33, Married, & Crapping On Single People. No, That’s Not How You Fill A Relationships Column
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Come on Curious.
I don’t like columns. I find them redundant in a modern-day world filled to the rafters with blogs and Medium and the ability to write at will without needing the blessing of a power-drunk editor first. The idea of needing a “column” to give yourself validity and the appearance of expertise even though you don’t have to have qualifications of any kind to column on any topic you want makes my coffee get cold. If you want to write, write. No one is waiting by their laptop for the next installment. I should know, I had a column for two years, and here’s a secret: No one even knows you have it. They only ever read and share individual essays. Carrie Bradshaw is fake. Grow the fuck up.
I recently read an installment of a “relationships column” on Curious because someone posted it in my podcast’s Facebook group for single people who are ready to stop hating being single because it isn’t actually a shameful way to be alive. We all went angrily, appropriately apeshit.
“Thirty-Five, Single, Never Had a Partner, No, That’s Not Normal”
I’m not linking to it because I don’t want this author making any more money off insulting single people than she already has. The crux is this: The author has a 35-year-old friend who is single and who has never been in a relationship. The author has penned what I’m assuming she believes is a witty, “hard truth” vomit on all the things us singles are just going to have to “accept” if we’re going to allow ourselves to be this old and this single. We’re failures, and this is just how things are going to go for us—better just lower our life expectations now.
“Of course, the first single person she meets questions why she hasn’t had a partner in the entire of her adulthood. And whether she owns a lot of cats.
In fact, it’s all anyone can ask her about. And my friend, for all her perception of the world, can’t figure out why someone would care so much.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that her long-standing single status isn’t ‘normal’.”
Because you know, a Medium publication blessing you with a column so that it can algorithmically benefit from a steady…
