Single Women Don’t Want Your Husband

Are we failures or threats? Pick one.

Photo by Shani Silver

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.

I have a podcast on this topic, FYI.

I thought I might clarify a few misconceptions about single women. If it sounds like I’m putting my nose in other people’s business, please know that I’m okay with that. After 15 years on the receiving end of, “So, are you seeeeing anybodyyyyy? No? Oh then you’re doing something wrong. You should try this, or this, or this!” and other invasions into my private life, I am quite confident that it is my turn.

Being single doesn’t mean we’re perpetually hunting for men.

The assumed default setting for single women is “on the prowl.” If she’s single, she must be looking. I mean, my god can you imagine her NOT looking? That would mean she’s given up! How pathetic, to give up.

Actually Susan the happiest and most open-to-possibility I’ve ever felt has been since I deleted the dating apps four years ago and acknowledged that “finding…