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
7 comments
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…)
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
10 comments
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…)
Tell Credo to Crack the Couple-Rut December 29, 2008
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Take action.Tags: couple rut, Credo, marriage legislation, Rachel's Musings
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Rachel of Rachel’s Musings had a great idea. The progressive phone company Credo is asking its customers and the general public what causes they find most important. Tell them that we need legislation to get us out of the couple-rut: (more…)
We could teach Brad Pitt a thing or two December 27, 2008
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, We like. . ..Tags: Brad Pitt, Make it Right, new orleans, people magazine, single
7 comments
I wanted a Brad Pitt link to put in my Christmas post, so I googled around looking at lists of his film credits, best actor awards, sexyist awards, humanitarian efforts, and fifty-bedroom chateaus.
Just when I was beginning to feel a little bit like an underachiever, I found this bio. Check out the right sidebar, “Heart Monitor”. My man Brad has not been Onely since 1987! WtF? (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
6 comments
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…)
SEEPage November 24, 2008
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Singled Out.Tags: bella depaulo, foreign service, personal community, Singled Out
40 comments
For all you writers out there!! Here Bella DePaulo admits that in an early draft of her opus Singled Out, before she heard about Liz Spencer and Ray Pahl‘s study of different kinds of personal communities, she had a “clunky phrase” to describe significant others who form the nexus of their partner’s social life (per Spencer and Pahl, that would be a “partner-based personal community”). The term DePaulo used to describe that kind of significant other was “Sex and Everything Else Person,” aka a “SEEPie”. She said that readers of the draft hated the term, so she scrapped it. But I like it! I wonder how our Copious Readership feels about Seepies. Either way, it just goes to show you what a freakin’ headache writing is.
I was raised in a foreign service family. This means that my mom, dad, sister, and I travelled around together, one little square unit. This setup feeds into the partner-based personal community paradigm. (more…)
In Honor of My Grandmother November 17, 2008
Posted by Onely in Food for Thought.Tags: friends, grandmother, memorials, onely, service
2 comments
Last Wednesday, November 5th, my Grandmother died at the age of 95 (& 11/12ths — she would’ve turned 96 next month!). Before she moved to Kansas City (where I grew up) after my grandfather (who I never met) died, she had lived in or around Kirksville (northeast) Missouri her whole life. At the memorial service, as I listened to the pastor recount Grandmother’s 36 years of membership and service in her Kansas City church, it occurred to me: Grandmother was Onely, too! (more…)
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