Women & Sex

Back in the Game

The first few years of a newly single guy's life are filled with agony, ecstasy and glimpses of the occasional hidden tattoo. Here are the life lessons one man learned when he ventured back into the market for his first time in a decade

By: Stephen Rodrick; Photographs: Mark Peterson
Published: April 2006   [ Updated: Dec 4, 2008 - 10:06:26 AM ]

My marriage ended with a whimper, not a bang. In 2002, after nine years together, my wife and I split up in the parking lot of a Gap in suburban Boston. Not that I didn't see it coming. There had been couples counseling, crying jags, and final chances. She wanted to raise kids in an insular seaside town.

I wanted kids, too: just in New York or L.A. At least that's what we said the issue was. We were two emotional Marxists, incapable of compromise, heading toward mutually assured destruction.

"It's just not working," she said.

For once in my life, I said nothing. My first thought was, A Gap parking lot? Sitting in a Nissan Sentra? C'mon, you can do better than that!

We rode home in silence. At the house, I threw some clothes into two duffel bags and laughed bitterly at the wallpaper I'd been peeling off our bedroom walls, prep work for a renovation that now would never happen. I tossed my CDs into a crate and packed up my 1991 Honda Accord for my move to New York City. I was fine for a while, then flopped on the kitchen floor, bawling uncontrollably. My wife wondered if she should call the paramedics.

Finally, I gathered myself and drove away. Five minutes later, she called me.

"Aha," I smirked. Second thoughts already!