Ladies and gentleman, I’m sure you can all agree on how people who cannot take the answer ‘no’ – at least on the relationship side of things – can be the most ignorant, stupid and insensitive people ever. Say no, and all of a sudden you are the
I swear, displaying yourself on the single side of things really does expose you too all sorts of insults. I’ve got friends who are single, whom I personally find to be quite bold and empowering, but to some, they’re just ‘too strong, too assertive’ and don’t forget the classic, ‘too feminist’. Its the old, ‘with standards that high, she’ll never find someone’, as though the individual actually needs someone to be happy. What kind of consciousness and ideals are we promoting here? If you have singly friends, by all means, please do not try to hook them up. Please don’t make it out as though they are underprivileged and missing all type of glory. And please do not pity them. I guess, some people thrive in secondary company whilst others do better alone. And perhaps, all you need sometimes is a supportive base of friends. Not a whole other individual to make things more complicated.
And this is not to make relationships sound like a pile of misery – I mean, there’s enough books and movies constantly glamorising love so I don’t need to write more on its benefits. But sometimes, single people are just looked at as boring, immature and childlike people. Either that, or as sluts. Well, I guess, at least that is how single people are looked at in this contemporary, millennial age but no doubt, the status of single women has been overly obsessed over for centuries. We almost cannot talk about single women without reference to sexual activity. The chaste, innocent and pure women is praised for her strong will but is yet critiqued as oppressed, and being caught up in this wider psychological patriarchal bullshit. What is up with this mentality? Why do we put virgin women on this higher status and why do men not receive the same slander? Some communities may also infringe backlash on their sons for their promiscuous behaviour but the response boys get is nowhere as bad as what girls get. And then looking at virgin women as being out of the norm? Congratulations for exercising your free will to be as sexually active as possible but do not use your liberty to infringe upon another’s free will to not have sex.
The widows are pitied, the divorced women are regarded as problematic and the single mothers are seen as welfare scrounged but how far does this mentality persist?
Whilst I have my reservations about 13 Reasons Why, and its probably even a poor example but the point I’m about to make just resonates with its wider themes. I mean, the only reason Hannah is regarded as a slut is for ‘banging’ so many guys, and even some viewers will regard her as a manipulative bitch for leading so many guys on. In some ways, I agree but in other ways she was simply being friendly and its mistaken as being flirtatious. But as girls, I guess we should talk to guys with the intention of knowing what their real intentions are. We should know better. There is an obsession for girls to be giggly and innocent, but as soon as they say no, they are bitchy.
And who knows? Maybe its my mentality that is part of the problem. Maybe I’m wrong and am subconsciously encouraging this men-hating culture.
But that’s not the problem. The obsession with the status of single women is unhealthy for both couples and single women. It is okay to be in a relationship but it is also okay to be single as we all need a helping hand at the end of the day. But there is no need to be boxed into either category because at the end of the day, we must first and foremost be most content with ourselves. We cannot raise ourselves with the consciousness of adjusting our entire personality for another individual.
This is not to assume all people in relations are overly clingy or needy. They can be healthy. Or to assume all single women as dominant, they have their variations as well. Of course, there is middle ground we just need move away from the tendency to box ourselves into categories.
Image Source: https://www.powerofpositivity.com/release-toxic-relationships/
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