Is my enneagram number the reason I’m still single?

So here’s the situation. I turn 35 in four months. I haven’t been in a relationship or even dated anyone in nine years, which, depending on your worldview, might seem really sad to you. But let’s pretend you’re not a Lebanese grandma. Or a Lebanese taxi driver. Or any Lebanese person for that matter. 

I’m going to say something that might possibly make me sound self-absorbed, but I don’t at all mean it that way: I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of rejection over the years, and I just do not understand why. I mean, I have my sh*t together, I’m reasonably attractive, I’m emotionally low maintenance (holler!), and while I very much enjoy the finer things in life, I’m used to paying for all of that myself. So why are the men making themselves scarce?

Is it because I’m also decisive and willful and honest? Is it because I don’t approach the negotiating table already having reduced my demands? Or is it because I’m not easily impressed or controlled? I swear, I must have a “bugger off” sign on my forehead that I did not put there.

I was absent when my work colleagues went through an Enneagram training in which they all took the test to identify their numbers. Apparently I didn’t need to be present to take the test, because basically everyone immediately identified me as an 8 (“the challenger”). I guess I’m not an enigma. 

I suppose I didn’t do myself any favors by moving to a Middle Eastern country in which men love blondes but not necessarily blondes who challenge them. When I first arrived, everyone told me to brace myself as I was sure to get lots of male attention. Two years on, I barely get side glances. Which honestly I’m okay with, because it must get really tiring after a while. Not that I would know. 

I’ve been on two dates in these two years. One with a man who is perfectly good and decent but not at all my type, and one with a guy who is entirely my type, but perhaps imperfectly good and decent. If you’re that second guy and you happen to be reading this, I’m still interested. I don’t want someone who is squeaky clean, just someone who is real and who won’t fall off his chair the moment I ask him a probing question. 

Also, please tell me you don’t live with your mother…

Enough.

Two more mass shootings in which a maladjusted young man takes up his gun and goes on a rampage because he’s angry about something. Just another day in America. Just another round of media outcry, political farce and societal theater. 

I’m going to say what basically every other country is thinking right now: America, we have forfeited the right to mourn mass shootings. 

Why? Because when it comes down to it, we simply refuse to change. These senseless tragedies keep happening and we keep feeling acute pain and sorrow - for about two minutes - and then we shrug our shoulders and move on. So as long as our people and our politicians insist on keeping gun ownership legal, I don’t want to hear about it. 

Are we going to actually decide that it’s worth sacrificing what is now practically equal to a human right to bear arms for the good of our nation, or are we going to continue being a people who values its privileges above its principles? And I’m especially talking to you, American Christian who claims to love Jesus yet insists on conflating the Bill of Rights and the Bible. Get your head out of your ass and start actually bringing heaven to earth as we were put here to do. What does that mandate mean to you?

In the words of my uncle during one of his eloquent rants: “Innovate, or shut up.” 

I'm done.