How Long is Too Long?

How long is too long to have been completely and absolutely single? Is it a couple months, 6 months, a year or five?

After a while does your ability to successfully be in relationships go bad like old milk?

I've been asking myself all these questions, plus many more, after several conversations I've held with male acquaintances over the past couple months. It never fails that I meet a guy and one of the first questions he asks is, "when is the last time you were involved with someone?" After the twitch in my right eye subsides and I've mulled over whether to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, I reveal an answer which apparently is quite unbelievable. It never fails that once I explain my situation, I'm met with looks of disbelief and a gamut of related questions that I often have no answer to (ie. but why have you been single so long?).

For all of you all who read my blog, you know I've been single for a long ass time. Longer than I think is reasonable but hey, it is what it is. But what I really want to discuss here is whether there is a length of time that just seems ridiculous for a young, attractive, sane person to spend with no serious object of affection?

And what about serial monogomists? I refuse to leave them out of this conversation. I know a couple people(all women) who can't seem to be single for longer than a couple months. You know the ones; every time you turn around there's someone new that they are absolutely smitten over. Dependency issues much? Isn't something just as odd about that?

I'm honestly used to hearing my girlfriends talk about being single for extended periods of time, so it's not an odd thing for me to hear. I'm actually more surprised when I meet groups of women who are in actual relationships. That may sound dramatic but I figure it's just a consequence of being a professional woman living in a major city where men often find the odds in their favor.

What's even more interesting to me to me is that nobody is surprised when a man says he's been single for a long time. A dude could be like, "I don't even remember the last time I had a girlfriend" and people would just be like "oh". For a woman to say the same thing is totally taboo. All of a sudden there must be something wrong with her; why is she fighting something that comes so natural to her. I figure this is because societal norms catagorize women as being relationship seekers while men are expected and encouraged to play the field for as long as humanly possible.

With that said, is the length of acceptable time spent in the "single zone", before people think something MUST be wrong with you, different for men and women? Should it even matter how long someone has spent riding solo?

Discuss.