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If I Die Young and Freakishly December 23, 2010

Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Just Saying., Secret Lives of the Happily Single, single and happy.
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8 comments

My dad’s coworker died at 36 of a heart attack in his car after work. Security guards found him after noticing the car sitting, engine on, in a nearly-empty parking lot. People–me included–told the story in sad whispers: “In the car. With the engine on.”

If I die under odd circumstances (“odd” defined as “not passing away in a bed while asleep with a spouse holding my hand”), I don’t want people to harp on the details in a shocked or pitying way. If I go, I go with no regrets. (Except maybe that I never visited Dick Proenneke‘s house, and that my computer is full of revolting first drafts.)

As a Oneler who currently lives alone (“alone” defined as “with two cats”), any of my potential death scenarios–tripping on a cat on the stairs, choking on roast beef, cracking my skull on the bathtub–takes on an extra dollop of “Oh, geez, that’s terrible”: my body would inevitably have to lie there alone for a while before my office sends the dogs after me, or my mom calls the cops to find out why I haven’t phoned her in the last 24 hours to ask whether she thinks the two-week-old stroganoff is still good. Then someone would have to come and discover me, and the grapevine would vibrate with murmurs like, “And they had to break open the door! And there she was!”

Well, so what?

(more…)

First, Do No Harm: Marital Status At the Doctor’s December 14, 2010

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

I walk up to the grandmotherly office manager and explain that I have a 9:30 new patient appointment.  Betty finds my file on the computer and makes last-minute adjustments before checking me in. She looks up and asks,

“Are you married or single?”

Nine-thirty in the morning is not my best time of the day. I stare at Betty through raggedy, unwashed bangs. I’m here to see a specialist for a (knock wood) non-fatal chronic illness that is nonetheless kicking my ass, and so I’m nervous and cranky, and I really want to just answer her question and go see the doctor. But because I write a blog deconstructing single stereotypes and marriage mythology, I feel obligated to engage Betty further on this topic.

Such is my dedication to you, dear Copious Readers. (more…)

The Great Facebook Relationship Feeding Frenzy December 12, 2010

Posted by Onely in "Against Love"...?, Food for Thought, Just Saying., single and happy, Take action, Your Responses Requested!.
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35 comments

Or, Your Relationship Status Is (Apparently) Everyone’s Business.

To the left, you see the results of a little experiment I conducted recently on Facebook (if the Spanish throws you off, my apologies! It’s how I learn other languages. And you get the point). I’ve been thinking about doing this for some time now: I’m always astounded by the amount of attention other people receive when they really are in new relationships (or engagements or marriages) and publicize the info on Facebook…

My hypothesis: Changing your relationship status on Facebook will garner more attention than anything else you’ve ever posted.

(Tentative) Conclusion: YES.

So I finally did it, and voila! Not only did my relationship-status-change draw the responses you see here (3 unqualified “likes” and 11 comments), but I also received three inquiries via text message, five private messages from friends wanting to know the “scoop,” and even one question about it at the end of an otherwise-serious phone call with my little brother. Considering I only have 130 “friends” on Facebook, that’s a pretty decent amount of attention — certainly much more than I’ve ever managed to solicit from anything else I’ve done on Facebook.

What’s more, two of the private messages were sent from friends who I haven’t seen or spoken to in the last six months, and although I replied graciously and honestly to their inquiries (I told them both it was a joke, sorry to disappoint (!!), told them a little bit about my current life and asked them about theirs), I haven’t heard from either of them since and it’s been almost a week. The message I’m getting from this silence? A relationship-status change is everyone’s business. And if you make it a joke, people will get angry.

It wouldn’t be fair, however, if I didn’t give kudos to many of my friends. You can probably guess from some of the published comments who knows about Onely and who doesn’t (see Carrie, Lisa [not me], Paulina and Kimberly). What’s more, some of the private messages and texts I received were from close friends who actually know me in my everyday life and imagined it was a joke but wanted to be sure I wasn’t hiding a secret life from them.

The problem is, this experiment is flawed because my FB friend base is biased (my real-life FB friends know about and appreciate my pro-single status), and some of them even knew I was thinking about the experiment in advance.

So I’m hoping that you, Copious Readers, will be willing to add to the data by conducting the experiment on your FB pages and report the results here (if we get enough of a response, I’ll write a follow-up post about it).

Here’s what I’d like to know: (more…)

Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, Part 33.5a: Singlist AT&T Commercial November 15, 2010

Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Heteronormativity, Pop Culture: Scourge of the Onelys, YouTube Style.
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15 comments

I have been bothered by this commercial for several months now, and I’m embarrassed to say that I wasn’t able to pinpoint why until this weekend, when it hit me: OMFG the only reason this guy becomes PRESIDENT is because (besides having AT&T, duh) he met the right girl, got MARRIED, and had kids.

