“It sounds funny when you keep using that word.”

“What, bachelorette?”

“Yeah. It makes me think of bachelorette parties and like, penis-shaped cocktails.”

Mechanic has been traveling more than usual. I’m not very good at it. (See previous whiny post for further self-focused details.) And when talking to my bestie Amber, I described it a few times as another week of living that bachelorette life. That makes it sound fancy instead of the reality that it is, which is me staring at the dogs and having a one-sided conversation of “We’re fine, we’re having a great time, this is fun!” while they judge and disagree with me silently.

“Well, yeah, but it’s like a bachelor. But I’m a lady!”

“I’ve never heard anyone use it that way.”

I hadn’t thought of it until she mentioned it, but “bachelorette” and “bachelor” don’t seem to be interchangeable. A bachelor pad is a home that a man chooses to live in solo and fill with, I don’t know, smoke-scented ascots and duck busts on mahogany desks. A bachelor has his pick of every lady in town and a differently date every night.

A bachelorette? She wears a skimpy dress, a sash with “Future Mrs!” on it, has a feather boa, maybe some naughty and anatomically correct headbands and a 24-hour Wooooooo face. She doesn’t live alone in a loft of fabulous books, a stash of strawberry-scented bathbombs and date a different gent every night.

She might, actually – but that’s not what we would call her. I can’t think of a name for a woman who chooses to live alone, actually. There are plenty of old-fashioned ones – spinster pops into mind – that I think have fallen out of fashion, but they haven’t brought any hip new names in as replacements.

Words reflect our society and I can’t help but wonder: Is the lack of parlance because a woman living alone isn’t seen as a popular-enough choice to have a name? I think we need to come up with a fancy word for the women who happily live solo – and apologize to them when I occasionally co-opt it for my own whiny needs.