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So I Know This Great Person. . . January 28, 2010

Posted by Onely in Everyday Happenings.
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12 comments

Why do people try to matchmake? Is there a proper way to matchmake? What are matchmaking faux pas? I’m not decrying matchmakers in general. I myself have introduced at least two couples, one of whom (or one of which?) got married. However, in neither case did I accomplish the setup by saying, “Hey, you’re single–I know this great other single person!” Instead, I saw one friend who had a common interest with another friend, and I introduced them from that angle.

My coworker took a different approach. Talking about needing to “find his friend a woman”, he said to me, “You’re single, right?” I would have preferred, “Hey, I have this friend who likes kittens and yoga, so you two would get along–you’re single, right?” I might have even agreed to the setup, for a fun outing. But instead I flinched inside and said, “Yes, single, and happily so.”

“Happily?” he said, and I swear his eyes got wide.

“I don’t really have time,” I said. This statement, while true, was a strategic blunder.

“Time? You work four days a week!” True, that. But I work four days a week because of health issues. I don’t want to share that fact with the office. As I deal with my body issues, I use up a lot of emotional resources that are therefore not available for a romantic relationship.

I didn’t say this to my coworker. I said, “I have other things I have to take care of.” (Pause while he stares with his round blue eyes and I feel as if he sees my four-hour weekend naps and disapproves.) “I like to concentrate on my writing. My Arabic classes.” True, that, also. But why did I feel the need to defend my choice? Am I not allowed to have unstructured free time unless I’m trying to fill it with a boyfriend?

“If someone stellar came along, I might think about it,” I said. That’s not untrue, but the reason I said it was so I would not sound snotty or abrasive or defensive. But at the same time, I wondered–what’s wrong with taking a firm (or mildly offended) stance against being cornered by someone who assumes that because you’re single, you must be “looking”?

Feeling as if I had somewhat capitulated to matrimania (and feeling the flinches of all our Onderful readers), I tried to redeem myself by saying, with a smile, “Right now I just don’t feel any sort of lack in the relationship area.” His eyes were still big, and I felt I wasn’t doing justice to the whole Onely mission (the conversation having caught me by surprise with no preparation time!), so I bolted away back to my own cube.

The conversation shook me up a little more that it probably should have, because it was sort of a double-whammy: My coworker (totally unintentionally) devalued not only my choice of singlehood, but also my choice to have secret four-hour naps on the weekends.

He was just trying to be nice to his friend, though. And he thought I was enough of a quality person that he would introduce me to someone he cares about. Does that make  it all ok?

–Christina

photo credit: zetson

Singles Must Show Up In Person! January 10, 2010

Posted by Onely in As If!, Everyday Happenings.
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13 comments

Here at Onely (and in the singles’ advocacy blogosphere in general) we’re always griping about how the U.S. government provides married people with over 1300 legal privileges that singles don’t get (kudos to Bella DePaulo who first mined the federal statues). Honestly, though, I can only specifically name a few of those 1300 benefits: the ability to draw a deceased partner’s social security; right to pay less capital gains tax (and other taxes); right to piggyback on a partner’s insurance; right to visit and make medical decisions for a partner in the hospital.  What are all the other 1,296 rights denied to singles? Copious readers, please let us know!

I’ll start the list with a Married Privilege I recently discovered by accident: 

Politicians have been bombarding my mailbox with lit’riture in preparation for Virginia’s upcoming Jan 12 special election to fill a state Senate seat. I received an absentee ballot application from Democrat Dave Marsden. Now, any candidate who sends lit’riture encouraging me to sit at home on my couch and vote instead of going out in the pre-8-a.m. cold to my old elementary school has my full support! However, upon closer examination of the ballot, I realized that I would have to meet at least one of eighteen specific criteria in order to be able to vote from my couch. Here they are (cliffhanger–I have put the most exciting criteria at the end of the list). In order to vote absentee, I would have to be: (more…)

Onely is “Between Boyfriends” December 8, 2009

Posted by Onely in Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought, Reviews.
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10 comments

Kindle has thousands of books of  essays and other nonfiction available for free sampling. During one twenty-minute highly randomized browsing session, I came upon two interesting examples of singles-bashing, which I have posted below for your reading pleasure. I mention them not in order to b&tch and moan (although that’s always fun too), but rather for two other reasons:

1) The fact that I so easily stumbled upon them shows how common hurtful stereotypes of single people (“singlism”) are in our everyday culture.

