"It’s not that I decided not to have a partner. I don’t have a partner, and it happened. It happened step by step."

"I always had somebody. And my therapist said, Have you ever tried to be alone for six months? And I thought, Well, yeah, that’s strange, I’ve never done that.... And so I said, OK, I’ll try six months. And it was a great serenity, I have to say. And so what was for me a six-month experiment to be alone became a year, two years, and then it extended to become 25 years. I didn’t want it, and sometimes I feel like it would be nice to have a partner. There are certain things I don’t do because I don’t have a partner.... Like traveling.... Or going to parties. Going to parties is the worst. Entering a party by yourself is the worst, because the most aggressive, boring person, they isolate you and talk, talk, talk, talk.... So I don’t socialize that way.... There are certain things that you regret. You regret the camaraderie — not regret, miss the camaraderie. But it didn’t happen. So it’s not a choice. It just didn’t happen...."

Said Isabella Rossellini, quoted in "How to Grow Old Like Isabella Rossellini/'How do I fulfill the rest of my life? That question came to me very clearly at 45, and I didn’t have an answer'" (NYTO

They made a movie out of that New Yorker story "Cat Person" — you know, the story everyone was talking about...

... the last time everyone was talking about a short story.

Remember? It was December 2017, and my first post on the subject was: "I was drawn in by the creepy close-up and started reading before 'Cat Person' became an internet phenomenon." Ha ha. I didn't want you to think I'd just follow a trend. I said: