Onely.Org

Onely Commits Amatonormativity Twice In One Conversation December 20, 2014

For a blog that for years has been waving its bloggy arms and screaming about how our world is largely set up for couples, especially hetero couples, and about how they are privileged at the expense of other kinds of loves and families (this is what we mean by amatonormativity, sometimes also called heteronormativity), we at Onely sometimes screw up and act just as badly as the people, governments, and organizations we critique.

And by “we”, I mean me, Christina. I don’t believe my coblogger Lisa, who is much more in tune with peoples’ feelings, has ever been so gauche as myself.

But first some background, in defense of my recent episodes (yes, plural!) of amatonormativity:

–For years my friend Natasha has been looking for the love of her life. The perfect man. She’s suffered many breakups, after one of which she told me, “He was my everything!” When I explained that, in fact, she also had a cat and parents and siblings and friends and a house and a job, she gave a surprised little “O!” with her mouth in that same shape. As if that had never occurred to her.

–For years she talked about how she was tired of being “alone”. For years I tried to talk her out of this need she felt to be part of a couple. Find yourself first, I said. Just do things you like and be happy and it will happen. Go on the internet if you are truly in a hurry. It increases the statistical likelihood that you’ll meet someone compatible (or get killed). Lots of my friends have met this way (and even lived to get married).

Eventually I just stopped trying to Onelify her. I started wishing she would find a stable boyfriend. (That is, opposite the one in college who played basketball and one night said he was being a snippy asshole to her after one game because his team had lost, and they had to act sad and upset.) She was crankier when she was single. If she was single and I wan’t, then she got crankier at me. Then she wanted kids. I wished she would find a partner because obviously it was important to her. My bloggy diatribes about living single and confident and proud were not for her, and I finally accepted that.

SO then the other day we were talking on the phone and Natasha said she was going to an Italian speaking meetup that night. So I said, “Great!”

Do you think there will be any eligible bachelors there?

(First, who still uses the term “eligible bachelors”? Me apparently.)

Natasha was silent for a moment. “No, it looks as if it’s mostly women. But I can never make enough good girlfriends.”

Huh? Who are you and what have you done with Natasha?

I
attempted to engage this bodysnatching alien into more conversation, in hopes of tripping her/it up and revealing what planet it had come from. “What are you doing for the holidays?”

The Natasha-thing said she was going over to her best friend Marie’s house to celebrate Christmas with Marie, her husband, and her husband’s cousins. And then I committed amatonormativity again.

Do you think either of his cousins are eligible bachelors?

Natasha was silent for a second again. “Well, probably not, because they’re women.” And Boom! One of the most progressive voices in the singles’ movement (if I may say so myself, having been interviewed on several radio shows and Huffington Post and published in books and Atlantic.com and, well, “etc”) had committed both amatonormativity and sexism in the same sentence!

I asked Natasha if I was being as annoying as I sounded to myself, and she as nicely as possible said, yes I was. Turned out she had, at some point, become all Onely and sh&t.

Well, good for her. I guess I won’t introduce her to my strapping, swarthy, multi-millionaire cat-loving cousin then.

–Christina