Single Women Don’t Want Your Husband
Are we failures or threats? Pick one.
Vixen. Temptress. Minx. Single women are sad, pathetic cat ladies until it’s time to hang out with them and acknowledge their social validity, then suddenly we’re more dangerous than an open flame. Which is it I wonder, the failure or the threat? What are we? I ask in jest. When I imagine myself as a threat to someone else’s happy relationship I cackle quietly, sitting here in frayed pajama pants and a messy bun, watching a documentary series and sipping anti-anxiety tea. I can assure you I’m the least of your worries.
But the narrative is there. Single women are seen as a threat to relationships, and as such we’re left out of social gatherings, conversations, vacations — anything you can invite someone to, essentially. Except weddings. Fuck me upside down they love to invite a single woman to a wedding. But casual social norms? We’re unwelcome. We’re the reason a woman crosses a room to link her arm with her husband’s, and I never know if she’s physically reminding me, or him. Either way, I didn’t have any interest in the guy she married, but we were having a nice chat about how streaming services somehow cost us all more than cable ever did.