Stop the Madness! Onely’s Top Ten Reasons NOT to Get Married… January 9, 2009
Posted by Onely in "Against Love"...?, As If!, Food for Thought, Heteronormativity, single and happy.Tags: bunko, matrimania, single and happy, stop the madness!, weddings
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Hi everyone,
As I mentioned in my previous post about heteronormative wedding cards, part of my holiday madness included attending and participating in the wedding of one of my good friends. Every time I go to a wedding, I can’t help but count the many reasons why I never want to get married (and/or have a wedding). This one was no different — and because my friend IS a close friend who also happens to like to control everything in her life, the reasons I normally have against weddings seemed magnified in this case.
So, in the spirit of all of us who feel justified never wanting a wedding of our own, Onely presents … “Stop the Madness! Top Ten Reasons We Never Want to Get Married”: (more…)
Great Onelies in Real Time: Shanaz (YOUR RESPONSES REQUESTED) January 8, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought, Great Onelies in Real Time, Heteronormativity, Profiles, Your Responses Requested!.Tags: gay, haircut, homophobia, iranian politics, lesbian, single, singlism
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This evening my hairdresser and I talked about being Onely. Shanaz likes men but is more interested in friends, her hair artistry, her daughter, her writing (Persian language commentary on Iranian politics), and just life. “I’m happiest without a boyfriend,” she says. At forty-something, she’s been married and coupled and single and even accidentally involved with a married man. And she chooses single.
But you know what’s coming next, don’t you? (more…)
“No Fun Being One!”: Pop Culture, Scourge of the Onelys, Part 37.423x January 7, 2009
Posted by Onely in "Against Love"...?, As If!, Heteronormativity, Just Saying., Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, Singled Out.Tags: 123greetings.com, hallmark, industry, matrimony, thank god i'm single, wedding cards, weddings
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Hi everyone,
I’m back after two long weeks being busy with friends and family. During my many travels, I made a stop in St. Louis to participate in a good friend’s wedding. Every time I go to a wedding, I find myself enumerating the many reasons why I don’t want one of my own. I’ll post more about this later this week, but I first want to describe my experience looking for a wedding card to include with my gift for the wedding. 
It was late Friday night, after the rehearsal dinner and a couple glasses of wine, and I stopped in at a Walgreen’s to find a card in a hurry. But as I looked through them, I found I couldn’t make a decision quite as fast as I’d hoped, because nearly every card contained a decidedly anti-Onely message, some version of either 1) Good riddance to the single life!, or 2) Cheers to the beginning of a “new” life!
Love and the Single Wallet January 5, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Dating.Tags: christian dior poison, dna dating, gene partner, pricing discrimination, scientific match, single dating, singlism
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Copious Readership, how much do you judge your date by their smell? I’m not talking about those awkward moments involving halitosis, or “But I didn’t play raquetball hard enough today to need a shower,” or Christian Dior’s Poison. I mean the actual body odor underneath the bacteria.
Do you think that scientists can analyze daters’ DNA to match them with genetically compatible significant others? The theory goes that we are attracted to partners whose immune systems have key differences from ours, (more…)
The Spurrious Rhetoric of Singlism January 2, 2009
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought, Heteronormativity.Tags: Abby o'reilly, bella depaulo, Dr. Pam Spurr, New Scientist, seepie, single in denial, singlism, the f word
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This great article by Abby O’Reilly talks about old-school stereotypes against single women. O’Reilly critiques some interesting rhetoric by Dr. Pam Spurr, “alleged sex and relationship expert at the Daily Mail” and, frighteningly, a life coach. (I forget which blog originally led me to the O’Reilly post, but whoever you were, thanks!)
Spurr espouses the notion, so prevalent in singlist society, that if you say you are single and happy–you’re lying. She bases this grandiose generalization on the “thousands” of single people she has life-coached.