2) Reputable publishers printed these blurbs. Erego even widely read, highly educated, lawsuit-leery people either don’t realize they are being discriminatory, or they don’t think it matters. When someone neglects to question discriminatory or disparaging remarks about a subject, it’s often because they take it for granted that the subject is inherently undesirable. Proper usage: “It sucks that you’re sick” or “It sucks that you’re a Nazi”. Improper usage: “It sucks that you’re single”.

Discussion questions:

A) Which of these blurbs below reminds us of how tightly anti-feminism is woven into anti-singlehood rhetoric? Why?

B) Which of these blurbs has multiple personality disorder? Why? (Dec 18 Edit: Fangirl points out–and I agree–that I shouldn’t trivialize MPD by applying it to a book blurb. Readers, feel free to suggest other less lazy adjectives to describe this book blurb!)

So without further ado, here are the blurbs I stumbled across while Kindling. Actually, here’s just a little bit of ado–I want to say that I haven’t actually read either of these books, and I give kudos to both Chupak and Schefft for writing about single women. My beef is with whoever wrote these Kindle blurbs, which may or may not accurately portray the sentiments of the authors:

Chupak, Cindy. The Between Boyfriends Book: A Collection of Cautiously Hopeful Essays. St Martin’s.

There are two things Cindy Chupak really knows about. The first is how to be funny. . . The other thing she really knows about is, well, being ‘between boyfriends.’ You might identify this condition as being ‘single,’ but ‘between boyfriends’ has a much more positive feel, don’t you think? In this witty, truthful, and utterly charming book, Chupak unites her two fields of expertise to provide a handbook for those of us who might find ourselves in this temporary condition. . .

Schefft, Jen. Better Single Than Sorry: A No-Regrets Guide to Loving Yourself and Never Settling. Harper Collins.

Let’s be honest. No woman really wants to be alone for the rest of her life. But does being alone mean you’re doomed to be miserable forever? Definitely not! And does being single have to equal lonely? No way! You can have the best time of your life when you’re single, but you wouldn’t know that from our relationship obsessed society. . . Don’t become a statistic–love yourself and never settle!

Jen Schefft knows that better than almost anyone. [She won The Bachelor, then they broke up, then she turned down a chance to be The Bachelorette.]  She was labelled a “spinster” by a celebrity magazine, and a noted national talk-show host remarked that she would be a “bachelorette for the rest of her life.” This is a terrible message to send to send to the millions of sensational single women out there, and in [her book] Schefft makes it her mission to let women know that it’s better to be single than to be in a relationship that doesn’t make you happy. . . this book tells you how to let go of your fear of being alone. . . Schefft helps you navigate the pressures of a culture that places an unhealthy importance on being in an relationship. . . being single is a time to have fun, to learn new things, grow, and blossom–not a time to feel desperate or depressed, so cherish it!

Discussion Question Answers (according to Onely):

A) Which of these blurbs reminds us of how tightly anti-feminism is woven into anti-singlehood rhetoric? Why?

Answer:   “Between Boyfriends” sounds more positive than “Single”? Really? To me it sounds something between “kinky” and “claustrophobic”.   People should not be judged by their dating status, but if we must label someone–a woman in particular– let’s use “single” because at least it doesn’t frame her life in relationship to a man (even a non-existent one). There’s been too much of that going on for hundreds–or thousands–of years already. Let’s move on into the 21st century.

B) Which of these blurbs has multiple personality disorder? Why?

Answer:

No woman really wants to be alone for the rest of her life! . . . This is a terrible message to send to the millions of sensational single women out there.

‘ Nuff said.

Copious Readers, how would you answer the discussion questions? Have you read either of these books? Are they more progressive than the blurbs portray them to be? Or are they–and I hope this is not the case–still more examples of the classic “bait and switch” technique used by faux singles advocates: Here’s how to live a great single life, so that you can become unsingle!?

