Walls, Great and Otherwise. Or, TL; DR

Guess what today's topic is...

Go on....

Today, I joined a group of wonderful people for an awesome day of hiking on the Great Wall, and, you know what?  I think you know exactly what I want to talk about today.  Solo Travel.

Here is a picture of trees to keep you engaged.

According to my FitBit, 217 floors of stairs today.

(Actually, that is a bit of a misleader.  Already, if you skim this post and see a lot of poorly edited rambling, you might be deciding to just skip this post.  Well, if you do or don't, I'm adding some random pictures of today's hiking trip.  I ended up at the Gubeikou section of the Great Wall today on a lovely, sunny day.  So, you know.  There is that.  Anyway...solo travel as a segue point into the larger idea of just... solo living. Or, as I refer to it later, How To Die Alone Without Really Caring! Again.  I DID add pictures.)

Just look at those clouds!

I dress funny.

Let me start by saying, I can appreciate relationships.  I get the appeal. Skipping to the end a bit, if you live alone, you know you are probably going to die alone, and isn't that just cheerful to think about?  When you get older, you are not going to have that special person to reminisce with.  I am not going to have children who visit me or make sure I am okay.  And in between now and then, there is to much to be said about having someone to share the experiences, the expenses (I am nothing if not romantic), and excitement with.  Honestly, I think if I had a choice in the matter, yeah.  I would love to be married off with someone who shares my interests and would be a partner in this adventure I am on.  Hell, I have thought several times since I was still in public school that I probably would have been a good mom.  Pretend there is a shrugging emoji here. It's probably not going to happen.

Like a lot of other people out there, I just don't... I don't feel like I form strong bonds to people outside my immediate family. I think I am friendly enough.  I smile and wear pink which, according to True Blood, makes me seem pleasant enough.  I know I am willing to do pretty extreme things such as having over a large sum of cash without expecting it back or getting in my car in the middle of the night to drive out of state to pick up a friend.  So, I don't think of myself as having some antisocial disorder.

This picture almost matches the topic!

 I'm normal.  I'm well-adjusted.  I stay to the right, don't shoplift, and understand the rules of basic curtesy.  I just don't, when push comes to shove, want to be in a relationship myself, and I imagine a lot of people, not a majority, of course, but a lot of people nonetheless, don't want to be in one either.  At the end of the day, though, where you have been, what you have seen, and why you left don't seem to be as valued as who you were with.  The idea of a solo traveler is almost fetishized with the amount of websites devoted to the topic or movies like "Wild" (confession: I haven't seen it.  Just basing this or the trailers and the buzz).  How exotic!  How brave!  You went ALONE?

Well, damn.  For a lot of people the choice is just go alone or don't go. Why the Hell is this so interesting? Every time I see a "Tips for Solo Travelers!"  where it says the same crap over and over again ("Trust your gut!" "Do your research!"  "Keep you head" "Be wary of what you tell strangers and who you go off with!") I just think, A) d'uh.  This is true in ANY situation, for the most part and, B) Who the fuck gets paid to write this same crap over and over again?  Just tell me some hotels or tours that don't charge a single supplement!

I was the fastest person in the group, today,
so I got to be alone and get pics without people!
Which, again, almost fits!

This photo totally adds to my topic.

Which, in a round-about way, this brings me to the next little topic that some people seem to associate with solo traveling, hooking up.  I have met a lot of solo travelers who enjoy this activity.  It's a sport, really.  For many guys or gals on the road (or whatever), it's easy to pull people.  I mean, for all the reasons you can think of, it is really easy to get a leg over for most folks I meet even if, in their hometown, they are an L.B.H. (Loser Back Home).  I really am trying to think of someone I have meet who didn't have an overseas fling.  Maybe K., actually. Now this is where I really make an effort to distance myself from other solo travelers because, while I think I have very modern and healthy attitudes toward sex and sexuality, it's not for me.  No thanks.  Just like avocados and onions, I understand that a lot of you folk like it, but I'm...just.. not interested.

And that's okay, obviously, because here is the part where I think some people might still get a little confused. This isn't celibacy.  This isn't abstinence.  This isn't the end result of years of child abuse or a dramatic evening in the back of some guy's Buick.  It's just chemistry and hormones.  One of the things that solo travel has most given me is a better understanding of myself to the point where I think I am becoming rather pedantic in my no-mercy Atheism and waving my purple, white, grey, and black flag.  It is also a very weird feeling to most identity and define yourself by saying what you are not.  A-thesistic.  A-sexual.  A-seafood loving. Who does that?

And who brings a camera but forgets to pack the SD card?

A few more pics I liked from today...

It seems silly, and maybe I am putting too much time into this, but I'm thirty which means most people my age are popping out kids, getting married, and building lives with the people round them.  People in their twenties wander, and then you start seeing people in their mid-forties who are able to get out and do a bit of exploring.  The people in their 30s?  Not a lot of solo folks on the bus, let's just say.  So today as I chatted with a great E.U. couple living in Singapore, a French couple taking time off to explore China for a month, a guy and his wife living here in Beijing, and a Canadian couple with their daughter who just graduated from uni visiting Dad who is working here for a few more months, I couldn't help but spend a little time today thinking about this pairing off we tend to do.  This is one of the things I am still trying to wrap my brain around, and solo travel does provide a lot of time for soul-searching and self-reflection as your distractions options inevitably will fail you when you most need them.  Why do I feel like I so desperately need to be in a relationship when I am happily choosing not to be in one?  Humans are weird.  Insert the obvious metaphor about building walls to keep people out here.  I've got nothing left to say on this one tonight.