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Quote by Deborah Copaken

“An American “epidemic of loneliness,” it’s being called, in research papers, the press, even on an official U.S. government website. Two in five Americans are unhappy with the relationships they do have. One in five Americans feel lonely and socially isolated. Loneliness, these researchers warn, is as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes a day; can lead to suicide, Alzheimer’s disease, and other dementias; messes with our immune and cardiovascular systems, and more. Loneliness, in other words, is killing us. So every night, like a bedtime prayer, I open my apps and swipe.”

Quote by Deborah Copaken

Work

Ladyparts

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Author

Deborah Copaken
Deborah Copaken

Deborah Copaken is an American author born on March 11, 1966. Her works span across various genres including novels, non-fiction, and children's literature, earning her praise from readers and critics for her unique perspective and emotional depth in her writing. more

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“I wished I was blessed with the talent of poetry, of coaxing words into a sonata of the soul where I might sing my pain, my gratitude, my meager, little happiness, into the echoes of the universe and maybe, hopefully, people who feel the same might find this song and find comfort in it and, for an inch of a moment, we'd be together; a virtual community beyond tech platforms, across space and time. But I'm no poet.”

“Online dating is not bad. Just tedious and mediocre. It's like going to the karinderya and they've got plenty of ulam (viands) but you don't fancy any of the ulam. Or you see something you like but it's overcooked or has too much oil or too little flavor. Bland and tasteless, a drink that doesn't refresh, a meal that gorges but doesn’t sate.”

“Order gives birth to constants, and constants yield expectations. When two people have unprotected sex and both are fertile, and the sperm reaches the egg, the woman gets pregnant and a baby is born. There is an order to things and thus, a reasonable expectation can be made. That’s what two decades of school teach you. Do things a certain way, and you’ll get the results you want.” She gulped her beer and sighed. “But life is different. It doesn’t work that way. And dating is the stupidest mechanism of life.” “Why is it the stupidest?” “Because the rules are all fucked up. You do one thing, supposedly the ‘right’ thing, and you get a different result, which is usually no result.”

“The myth of the perfect stranger is something I learned from committed women. Every one of them seemed to hold this deep-rooted belief that someone, some stranger out there, will give her whatever she was looking for. All I had to do was fulfill that fantasy. And when we didn't stay longer than half a day together, the illusion was easy enough to maintain. For my part, I also enjoyed playing the role. It's quite the ego boost to hear a woman, with glazed eyes and labored breathing and numb legs, tell you she's never experienced that. Meanwhile, her boyfriend or husband called in vain, ignored.”

“I was taught to prioritize what's "important"; food, water, children (Being the eldest among our siblings, I was taught to watch out for the younger ones). I was taught that the important stuff wasn't shiny; it involved logistics, practicals, survival. Only the necessary stuff to get by. Style, beauty, self-expression, affairs, superficiality — these are luxuries in my world. I could barely afford to eat lunch, much less buy clothes or get my hair styled in a salon. My family couldn't afford cable TV so I never watched MTV to learn the latest trends. So when I started high school, I had no regard for appearances. This is how I learned, the hard way, that maturity has no place with teenagers who could afford to have fun.”

“Colonel Aubertin and his two colleagues sat on a park bench in the private garden of Dorset Square. Rougemont sat between his two superiors, pleased that for once the commandant appeared to have had an abstemious lunch. “Major Vane-Stewart was telling me the other day that this was once the site of the first important cricket ground in London, established by the same Thomas Lord who later built the famous ground that bears his name, a few miles to the north of us in St. John’s Wood. There is a plaque recording this fact in that shed over there. In the middle of the square.” “Cricket.” Angers spat out the words with disgust. “A stupid game played by idiots. Only the English could invent such a boring name.”