–Christina

Co-opcrisy? November 16, 2009

Posted by Onely in Bad Onely Activities, Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought, Great Onely Activities.
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5 comments

I was thinking the other day. (Sometimes I feel as if my brain is a rental car alarm going off and I can’t find the right button to turn it off.)  During my thinking, I realized that I may be a Onely hypocrite, at least partially. Lisa and I do a lot of advocating on this site for “new paradigms” of social structure that go beyond (isolated) couples and nuclear families. Yet when I had a chance to live for myself in a community that practiced a unique and apparently enlightened form of group living, I turned it down. Am I not as progressive as I make myself out to be? Or am I just not a team player?

My friend J worked on a coop organic farm that had a small community of twenty of so single-family houses (my memory is hazy) lining a curved street with no cars because everyone parked in a small lot down at the bottom of a gentle hill. There was a community center in one of the houses, with a common kitchen. J and I ate there once–a delicious eggplant stirfry with ingredients grown in the fields just outside the door. Just beyond those fields was Tyson’s Corner, the most congested, commercial area in all of northern Virginia, which is already pretty astoundingly congested and plastic. But you’d never know that, sitting in the coop kitchen, with crickets chirping under the porch outside.

Residents didn’t have to cook in the common kitchen, but they could if they wanted to. On a big white board a calendar drawn with multicolored markers and without rulers showed the dinner schedule. Most residents cooked a meal for the entire community once every couple weeks.  Again, not required, but I noticed that the calendar had a variety of names on it, many of the days were assigned.

There were houses for sale in the community. I was in the market for a house. But I decided not to buy one on the farm. Why? I was afraid of the common kitchen. No, not of germs. Not of community wooden spoons or coughing children. No, I was afraid of cooperation and calendars. The thought of even preparing a just huge pot of soup and several baguettes of garlic bread for a large group horrified me. The weight of the grocery bags! The math involved to extrapolate a recipe for six! Making sure there were enough plates! Finding all the spoons! AAAAAAAA!   As some of the very kind residents showed me around, I wondered, but did not ask, if I would be branded a rebel if I *never* ate in the community kitchen, in order to avoid ever having to reciprocate by making a meal for everyone else. I looked at the separate calendar for the den cleaning schedule and had the same feeling of suffocation. What if Tuesday came around but I didn’t feel like vaccuming the TV room?  What if on Saturday I was on the hook to cook chicken and dumplings but my own tummy just wanted toast and guacamole?

I just couldn’t do it.

I love my current townhouse. I do wonder sometimes (not often) whether I would have benefitted from having that community around me. Where I live now, the neighbors barely see each other, and I know very few of them. Of note, the farm community consisted of mostly couples with children. Would that have been a great environment for me–a casual environment to get to know neighbors and laugh at the children’s antics before going home to my quiet house? Or would it have been just a smaller, tighter version of our big heteronormative world? I don’t know, because I couldn’t get past my fear of scheduling. For the most part, I think I was right to listen to my shivering gut. But if everyone were as cooperation-averse as I turned out to be, how could we ever manage to produce new, fairer, and inventive ways of interacting with each other besides coupling up?

Copious Readers, have you had experiences with co-ops?

–Christina

CALLING ALL SINGLE MEN! August 28, 2009

Posted by Onely in Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought, Guest Bloggers, Guest Posts.
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25 comments

Ok, well not ALL single men. We want to hear from single-and-fine-with-it men. Please tell us: Why do you like being single (or why do you not dislike it)? How do people react to your single status? What difficulties do you have being a single man in a couple’s world (if any)? And most important–where do you go for information about being Onely and male? I ask because Lisa and I received an astute email from a male reader, who said:

I came across your website recently, and while I do find what you have written to be quite interesting it seems to be written by women for women.  I was wondering if you know of any blogs that take a similar intellectual tone, like the one found in your blog but focus on both a man and a woman’s perspective on being single.  Any links you could send me would be greatly appreciated.

Yay, he called us intellectual! (Obviously he has not been reading our series of nutsucking posts.) 

