Shingles does not involve the roof of the mouth as is commonly thought, nor does it primarily strike roofers or chimney sweeps. What it does involve is the same herpes virus that causes chicken pox. Sneaky and selfish, the virus lies dormant for years before painfully reappearing, the way a former child star sitting at home watching reruns returns to TV to talk about bulimia, or the way a whorehouse subtly posing as a massage parlor for 20 years is ingeniously discovered by authorities.      

Far more people suffer from shingles than is reported in the press, even though the subject comes up often enough in casual conversation. A coffee shop chat can touch upon the subject as swiftly as a skilled pickpocket picks then pockets a toothpick from his teeth: “That’s a great jacket…  How long have you lived here?… Your hair looks really soft, what brand of shampoo do you use?… I’m saving up for a Lexus… Are you single?… I asked if you were single, not if you had shingles… Do you like getting caught in the rain?…” Daring diatribes regarding public art can also skirt shingles: “Did you see that graffiti on the newspaper vending machine in Market Square? I was so distracted by it that I spilled coffee on my culottes, lost control of my Hummer and smashed into some publicly sanctioned art—a road sign with random phrases on it—which struck a building, displacing several shingles. Graffiti is destroying America.”

Even more underreported is the extent to which singles use shingles as an excuse to get out of dating someone. How many times have single women, after asking a guy out for a drink, gotten a lame excuse for not wanting a second date: “It was nice having a butterscotch latte martini with you, but I just remembered I have a girlfriend and she has shingles, so she really needs me.” Why can’t a guy just say, “I don’t want another date with you. No, it has nothing to do with shingles, I just don’t like you.”

There are other ways shingles confuse and torment singles. If a guy sees two girls bickering, he may assume Lesbeterianism is operational, when they may only be reacting to the blistering pain and itching of shingle tissue. He thus deprives himself of becoming less single by dating one, and then—if the girls have talked over when dating a friend’s ex is appropriate—dating the other (and maybe later re-dating the first one, or forming a threesome, which allows one to retain almost as much active singleness as a devout runaround). How many blissful chemistries have come undone this way? Have abruptly, tragically parted, as though two sexy ships passing in the night on the verge of hooking up were suddenly transformed into a pair of ragged claws scuttling in opposite directions across the silent seas toward the nearest singles bar? How many peach-fearing, lonely men in shirtsleeves and women with arms that are braceleted and white and bare and/or wreathed with seaweed red and brown have, due to ignorance of shingles, measured out the rest of their unnecessarily single lives with coffee spoons? And how many ugly “Cheaters” episodes might have been avoided if poor spellers understood “single” and “shingle” were not synonymous? How the hell should anyone presume under these circumstances?

This report does its part to correct basic shingle misinformation. What the public desperately needs, in addition, is extensive 24-hour coverage of singleness: how to tell if you or someone you know is single, how to tell if a guy or girl at a singles event is actually married and/or has a bad personality, how and when to tell someone you are dating that you used to be single, whether to dump someone with shingles down by the seashore, etc.