Starting from Square Two Quotes

“You know,” Hallie said, “they make all these antidepressants. They should make a pill that stops you from loving the people you can’t have, and makes you attracted to those you can.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“We just have to accept that people are going to stay in our hearts, even when they don’t stay in our lives.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“It was too hard to fall in love with someone, learn all of their quirks and passions, assume you’d spend the rest of your life with them, and then suddenly have them snatched away forever.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“The true test of a relationship, Gert thought, is if you can tell someone the most boring story in the world about yourself, and they’ll still have something to add.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“Maybe we should all decide we’re going to meet the man of our dreams when we’re thirty-seven. Then we’ll stop squeezing into tight shirts and walking around half-naked and analysing every encounter as future husband material. We’ll stop feeling the need to put on makeup to take out the trash just in case he’s walking by. Maybe we should just assume that we’ll meet our dream man at some future point, and stop driving ourselves crazy before then.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“If you ask why I’m not interested in someone, I might say their nose is too big, or they don’t know how to dress, or they’re too thin or too fat or too plain. But the truth is, I only notice those things because of the real reason - that I’m just not feeling anything. But people don’t want to hear that. They always want an explanation. So I have to come up with something concrete even though feelings aren’t like that. If I did meet a guy and I felt happy with him for whatever reason, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass what he wore or how tall he was or what he did for a living. But when I’m with someone and it just doesn’t feel right, that’s when I start noticing the bad haircut or Chicago accent or unibrow. And it’s true that tomorrow I may go home with someone who you think is totally wrong for me. And the next day I might meet a perfectly nice guy who you think I should feel excited about, but I don’t. But if I do go home with someone, it means for a change, something feels right. For a change, I’m feeling hopeful. I just want to feel happy when I’m with someone. Is that so wrong?”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“I think that when people get lonely, they try to find someone to blame. But there isn’t really anyone to blame. It just takes a long time to find the right person.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“There was all the time in the world now – plenty of time for self-analysis, for self-doubts, for regrets. Being part of a couple meant you fit somewhere, that your cracks and erosions were hidden to the rest of the world. When you suddenly had that ripped apart, the hidden blemishes were exposed like cross-sections of a log.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“So there’s a spiral death trap of dating. When you’re with someone, you look happy and relaxed, and thus, a lot more people than you need are attracted to you. When you’re sulky and alone, no one is attracted to you, and thus, you stay sulky and alone.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“There are no single guys who don’t have at least one major flaw, and a flaw, I might add, that would stop you from dating them – even if everything else was great. Why? Simple math. Women are interesting and honest and sensitive. Most men are not. There is only one normal, decent single guy for every five women in this city. This is what’s known as the Great Male Statistic. Girls don’t want to face the GMS. They want to believe there’s someone for everyone. The truth hurts. You only start coming to terms with the GMS when you’re twenty-six or twenty-seven. It actually killed Sylvia Plath. She finally found this guy in grad school who she thought was so great, and she married him, and he cheated on her.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“You don’t believe it because you don’t want to.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“When I was nineteen and I didn’t have a boyfriend, I never felt bad about it. Because I figured someday I would. My friends and I had plenty of fun alone. What ruins the fun is the fear that you’ll be that way forever.”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two

“Gert knew they were only trying to help by dragging her out. Everyone was always trying to “help” – like the people who told her that eventually, it would hurt less, or that she was strong and she’d move on. But they had no idea how many times per day she heard expressions, songs or references that reminded her of him. Every time something bad happened to her, or she felt lonely, she thought of him on impulse, as she’d done for most of her adult life – and was reminded again that he was gone. They’d met sophomore year of college, so that was eight years or 2,920 days of memories she had to suppress in order to even feel remotely okay. Didn’t people understand that?”
― Caren Lissner, Starting from Square Two