It’s nice to know that some of the things that were true at 23, are still true at 29. Although at 29 I have become so used to hearing the phrases listed below, they no longer agitate me. What agitates me these days is when the the man across from me asks …
“Anne, how is it you’re still single?”
What follows is my stand out blog post from 2006. I remember the events that inspired it well.
The place was at the Pizza Cafe at the Schonell Theatre, and the people were a group of newly found friends and fellow social work students. Over pizza and beers I bonded with an amazing woman who would later become the flatmate that famously proclaimed – “Annie, you know I never liked him. His shoes were much too pointy. You just can’t trust a man with shoes that pointy”.
(I have also snuck in a second post that amused me greatly, never a truer word was spoken)
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Club Single
Posted on by Anne
Recently I have been coming to grips with the fact that it is ok to be long term single. And that the reason I feel bad about it sometimes is the result of a cultural expectation that we should be experiencing a multitude of intimate, sexual relationships in our late teens and early twenties. Because I don’t experience this, I am made to feel that I have ‘missed out’ on something and therefore there must be something wrong with me.
There is nothing wrong with me.
These days instead of feeling sad about being single, I feel angry that I feel sad about being single. It has been an interesting personal development.
I have been discussing these issues with fellow ‘true blue’ singletons (1) and many of them agree with me on some level. But what I have found most amusing in discussions with my ‘peeps’ is what people say to console us about being single.
I present this list on behalf of single people everywhere, it is a list of the incredibly useless and patronising things people say to us. This list is by no means definitive, so please, feel free to add more in the comments section.
- Don’t worry, you’ll find someone.
- Perhaps your standards are too high.
- It’s just not your time yet.
- You’ll find someone when you least expect it.
- There is someone very special for you out there.
- We need to find you a man. NB: this statement is often followed by the threat of the set-up.
- When you’re not looking for someone, that’s when you’ll find them.
- You just need to be more confident in yourself.
- Perhaps you’re just not putting yourself out there.
To those who are part of the supportive friendship networks of single people everywhere – when single people bitch and moan about being single, and we do do this when under the influence of alcohol, please don’t say these things. They don’t make us feel any better. What we really want is validation. We want to bitch about the total utter lack of prospectives or, as my mother would argue, that all the people we’re interested in must have some kind of mental defect because they are not interested in us.
We do not want suggestions that indicate that being single is our fault, that there is something wrong with us, that we’re not trying or that we’re too stupid to ‘find someone’ by ourselves. No one can control attraction and the way others feel, and being single because you just want to be with someone you like and are attracted to, is not a bad thing. Most single people these days don’t need to ‘date’ someone for companionship. We have friends, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m flat out finding time for them, let alone finding time for some unknown entity of the opposite sex.
*cough*
I will end this rant for now, but this is something that has been on my mind lately and I feel it needs to be said, even if it is just on a two-bit personal blog.
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(1) ‘true blue’ singletons – individuals who have been single for one year or longer. This term excludes interlopers rebounding from previous relationships who fall straight into new ones.
Sage Advice
“When you meet someone, who you like right away and you think is the best person you have ever met – don’t fuck it up!” - Emily, a fellow social work student.
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contemplative