Let me tell you: it’s pretty easy to be cynical about relationships at 32. Also? Cyclical! As in you keep dating the same idiots. Fortunately, I’m more the former than the latter, and also? I don’t even OWN a ladder.

I’m actually feeling pretty damn cynical this week. About a lot of things, really — which I’m fighting with all my might and a Nerf bat — but mostly my possibilities for love in this century.

I mean, I love a lot of things and a lot of people. I’m a veritable love dispensary, really. A tap of love, a fountain of love, a well of love… a love geyser!

(Um, ew.)

But romance is not on the immediate horizon. Wait, could the horizon be described as immediate? Or does that seem not horizon-y enough? Like, could you really call a sunset close? What I’m really trying to say is NO. MAN. FOR. MEG.

So, okay.

What now?

Should Meg immerse herself in tawdry literature, emblazoned with the slightly-raised strapping young lads (the images are slightly raised, you perverts) in the hopes that she’ll distract herself from her less tawdry life? Should Meg torture herself with a steady diet of love songs and tear-jerking films in the hopes that she’ll occasionally experience a moment of cathartic release? Should Meg rant entertainingly about how much the opposite sex robs her of her will to groom at every possible opportunity, turning into a live-action version of a Cathy cartoon? Should Meg tart up like a Candace Bushnell character and hold lunches in which she cracks wise with her vivid, quirky, uberneurotic galpals? Should Meg conversationally and textually relive all the highlights and lowlights of her dating history, in the hopes that she will learn a lesson… a lesson — yes! — that will push her closer to total self-knowledge a.k.a extra-dateability? Should Meg dwell in the valley of the shadow of spinsterhood, just to scare herself into lowering her standards and potentially dating a lesser Baldwin?

I SAY NO.

I’m flipping cynicism AND stereotypicality AND emotional mooshygooshytude AND pathos AND b-list celebs the proverbial bird!

I WILL FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT. Whether or not it results in a good man.

In fact, here, for you, my blog readers…

Meg’s Love Manifesto (As of October 12, 2006)

1. I will not spend! any! more! time! comparing my life to the lives of my married friends! They got married! That’s awesome! I love their husbands (NOT LIKE THAT)! But being married is NOT THE PRIZE. Sharing your life with someone you enjoy is the point of ANY of this and I don’t need a ring to know I’ve done that, or to prove my worth.
2. I will not pursue any avenues of romance that involve application forms, approval processes, or chatspeak.
3. I will not spend any! more! time! making mental lists of all the things men could possibly figure out about me that would make them less inclined to date me, and more inclined to run screaming into the arms of, say, Mothra.
4. I will eat as much garlic as I want.
5. I will not edit my opinions to seem less like a firecracker.
6. I will not fear reunions and social events like weddings because I don’t have a boy in a suit to bring along.
7. I will not let what one man — or any man! — told me about my worth or my appearance allow me to believe that every other man on the planet feels the same!
8. I can enjoy all the things I would enjoy with someone I’m dating BY MYSELF. I don’t need some man sitting on my couch to make a great dinner or go to a great play or see a fabulous movie or go for a hike to a scenic peak or lie under the stars. I just should DO stuff because I’m YOUNG, I’M SHORT, and I WANNA.
9. I will love men unabashedly for who they are, because men? Are amazing.
10. I will worry about my finances and my financial decisions not in connection with some master plan designed to make me seem responsible and profitable to Jim the Stockbroker, but rather what makes ME feel secure, and what works according to MY priorities.
11. I will laugh and laugh and laugh and make other people laugh. Because, in love or not, life sucks without that.
12. I will not write lists of attributes I’m looking for in a guy. I just won’t. Instead, I will work on being a good listener and a good friend and a great girl so I’m everything I would want to bring to the table. And so I can enjoy life if I’m sitting at that table alone.
13. I will choose someone I can love, not someone who will “make the cut” with everyone I know.
14. I will NOT tear my body down verbally. I will give it food and sleep and good-smelling lotions and take it to the doctor when it #$%# well needs it.
15. I will remain in love with love and all the things love brings, because it’s great. It really is. To experience, to observe, to remember, and to look forward to.

And that, my friends, is freaking well THAT.

#$%@ cynicism.

That’s so 2002.