The Quirky Alones/Solo Survivors

So it was when I chanced upon Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics by US writer Sasha Cagen while holidaying in Boston. How to smuggle such an embarrassing title out of the bookshop, short of setting off the security alarm? Stoically, I approached the counter where the saleswoman flashed me an empathetic smile. Crisis over.

A tip: buying self-help books is easier when you're away from home.

Something about this hardcover had grabbed me. Published last year, it coins a new term to describe a contemporary type of soul-searching single: the quirkyalone.

"I am, perhaps, what you might call deeply single," Cagen had written. "Almost never ever in a relationship. Until recently, I wondered whether there might be something weird about me. But then lonely romantics began to grace the covers of [the] TV guide ... from Ally McBeal to Sex and the City.

"We are the puzzle pieces who seldom fit with other puzzle pieces. Romantics, idealists, eccentrics ... in a world where proms and marriage define the social order. For the quirkyalone, there is no patience for dating just for the sake of not being alone. We want a miracle. Out of millions, we have to find the one who will understand."

Cagen's argument is that loners - routinely derided as weirdos - are often the most romantic people of all. "There's no doctrinaire way to be quirkyalone," she tells me later, over the phone from San Francisco. "Everyone brings to it an appreciation of independence, of high romantic standards - not settling. Valuing close friendships as well, you're not doing that thing where you get [partnered] and leave your friends behind."

Cagen invented the phrase after a New Year's Eve party in 1999. She had surreptitiously scanned the dance floor all evening, scoping out candidates for the fabled midnight kiss. By midnight, it dawned on her that hardly anyone was kissing: maybe coupledom wasn't so prevalent, after all.

She subsequently penned a magazine article and received heartfelt reader responses suggesting she had struck a nerve.

Since then, a slow-burning social movement has sprouted. Inaugural quirkyalone summer camps were held this year in Canada and the US. February 14 has even been designated International Quirkyalone Day. The most recent event was celebrated in 24 cities including San Francisco, New York, London, New Delhi and Sydney. Quirkyalones mingled at house parties, part of a growing trend of platonic networking - another example is the website

Why schedule the event for Valentine's Day? Was it an act of petulance by a bitter, seething single? "Well, it is provocative but in an ironic way and to provide people with an alternative," Cagen says. "In the US, we have a lot of anti-Valentine's Day parties which are [more like] pity parties, you know, 'Let's sit around and feel sorry for ourselves.' Quirkyalone Day is the opposite, an opportunity to celebrate the opportunities that single people have."

The defining quirk of a quirkyalone is refusing to enter a relationship for the sake of one. "If I find myself in a relationship, then that's a happy coincidence but it's not crucial to my overall contentment," says Andrea*, an Australian quirkyalone via an online forum. "Someone once said that a partner should complement, not supplement, your life. I like that philosophy."

Quirkyalones remain single for different reasons. For some, such as Sam, who lives "happily with two cats in suburban Perth", solitude doesn't equate to loneliness. She is relieved to have ended a string of dysfunctional liaisons with "clingy" men who didn't respect her space. "Basically that was the undoing of all the relationships I've had. I've always thought we could have made it work if we'd been next-door neighbours instead of living together."

Many quirkyalones aren't up for the tribulations of dating, while a lot are just pathologically picky. "They don't want to waste their time," Cagen says. "A lot of quirkyalones I know have really close friends. They're so comfortable with them and enjoy their time that the idea of spending time with someone [else] is just not a necessity."

The quirkyalone ideal, she believes, is a close friend "you also want to make out with". Surely, though, there is pressure to compromise if this ideal is unattainable or one's friends are pairing off without you?

"A lot of them get divorced," Cagen jokes, "so I guess you can kinda wait for that to happen. In any city like Sydney or San Francisco, there's a constant regeneration of single people. It's important for singles to have single friends that you can go out with."

Quirkyalones are a paradox. They enjoy bittersweet solitude yet believe in the possibility of magical personal connections. This can cause them to lose their bearings when they think they've met a kindred spirit: the experience happens so rarely that they panic. "A friend of mine, she's the most independent, self-sufficient person and then she goes through a romantic obsession with someone she wasn't even really interested in," Cagen says. "Everything sort of grew out of proportion and she became totally obsessed - her whole day was spent emailing and sending text messages."

Promoting one-in-a-million connections is arguably irresponsible. Partners are often works-in-progress, a point Cagen concedes. Still, she advises quirkyalones to remain true to their high ideals rather than date people they're not attracted to. "It's important to push yourself and give someone a chance if you don't feel immediate bells, whistles and butterflies. [But] quirkyalones are people with strong gut instincts and they're always going to trust that."
*Not her real name.

ALONE BUT NOT ALARMED

A confession: I sometimes go to see films alone. When I told my friends, a couple of them admitted to the same thing. Fancy that, I thought: all of us stumbling around in the dark with our popcorn - perhaps at the same time in the same cinema. "You have this fear that there's something odd about it," Cagen says. "But it's incredibly empowering when you do things you really want to without worrying about co-ordinating with someone else."

Typical quirkyalone behaviours, it seems, include dining solo in a restaurant - uttering the terrifying words upon entry: "Table for one." Parties can be difficult: they tend to stick with friends or talk avidly to one new person at a time. "Very occasionally, insecure couples can act diffidently, as they prefer to interact with other couple units," Andrea says.

Otherwise, quirkyalones enjoy reading, baking bread, people-watching in parks, wandering the streets by night, typing furiously on their laptop in a crowded cafe and even hopping aboard trains and travelling where inclination takes them. There's always the chance of romance while flirtatiously fobbing off a CityRail fare-evasion inspector.

Many Australians participate in the online forums at