On the 4/3 Commonwealth Club panel: Rachel Sarah, Jane Ganahl, Wendy Merrill, Jerusha Stewart, Sasha Cagen

What do you get when you bring together five single women writers and ask them to talk about the single state of the union? And what do you get when you bring together a single woman writer, a married Italian playwright, a U.S. Historian, and a Persian cleric and ask them to discuss “Too Busy to Fall in Love”? I found out over the last two weeks when I served on two panels–one at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and the other at the Conference on World Affairs in Boulder Colorado.

In San Francisco, at the Commonwealth Club, the “Single Women Tell All” panel we single women had power in numbers and the mood was upbeat. My favorite questions from the audience were:

What technological and social innovations do you foresee when single people cross over to majority status?

Are feminists OK with men being chivalrous and opening doors for them?

Fascinating story on single mothers in China in the New York Times . . Quirkyalone quote here: “I dont want to lower myself to staying with another person just for the sake of being together, Ms. Xie said. If that means I have to sacrifice a lot, so be it.” Read the full story here.

Coming soon is the realization of a long-held vision: a site called Quirkytogether.com where quirkyalones (and quirky people of all kinds) can meet for friendship, dating, and adventures of all kinds. We’re still developing the site and welcome your ideas. If you want to get involved in helping with feature development, let us know by emailing us at info AT quirkyalone.net.

Click here to sign up for the super-exclusive, invite-only beta and you’ll be one of the first to help establish the quirkytogether vibe.

Next week (April 7 - 11) I’ll be stretching my brain and speaking on a number of fascinating topics such as:

Too Busy To Fall In Love

Why Young Voters Care Again

Feminism: The New F Word

Why We Write

The Power of Facebook

Things We Wish We’d Learned in College: A List Slam

It’s all part of the 60th-annual Conference of World Affairs at Colorado University in Boulder. This will be the second year that I participate. I loved it last year. . . It’s an amazing community-intellectual event–super-stimulating and fun. All the events are free.

Here’s how the CWA describes itself:

“The Conference on World Affairs was founded in 1948, originally as a forum on international affairs. CWA expanded rapidly to encompass the arts, media, science, diplomacy, technology, environment, spirituality, politics, business, medicine, human rights, and so on. Roger Ebert, who holds a record of thirty-seven consecutive years of participation in the CWA, refers to the event as the Conference on Everything Conceivable.

If you happen to live in Boulder or are visiting come say hi. Here’s the schedule of panels I’ll be on, and here’s info on the CWA in general.

Romantic comedies can be sustaining for quirkyalones. When you’re single for a long time, fueling your singlehood with the belief that the one (or of course, one of the ones) might be out there, you need religion to continue to bolster your belief. That belief needs to be fortified, of course, by romantic comedies. All the better if the character who finally finds love is a long-single, cynical, self-sufficient woman who doesn’t believe it’s ever going to happen to her. I root for those characters so much more!

Last night I stumbled on such a movie. The Jane Austen Book Club. I love Jane Austen–especially Pride and Prejudice–I thought it would just be a soothing weekday rental. The synopsis: Six Californians meet in a monthly book group to discuss Austen’s novels, and find their own lives reflected in their plots. Maria Bello plays Jocelyn in the lead role, a long-single dog breeder who has a history of putting her best friend above her own romantic needs and meeting her emotional needs with her dog. The movie opens with an elaborate dog funeral! She has a line in the beginning of the movie that I just loved, “I’ve never been in love. I’ve had sexual partners.” I won’t spoil the ending for you, but of course, good things do come to those who wait (and lost faith).

Two years ago, the then 39-year-old actress Maria Bello, a single mother of a five-year old, told the New York Times in a profile, “George Clooney says hes a bachelor for life and everyone thinks its cool, she said. But if a woman doesnt want to get married, theres something wrong with her. That quote stuck with me too. I knew she was a quirkyalone then. . . She is totally radiant as a quirkyalone in the movie. Rent it, it’s my feel-good tip of the week.