Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
Una of the images I’ve used most often, writing a column about singles for years for Corriere della Serais that of Noah’s Ark.
A single, I have always reasoned, is the one who remains on the ground when the universal deluge breaks outwhen all couples join hands and save each other.
In reality, with that image, I didn’t want to represent what would happen in the event of a catastrophe, but rather what happens to singles every day. There is a whole series of situations in which, if you are such, “you don’t get on board”.
An example? If there is a dinner between couples, you are not there. And, if you are invited together with other singles, maybe you end up at a special table for singles. If you are single, you are not entitled to deductions, deductions because what you earn you do not share with anyone. Without thinking that even fixed expenses are shared with someone, and so on.
Having reasoned in this way, I never imagined having to brush up on the Ark metaphor in a situation more similar to the biblical one: not a flood but a pandemic.
My question two years ago, when it all started, was: “And now how do we single people get on?”. The obligation to shut up at home immediately marked a watershed between those who, like me, should have done it alone and those who, instead, at least as a couple.
And the hypothesis of becoming seriously ill had immediately created another between those who, like me, would have to find someone who would keep an eye on him in a possible intensive care unit and those who would have had him without effort.
The image of a Noah’s Ark sailing without us singles had come true. But today we are here, at the tail (hopefully) of this tragedy. Noah’s Ark empties and not all couples descend by the hand. It happens.
Conversely, many singles who have faced the waves by keeping afloat, like Rose in Titanic, attached to the same raft and building up courage, they have a new awareness. Which is not the one for which “being as a couple is not worth it”, but rather that “Being single does not necessarily mean being alone”.
I wrote it ten years ago as a bet. Today, having experienced it on the skin, I can confirm it. With a smile.
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