She doesn’t seem to realize that her data set is inherently skewed, because usually only people unhappy with their relationship status would approach Spurr about the issue in the first place; what about the thousands–or millions–of happy singles who never use Spurr’s services? Or worse, what if a happy single were to go to Spurr about a different life issue and in the course of discussion happen to mention she was single, and Spurr were to hit her with this, from Spurr’s article in the Daily Mail: (more…)
DID YOU KNOW? (Coming home Onely) December 8, 2008
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought.Tags: cats, coming home alone, singlism, surprise party
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Welome to the latest (and by that I mean the first) installment in Onely’s DID YOU KNOW? series.
DID YOU KNOW that no one likes coming home to an empty house?
Yes! It’s true! This was according to an E-vite I received, to a surprise party for my friend who was returning from an extended business trip. “No one likes coming home to an empty house,” the E-vite said, reminding us that my friend’s wife would be out of town during his return, and encouraging us to show up instead so that there would be people waiting in his house for him when he came home from the airport. I was a tad perplexed, because there are few things I like *more* than coming home to an empty house. As much as I love my friends, I also love walking into my foyer, smelling the unbreathed, unstirred air, and putting my bags down in the middle of the rug and either lying on the floor or making toast and feeling the grime of travel roll off me (After a 24 hour trip, doesn’t your grime roll? Or should I see a doctor?).
Copious Readers, if you were coming home from a long flight, would you want to have friends jump out at you from behind the couch, or not? Put your answer in POLL A:
I know it’s dangerous to put a cat joke on an singles blog; that’s just asking to perpetuate the stereotype. (more…)
UnOnely Pleasures: Country Music December 3, 2008
Posted by Onely in As If!, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, We like. . ..Tags: alan jackson, country music, lonestar, progressive, richochet, sexist, single, toby keith
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It’s ok to like something even if it’s unOnely! Some of my best friends are unOnely. And some of my favorite music is country. I have three country music stations programmed into my car radio. Although independent-minded female singers with progressive attitudes are edging aside the good ol’ boys, the genre is still steeped in old-school heteronormative rhetoric. And I find myself rocking out to even the worst of it. Ignoring for a moment the philosophical issue of whether one can actually “rock out” to country music, here are some catchy tunes with lyrics you don’t want to listen to too closely: (more…)
Film Review: The Aviatrix November 20, 2008
Posted by Onely in As If!, film review, Reviews.Tags: cancer, happy ending, single and sick, superhero, the aviatrix
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OH no no no no no no no
I started this video with high hopes. A young woman with cancer draws herself as a body-armour-clad superhero and imagines fighting another woman in bright red body armour, who represents her cancer. Their fights, in a desert, rocky, otherworldly landscape, are interspersed with scenes from the woman’s life in her little suburban cottage. There is true-to-life tension with her mother, a true-to-life assholish doctor.
And then there’s the sensitive, funny lawn mowing guy. (more…)
Degree in Coupling, anyone? November 3, 2008
Posted by Onely in As If!, book review, Food for Thought, Reviews.Tags: Ellen Byerrum, Jim Lehrer, Mary Kay Ricks, PhD, Stephen Goodwin, Susan Fraser King
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On Saturday, I attended a luncheon at the Fairfax Country Club (there is no way to not make that sound snooty–but if I say the event raised money for scholarships, does that help?) where Susan Fraser King, Ellen Byerrum, Mary Kay Ricks, Stephen Goodwin and Jim Lehrer talked about their recent books and about writing in general. All the authors were entertaining speakers and I left lusting after each of their books.
However, the hostess in her intro made an interesting unOnely remark: (more…)
The Onely Oath October 29, 2008
Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought.Tags: Nick Bakay, oath, pimples, single versus married, zits
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I was reminded of our post about couple zit-popping by this segment of Nick Bakay‘s amusing married-versus-single post:
SINGLE: No one will ever know you spent the weekend watching a “mannix” marathon.
MARRIED: Someone to pop those hard-to-reach back zits.
Onely.Org 