{"id":1416,"date":"2010-10-15T06:17:13","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T19:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2011-06-29T12:22:59","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T02:22:59","slug":"single-girl-angst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/2010\/10\/15\/single-girl-angst\/","title":{"rendered":"Single girl angst"},"content":{"rendered":"
What irritates me most is that we are still defining women by relationships. It just reflects this neediness about being ‘whole’ only if you’re in a partnership, about being validated as a woman only if you have a bloke. Once again, it is women who are made to feel like they’re going to miss out, and it is men who get the easy ride because some women are panicking. – Virginia Haussegger
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\nWhy is Jennifer Aniston the poster girl for single angst?<\/a> by Rachel Hills, The Age.<\/div>\n


<\/p>\n

After my relationship of eight years crashed and burned in spectacular fashion, I told myself no half-arsed relationships!<\/em> Eventually. You know, after the endless months of moping around the house, being a wreck and wondering where it all went wrong. But still, came out of it thinking no half-arsed relationships<\/em>. Which turned me into a bit of a freak because aren’t we all supposed to pair up and mate for life? Isn’t there something wrong with a person who’s perennially single?<\/p>\n

There’s an enormous amount of pressure put on people, women especially, when they’re single. The general inference is that there must be something wrong with you if you don’t couple up as soon as humanly possible. I can feel the swirl of pity around me because I’ve been single for so long. It’s not even a conscious thing. People tut, then sigh and have this look on their faces that says they’re sure all my problems would be fixed if I’d just find a nice boy and settle down. Uh… I feel pretty settled as I am right now. And I’m not sure why finding a nice boy is supposed to the solution to all my problems.<\/p>\n

It’s like all the single people are cluttering up the place, making it look untidy. Society doesn’t like it when people do something different and being over 35 and single definitely doesn’t fit the grand plan you’re supposed to subscribe to. Sometimes I feel like it’s been decided there must be something wrong with me because I’m not in a relationship.<\/p>\n

I’ve seen too many examples of relationships where people have ended up settling. It’s not that they’re miserable or unhappy but there’s still something missing. I think people are afraid of being alone so they stay with someone when they know they shouldn’t. Settling sells everyone short and it ends up with both parties feeling less than happy and satisfied. I suppose that’s what makes me different because I’m not afraid to be alone. Still, there is this niggle in my head that maybe I’m wrong. Most of the time I can ignore it because I know with unshakable conviction that I’d rather be single and occasionally lonely then in a relationship with someone who – if I’m brutally honest – I feel meh about. Maybe that’s stupid, unrealistic and just plain dumb because it’s lead to the situation I’m in now where I’m always the person who upsets the balance of the table settings.<\/p>\n

90% of the time I’m okay with disrupting the even numbers because I’m okay with where I’m at. It’s the 10% of the time that’s a concern. Guess which percentage I’m in right now? I think it ties into my inability to make good choices at the moment. I feel that when it comes to the relationship question, I’m not good at making sensible decisions so I opt to make no decisions at all. Better to just ignore it all and not deal with it than get myself into another situation where I get hurt. And that’s the problem isn’t it? I’ve been hurt too many times to be comfortable with putting myself out there.<\/p>\n

There’s also the flip-side of the argument in that I simply can’t be bothered. I’ve been on my own for so long that I’ve filled the spaces in my life with other things and that doesn’t leave any room for another person. I suppose that’s my indicator that I’m really into someone – I’ll be willing to change my behaviours and make space in my life for them.<\/p>\n

But this is all a moot point anyway if I won’t get out there and actually meet new people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What irritates me most is that we are still defining women by relationships. It just reflects this neediness about being ‘whole’ only if you’re in a partnership, about being validated as a woman only if you have a bloke. Once again, it is women who are made to feel like they’re going to miss out, and it is men who get the easy ride because …<\/span> Read More →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[392,364,129,393,391],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1842,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions\/1842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hatfullofsky.net\/littlewords\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}