Onely does try to write about issues affecting both sexes–usually in the form of gripes about legal discrimination against unmarried people. We would love to cover more single men’s issues, but unfortunately Lisa and I just don’t know what it’s like to be a single man, and we haven’t been able to find a lot of (non-heteronormative) information on the topic. As our regular readers are no doubt aware, there is a dearth of writings by empowered, Onely single males–not only on this site, but throughout media and literature. A recent search on Amazon.com for [happy single men] returned: (more…)

TAKE ACTION: Speak Up For Health Care Reform August 8, 2009

Posted by Onely in As If!, blog reviews, Everyday Happenings, Singles Resource, Take action.
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1 comment so far

Check out yet another thorough and engaging post from Clever Elsie at Singletude, this time about the upcoming vote on HR 676, a bill supporting a single payer health care system, where we are all covered by ONE taxpayer-funded public source. (Ooh, how very Scandinavian!) As always, Singletude has done her research and explains why she is a fan of this bill. I am a fan of single-payer too, but my reasoning is based more on my gut than my head, so I encourage our Copious Readers to go to Singletude for more details.  (more…)

Onely Fights Office Singlism! Kind of! July 15, 2009

Posted by Onely in As If!, Everyday Happenings, Heteronormativity, Just Saying., Secret Lives of the Happily Single, single and happy.
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23 comments

I forget the context of our conversation, but at one point my coworker mentioned that single people don’t have any responsibilities. Now, before you send out the tar-and-feathering mob, loyal Copious Readers, let me say that this is one of my favorite coworkers and he has a knack for making out-of-place, over-the-top generalizations. But still, I felt the need to correct his statement.

“Single have responsibilities!” I said. “I have a mortage. And. . . and. . . a cat.” I winced. The C word seldom helps in a singles advocacy argument. But in the moment, I couldn’t think of any other responsibilities! Because to be honest, I am so enamoured of my independence that the feeling of freedom sometimes overshadows my to-do list. But Lisa rattled off  my responsibilities to me later, in an email. She said we have “pretty much the same responsibilities as everyone else!” But for once I disagree with my intrepid co-blogger. (more…)

First, Do No Heteronormativity: Onely at the Doctor’s July 9, 2009

Posted by Onely in As If!, Dating, Everyday Happenings, Food for Thought.
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14 comments

My new doctor’s office provides holistic care based on an assessment of the patient’s physique, mentality, and life circumstances, as opposed to just treating isolated symptoms. It’s a progressive office, so I was intrigued to read this question on their patient intake form:

Are you?               [ ] married        [ ] divorced  [ ] widowed  [ ] single     [ ] in a supportive relationship? (more…)

Hooking Up: Cool or CREAPy? June 29, 2009

Posted by Onely in Essay review, Everyday Happenings, Great Onely Activities, Secret Lives of the Happily Single, sex.
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26 comments

 As follow-up to Lisa’s sex posts here and here, my friend Nicole flagged for us this really good article from NPR about the relatively new and spreading trend of “hooking up”, or sex-without-dating. Brenda Wilson talks about the “major cultural shift” we’ve undergone lately, as dating is replaced by hooking up. Wilson reminds us that “dating itself represented a historical change”, as chaperoned sit-down sessions were replaced by dinner-and-movie expeditions. And now we’re changing from dating to hooking up. Because we’re all busy with life, friends, and work,  we have little time for relationships. But you know what? Even though it’s becoming “ok” to hook up (just as it became “ok” to go out without a chaperone), we’re still expected to eventually *stop* hooking up and find a committed  romantic ever-after partner (aka CREAP): 

Wilson interviewed a young person who said (paraphrased by Wilson) that “If you’re honest and open about what you’re doing, and willing to commit to a relationship, she says, a hookup and friendship can be fused into a lifetime partnership.” 

But are hookups less valid or acceptable if they *don’t* lead to a CREAP (or even to friendship)?  Just asking. (more…)

Secret Lives of the Happily Single: Laundry Edition June 8, 2009

Posted by Onely in Dating, Everyday Happenings, Great Onely Activities, Secret Lives of the Happily Single.
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25 comments

images-1Welcome to the first installment in our new series, Secret Lives of the Happily Single. Singlehood is mysterious and secretive in many ways. Happy singles take on an almost shaman-like aura in our culture, as if we must know things that the rest of the world doesn’t. (Don’t we?)  In SLOTHS, we aim to talk about the more private, mysterious, and sensitive aspects of being single and satisfied. In this edition, we talk about laundry.

The secret lives of the happily single can include sex. The secret lives of the happily single can also include unhappiness (happy singles sometimes feel we have to hide unhappiness, even if it’s not related to our relationship status). And our secret lives  also include Great Onely Activities that seem almost too silly, petty, or trivial to use as a “real” excuse for why we love being single. That is what this post is about.  (more…)