Worldwide Onelers: Afghanistan July 3, 2009
Posted by Onely in Dating, Food for Thought, Great Onely Activities, Honorary Onely Awards, We like. . ..Tags: afghanistan singles, extreme ways to get a date, international singles, npr morning edition, single privilege, women's rights
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In this NPR Morning Edition broadcast, an Afghan woman randomly dialed numbers until a young man picked up at the other end. Over several weeks they exchanged multiple giddy phone calls, talking about their lives and eventually becoming boyfriend and girlfriend–but always and only over the telephone. Eventually their calls tapered off, but for a while they defied the convention in Afghanistan, where according to the broadcast single men and women just don’t mingle.
I got to thinking how privileged we all are here in the U.S. (and other places) to actually have a choice of whether to be single or not. Sure, we may complain that our choice of singlehood is not respected (and it often isn’t!) but we are still empowered enough to be able to say, “I don’t need a significant other right now” or “I choose not to date right now”. If that choice were forced upon us, we would enjoy it a lot less. After all, being Onely or Quirkyalone or Singlutionary means more than just being happily single–it means knowing and respecting yourself enough to decide what you want regardless of what society tells you to want.
And that’s why I’m making Random Number Calling Woman an Honorary Oneler. Congratulations, Random Number Calling Woman! We wish you luck in your future dialings!
Copious Readers, what extreme measures have you taken to win a mate and how do you feel about those actions now?
–Christina
Onely.Org 
“it means knowing and respecting yourself enough to decide what you want regardless of what society tells you to want.”
Make sure this goes into the dictionary the next time they revise 😉
I have never taken any extreme measures and therefore have no story. But then again, my extreme measure would be going out to a place filled with singles by myself.
HA! Yeah. Oh, excuse me, Mr. Webster. . . ?
CC
Webster? Me? hehe no way. I think it’s a great definition though 🙂
“extreme” measures may be the wrong word, but through out adolescence and early 20s I definitely “wooed” my man by cooking, by praising his strengths and helping him plan his life (e.g. when to wake up, when to buy laundry soap, when to take a vacation). I was practically his mom.