Couplemania at its worst, if you ask me.

Copious Readers, please share your thoughts.

— Lisa

Great Onelies in Real Time: Chen Wei-yih to Marry Herself October 22, 2010

Posted by Onely in Food for Thought, Great Onelies in Real Time, Secret Lives of the Happily Single, single and happy.
11 comments

In Sex and the City, it sounded too good to be true. But Chen Wei-yih, a 30-year-old Taiwanese woman, is making it a reality: She’s marrying herself.

And the event — scheduled for November 6th — is making international news. Check it out on the Huffington Post, Wei-yih’s blog (if you can read Chinese), and/or friend her on Facebook if you support her. We at Onely think Wei-yih (and those friends and family who support her) rocks, though we wonder if she will enjoy the same benefits as her “real” married counterparts do.

We’re wishing her all the best. Copious Readers, what are your thoughts?

— Lisa (and Christina)

Onely Throws A Hissy Fit September 2, 2010

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

The No. 1 villain in all of England right now is 45-year-old unmarried bank employee Mary Bale, who was caught on video approaching a cat on the street, petting it, and then, like someone who has completely lost her mind, throwing it into a lidded garbage can.

Yes, and right now the No. 1 villain in the singles’ advocacy blogosphere (or at least, in Onely) is New York Magazine, which decided that Bale’s unmarried status was relevant enough to put it in the clause describing the sort of person Bale is.

Am I overreacting? (Who me, overreact?) My mom called while I was writing this and I threw a tantrum over the phone, ranting about how no one would ever write,

The No. 1 villain in all of England right now is 45-year-old married bank employee Mary Bale, who was caught on video approaching a cat on the street. . .

My mom suggested that maybe, had Bale been married, the article would have said, “Mary Bale, married mother of three, threw a cat in the garbage. . .” Perhaps.  But if so, why is marital status pertinent to a description of a person’s actions? The same question could be asked about the relevance age and employment, but this isn’t an anti-agism or anti-jobism blog, it’s an anti-singlism blog. And I say that it’s singlist to put Bale’s unmarried status right there in the first sentence.

The placement is all wonky. “Unmarried” on the heels of “45-year-old” gears the reader up to form a judgment about Bale’s unmarried status, based on her age–usually a negative judgment, given the prevalence of the stereotype of the over-forty (or god help us, over-thirty-five) woman who has forfeited her chance to marry and therefore become desexualized or asexualized (and, by extension, forfeited some of her power in a patriarchal society).

Then almost immediately after her age and marital status, we’re told that this woman is also someone who did something insane and evil. This is just another chance for readers to subconsciously link “unmarried” with “crazy and/or deficient”.

Author Dan Amira must have just gotten confused–he forgot that unmarried women don’t throw away cats, they collect them.

–Christina

Photo credit:  Mattieb

Jon Stewart Misses Chance to End All Singlism As We Know It August 6, 2010

Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought.
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8 comments

In the 05 August 2010 episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart broke my heart.  I’ll explain why at the end of this post. I’m not upset because he kind of called singles “loners with terrible hygiene”.  I’m not sure that statement is a bloggable offense. (Copious readers, check out the full episode here — the problematic part begins at the 5:30 mark — and let us know what you think.)  Daily Show correspondents  regularly use over-the-top, obviously untrue statements to make their opposite points, and in this case the point was to make fun of stupid Fox News commentators and greedy, homophobic employers–always a noble endeavor.

I do feel concern that because the larger joke was not about singles per se, the trashing of singles is more peripheral to the joke, and therefore less likely to appear blatantly ironic and more likely to reinforce negative stereotypes of singles. But I’ll let it slide because one, I love Jon Stewart, and two, there’s more context to the joke that makes the line less harsh. Here’s how the bit plays out:

Stewart reports that a San Francisco court overturned the ban on same sex marriage. We then see Neil Cavuto of Fox News whining that married gays will interpret this ruling “as if that they’ve got the green light for full benefits coverage” (um, well, yes) and that therefore employers–in the face of this onslaught of newly married gay employees with spouses in tow demanding to be treated like actual married people just because they’re actually married–will “need to examine their costs” and face financial and hiring difficulties as a result.

Here Stewart makes the face that you’re probably making now. He summarizes Cavuto’s position as follows: “A gay person with a spouse just costs more. That’s why we can’t do gay marriage!” Then he continues in his usual satirical strain:

Wouldn’t anyone with a spouse cost more? . . . Neil Cavuto is suggesting that we should only hire single people!

