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The Most Powerful Stereotypes About Being Single

Image: Xenia Molchanova

 

Discussion

9 comments for “The Most Powerful Stereotypes About Being Single”

  1. Beth says:

    Oy, the “too picky” is my pet peeve!

  2. wendy says:

    Drives me crazy.

    (Like Barbra Streisand isn’t picky. Please.)

  3. Michele says:

    I think the answer depends on whether people think you’re “physically attractive” or not. If you’re not pretty they think you’re socially awkward, if you don’t put on make up to go to the grocery store you’re not girly enough and the rest are reserved for the “pretty” girls. The one my grandmother used to use for me was that I was going to be a “career girl”. I still don’t know whether that meant I was pretty or not.

  4. Michele says:

    She took the secret to the grave with her, Wendy. As near as my Mom and I could figure out, in my grandmother’s mind women who had vibrant careers couldn’t have satisfying romantic relationships.

  5. wendy says:

    A career was freedom for woman, from the first wave of feminists, to the suffragettes and beyond. I love this quote from Louisa May Alcott, who never married: Liberty is a better husband than love to many of us.”

  6. Barbara says:

    It’s kind of like ‘Too Independent’ but I think I’d say ‘Too capable’. I don’t know if it’s a stereotype though or simply just true in my case. I don’t really have any evidence to support this theory though. Cos who knows how many men would have displayed (or returned) interest if I wasn’t quite so obviously self-sufficient/reliant. It’s certainly about the only comment my mother has made on my singlehood though and she may be right, but I wasn’t offended though cos I just thought ‘Well that’s ME though’.
    It makes me annoyed sometimes when people say ‘Just be yourself because I think it’s very hard to find the line between THAT and recognizing modifiable traits about yourself. Plus, I wouldn’t know how NOT to ‘be myself’. And it hasn’t gotten me anywhere in the romance department.

  7. wendy says:

    Being yourself is the ONLY way to go.

  8. […] Don’t worry about being single. Embrace it. If you are constantly obsessed with getting/keeping a boyfriend (or a girlfriend, this […]

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