supports this, it’s also the reason many women are so afraid to step out on their own. I’ve often been on trips where women who were part of couples felt so badly for me travelling solo that they would invite me to tour with them, eat at their table, or “use” their husbands for some activity or other. I find this stupefying. Women are neither feeble-minded nor weak. I don’t understand the advantage or the pleasure of being coupled with another person who always gets to take the lead. Don’t these women ever want to start the conversation or decide where or how to live? Don’t they ever want to lead the dance?

So I travel alone, without men, in an effort to maximize my experiences on the road. If someone asks me a question, I answer it. When there is a decision to be made about where to go or what to see, I choose an option. I do not wish to be spared the inconvenience of bargaining for goods or interpreting the lingo or taking the blame. It is my trip. Therefore I take responsibility for all its facets. If something goes wrong, that’s okay. And, when things go right, my heart sings. I’ve come to believe that one can only truly travel when alone. Just going along for the ride doesn’t count.

Linda Caradine is a Portland Oregon based writer whose work has appeared in The Oregonian Newspaper, TravelMag, the Free State Review, RavensPerch and other journals. She is currently working on a memoir.