People sometimes ask me why I’m still single, and every time someone asks me that it confuses me. It’s like as though when you’re a certain type of woman, you have to have a man to qualify you as socially acceptable. If you meet everyone’s standards of what a girl with a boyfriend is (beautiful, fun, sexy, loving, approachable) then it almost seems like the universe in itself is out of balance when the answer to your relationship status is “Single.” It’s as though they’re looking at you, waiting for you to sprout horns or a third eye so they can figure out what’s wrong with you and say “Yup, that’s it. That’s why she’s still single.” You want to know why I am still single? Because I choose to be. There’s plenty of women on campus just like me who could pick up a boyfriend tomorrow if they really wanted to, but simply choose not to cause no one really strikes their fancy.
It seems like today’s society is so driven on persuading women that they need to have a man. That without one there’s just a part of their life that’s just not whole; they’ve just not achieved all their goals in life. You see it everywhere, in magazines, commercials, films, shows, music videos—a woman’s completion is attained when she bags herself a man who’s completely smitten with her. If she never does she’s referred to as a spinster, if she chooses to date out of her prescribed age she’s a cougar.
If she’s desirable but chooses to give men a hard time she’s a ball-breaker. If she’s successful and independent, she’s intimidating; the dragon-lady waiting to have her flames doused by some man who’s going to come along and convince her that she really wants to iron his shirts every morning, and make his chicken dinner. It seems like society’s cure to “female singlehood” is a good, sturdy man who’ll wear the pants in the relationship during the day, and turn her into a blazon sex-goddess at night. It’s positively ridiculous. Since that’s the drug society’s selling to “cure” me, I’m not buying. Neither should you.
There’s nothing particularly wrong with being in a loving relationship, in fact in my past I have experienced the sort of love that makes you feel so connected to a person that their love is the axis around which your world revolves.
Love and commitment are both blessed things. What I want to get rid of is the idea that if a woman is single, she’s only single because no man has seen fit to scoop her up yet. I want to advocate positivity and respect towards women who are single like myself, and knowledge that they’re not miserable, desperate, sex-starved or slightly diabolical. There is no cure to prescribe to the women like me who choose singlehood because we are not ill. We are not empty, we are not forlorn and we are not afraid to uphold our ideals of who we should be and what we expect above those of society. I wish to say to my fellow women, if you are intelligent, strong, courageous, funny, wise, brilliant (which most of us are) never feel that because you are single you should feel as though something is missing.
To be a woman is to embody strength, wonder, beauty and wisdom. You don’t need anyone’s stamp of approval in order to be proud to feel complete in yourself.
Philippa Hatendi can be reached at phatendi@ut.edu.
i know…but being a girl i can’t really speak on behalf of guys.
though i do realise that guys go through the same pressure..i believe that its not so much cause male singlehood is glamourised up to a certain age. whereas female singlehood never seems to be.
Being a guy I totally agree with you and Ur situation but remember u r not the only one there r some guys out there which go through the same situation…..