How to Be Single

　　Julie是紐約的一個出版公關，她爭取到一個出書機會，訪問各國的未婚女性，了解各國單身適婚男女心態、如何調適單身的生活等問題。在城市與城市之間，Julie發現在不同的文化及社會下，單身的男女的心理及文化差異。從法國、澳洲、峇里島到北京、印度。雖說男女平等，然而在各國的婚姻市場似乎只有北歐是真正的男女平權。書中穿梭各式各樣的都會愛情故事，疏於經營而破裂的婚姻、女性老是找不到有肩膀的男人、失戀男性的崩潰、老是在超市搭訕的男子，Julie自己也成為介入別人婚姻的第三者，經歷一段心碎的愛情。在經歷不同的婚姻及愛情故事之後，不論你現在是否有伴侶，總之「相信奇蹟」，深信未來會更美好，這是Julie所找到的答案，或許是愛情這門學問的唯一解答。

　　Fed up with New York City’s dating scene and depressed by the marital failures of her friends, thirty-seven-year-old publicist Julie Jenson travels throughout the world to learn how women from other cultures cope with being single, while her friends back home struggle with their own romantic foibles.

RULE 1

Make Sure You Have Friends

How Georgia Is Single

＂I JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN! NOW THAT IM SINGLE I JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN! YOU SINGLE PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS HAVING FUN!! WHEN ARE WE GOING TO GO OUT AND HAVE FUN?!!!＂

She is screaming, screaming at me on the phone. ＂I WANT TO KILL MYSELF, JULIE. I DONT WANT TO LIVE WITH THIS MUCH PAIN. REALLY. I WANT TO DIE. YOU HAVE TO MAKE ME FEEL LIKE EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY! YOU HAVE TO TAKE ME OUT AND REMIND ME THAT IM YOUNG AND ALIVE AND CAN HAVE LOTS AND LOTS OF FUN! OR GOD KNOWS WHAT I MIGHT DO!!!＂ Dale, Georgias husband, had left her for another woman two weeks ago and she was obviously a tad upset.

The call came at 8:45 in the morning. I was at the Starbucks on Forty-fourth and Eighth, balancing a cardboard tray of coffees in one hand, my cell phone and this conversation in the other, my hair in my face, grande mochaccinos tilting toward my left breast, all while paying the nice young twentysomething at the cash register. Im a multitasker.

I had already been up for four hours. As a publicist for a large New York publishing house, part of my job is to cart our writers around from interview to interview as they promote their books. On this morning I was responsible for thirty-one-year-old writer Jennifer Baldwin. Her book, How to Keep Your Husband Attracted to You During Pregnancy, became an instant bestseller. Women all around the country couldnt buy the book fast enough. Because, of course, how to keep your husband attracted to you during your pregnancy should be the main concern for a woman during that very special time in her life. So this week we were making the prestigious morning show rounds. Today, The View, Regis and Kelly. WPIX, NBC, and CNN, so far that day, ate it up. How could you not love a segment showing eight-months-pregnant women how to strip for their men? Now the author, her personal publicist, her literary agent, and the agents assistant were all anxiously waiting for me in the Town Car that was parked outside. I held the lifeline to their caffeine fix.

＂Do you really feel like you want to kill yourself, Georgia? Because if you do, Ill call 911 right now and get an ambulance over there.＂ Id read somewhere that you should take all suicide talk seriously, even though I think all she was really doing was making sure I would take her out drinking.

＂FORGET THE AMBULANCE, JULIE, YOURE THE ORGANIZER, THE ONE WHO MAKES THINGS HAPPEN -- CALL THOSE SINGLE FRIENDS OF YOURS, THE ONES YOU ARE ALWAYS HAVING FUN WITH -- AND LETS GO OUT AND HAVE FUN!＂

As I continued my balancing act toward the car, I thought about how tired that thought made me. But I knew Georgia was going through a difficult period and it would probably get much worse before it got better.

Its a tale as old as time. Dale and Georgia had kids, stopped having regular sex, and began fighting. They became distant, and then Dale told Georgia he was in love with a twenty-seven-year-old whore gutter trash samba teacher, that he met at Equinox. Call me crazy, but Im thinking hot sex might have had something to do with this. Also, and I dont want to be disloyal, and I would never even suggest Georgia was at fault in any way because Dale is an asshole, and we hate him now, but I cant resist saying, Georgia completely took Dale for granted.

Now, to be fair, I am particularly judgmental about the Married