And that’s when I got all excited–“Yes, yes,” I thought,  “Here it comes! (more…)

You Don’t Know Onely August 2, 2010

Posted by Onely in As If!, Food for Thought.
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10 comments

There’s a lot that you don’t know about Onely. And by “you”, we don’t mean YOU, our loyal Copious Readers, but rather the occasional reader who happens upon or hears about this site and thinks she grasps the concept of singles’ rights advocacy–but doesn’t. Despite our best efforts to write clearly and simply so that even heteronormaholes can understand Oneliness, there is always That Person who asks, “So, why are you so bitter at men?” or “Why don’t you like married people?” or “So you plan on being single forever then?” or, most bizarre, “Why do you hate children?”

So here we have listed and addressed these misconceptions (again). Eventually some of the items may hyperlink to future posts containing more detail (and/or ranting). Feel free to add to the list!

Common Misconceptions (CMs) about The Onely Creed

1. CM: We hate marriage or married people.

REALITY: Actually we just hate that marriage is overprivileged in our laws and culture.

2. CM: We hate children.

REALITY: Children are fine (baby showers, not so much). And not wanting our own kids might even help us enjoy other kids even more.

3a. CM: We hate men.

REALITY: Well, ok, sometimes we do hate men. But only the ones who deserve it.

3b. CM: We hate women.

REALITY: See 3a 🙂

4. CM:  We intend to be single the rest of our lives and have written off all possibility of a Seepie relationship evermore.

REALITY: We may or may not be single for the rest of our lives. We don’t really care either way.  PLONK PLONK PLONK PLONK! (What’s that, you ask? Oh, it’s the sound of heteronormaholes all over the world falling out of their chairs.)

5. CM: Singlism means advocating for singles in a good way, because it ends with Ism.

REALITY: Singlism means discrimination against singles in a bad way, because it ends with Ism. We know that not only heteronormaholes make this mistake, so we offer this handy mnemonic to help our readers remember: “Singlism is ABIAIRAOSNAIF”. Singlism is a bad Ism, as in Racism, Ageism, or Sexism, not as in Feminism.

6. CM: Singles’ advocates think Singlism is as destructive as racism. It’s not, so we should just shut up.

REALITY: We know that singlism is not as destructive as racism. Schoolyard bullying is not as bad as murder, but does that mean we should ignore schoolyard bullying?

7. CM: You can call yourself Onely just because you’re single.

REALITY: If you’re single and you are constantly searching for validation from people who are in your “dating pool” (men if you’re a hetero woman, women if you’re a lesbian, men if you’re a gay man … etc. etc. — you get the picture), then you are not Onely, and please don’t call yourself Onely, because it gives us the willies.

–Christina and Lisa

Photo Credit: Move the Clouds

Please Don’t Ask Me Out. June 24, 2010

Posted by Onely in "Against Love"...?, Dating, Food for Thought, Just Saying..
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21 comments

No really, I mean it. It’s not only because I don’t find you attractive, or because you’re 15 years (or more?) older than me, or because starting a relationship is nowhere on my to-do list.

It’s because, when I signed up to be a member of this public hiking group, I did so specifically because it was not geared toward singles, nor did it seem to be grounded on the premise that “meeting people” really meant “finding someone to date.” I signed up because the group already had 800+ members on its roster, so I thought I would enjoy relative anonymity and wouldn’t stand out as “fresh meat.” I looked forward to meeting new and interesting people at each hike (one of whom turned out to be you), but I also liked knowing that I wouldn’t feel pressure to attend every event or make friends unless I wanted to. More than anything, all I really wanted was to enjoy the Great Outdoors with like-minded people.

I definitely wasn’t looking for a date. (more…)

Even Coupled, You Can Still Die Alone June 16, 2010

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

This is a follow-up post to Lisa’s piece about the importance of support networks in old age. We’ve all heard the stereotype that if you’re single, you risk dying “alone” in a small apartment and being eaten by your pets. I just wanted to point out that even if you are happily married after almost forty years, you can still die alone.

My parents have been married for thirty-seven years and still love each others’ company. They enjoy relatively good health and we’re a fortunate family all around. That said, recently on my first day back home for vacation, my mom fell off the attic stairs and broke her knee in quite a dramatic fashion. She couldn’t even sit up, the pain was so nauseating and intense. I was there to call 911 and, per the operator’s instructions, shut Charlie the cat in the bathroom where he wouldn’t be underfoot for the paramedics (or eat my mom).

(more…)