To be single or not to be single?

“I do not want to be in a cage. I do not want to be just someone’s mother, someone’s wife and someone’s girlfriend.” Exhaling, I let out a deep breath. I just confessed my dreaded fear to a friend – being consumed in a relationship and losing sense of who I am. Being with someone, but being alone within myself. Belonging to someone, but not to myself. During our long-awaited catch-up (it had been a week since we last saw each other), I had my friend over for dinner. The dichotomy of us switching from gossip and trivial chatter to profound conversations, which triggered a little boost to my frontal lobe development, is what I cherish about our friendship. Smiling, my friend agreed and gently reciprocated her similar thoughts. We conversed until the evening descended into night-time. 

After she left, I sat thinking about what we had shared. What I had thought wasn’t radical at all. Instantly, I remembered Chanté Joseph’s Vogue article “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” and how various women seemed to share a similar sentiment, specifically on my Instagram reels. A few comments I noticed repeatedly highlighted that having a boyfriend leads to male-centeredness and losing a sense of themselves. It seems being single is trendy now and boyfriends have become  a microtrend. Yet, I don’t believe having a boyfriend is humiliating at all – why should love be shamed? 

So what do I truly think? I don’t want to be surface-level. I believe in perceiving things deeply because everything is truly that deep. Hating on women and their boyfriends is not at all what Chanté Joseph’s piece is centred around, nor how various women are feeling nowadays. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding about why women are petrified to hard-launch their relationships or witness other women do the same. It's not about just having a boyfriend, it is about the culture, context and society we are currently living in. Moreover, I truly believe there’s a fear of becoming almost a shell of ourselves in a relationship; historically and culturally, this has been the expectation for women.

Here is why these feelings of embarrassment and trepidation of having a boyfriend exist. In previous centuries, a woman’s status was elevated through engagement and marriage to a man, particularly a husband of significant socio-economic standing, who could provide resources and security. Oppression and societal norms dictated that a woman's status was considered subservient and at the bottom of the hierarchy. Meanwhile, marriage and motherhood were the ultimate achievements, a slight elevation from the bottom. Systems and institutions were male-dominated, not allowing women access to educational, medical and legislative rights and individual autonomy. For instance, women in the UK weren’t allowed to own property until the late 19th century and were not able to open their own bank accounts until 1975. Marital rape in the UK was legal until 1991. The restricted woman was kept chained to the patriarchy – the system, her father and eventually a husband.

In contrast, ‘singleness’ among women was seen as deviant, taboo and sinful, as women were expected to rely on men throughout their lifespan. This language has evolved and changed as society has progressed, with derogatory terms like “spinster” or “witch” eventually transforming into contemporary equivalents, such as the “single cat lady.” Women of our generation deem singleness as a form of reclamation, perhaps from centuries of patriarchy that enforced cages, disguised as societal and cultural expectations benefitting the male-driven institution. Fear and embarrassment did not emerge from nowhere – women are owning, embracing and cherishing their singleness.

Yet, there have been changes and progression, with society and culture having largely shifted — voting rights, abortion rights, education rights, and financial independence – things that did not exist over 100 years ago for women. With this shift, I truly believe many women have realised they no longer have to be socially, economically or  politically attached to the status of the man and are freed. With a myriad of opportunities available to women, the status of having a husband or boyfriend. becomes less significant as women begin to accomplish an array of achievements that fulfil their own personal growth and journey. Women can have a life of their own and more readily experience the abundance of life without expecting to just settle for the status of being a wife, girlfriend, and nothing else. 

On the other hand, there has been a paradigm shift towards a conservative and oppressive culture and society due to an array of factors. These include: the rise of red-pill content, populist alt-right movements and the global rise of politics, restrictions of women’s rights, and trad-wife content - encouraging young, impressionable girls to become dependent housewives. I believe that trepidation among women reflects that society has failed to take monumental steps to break these cycles and the absorption of women’s independence and identity within their relationships reflects this. Women aren’t finding boyfriends to be humiliating. There’s a frustration and fear of being rootless within oneself but grounded in someone’s garden – not being able to water our own taproots to flourish and blossom. Having a boyfriend or husband isn’t a defining achievement anymore, living a life that is authentic with goals, opportunities and dreams is now available to women.

We have either heard or seen it – through our grandmothers, mothers, aunts, friends, acquaintances or even stories about strangers. A woman losing or giving it all up for a man – whether it be her career, personality, friends, political beliefs, anything for that status of “having a man” or hard launch, either forced into it or socialised into believing life is complete once settled down. A woman becomes a “we”, losing the “I”. The fear is that once a woman has a boyfriend, she becomes consumed, and her identity shifts. It does happen, sadly, but not to every woman. For example, after spending a long day with another friend, she told me that if she and her boyfriend were to break up, she’d still have her own life – a life fulfilled with her own hobbies, friends, dreams, goals and career. I believed her and always will. That’s the thing, I think we are forgetting – the freedom now as women to own ourselves and our needs and wants. It is essential to choose someone who loves you, allows you to grow, and experience milestones and opportunities outside of your relationship, so you can grow into yourself and live with yourself.

Moreover, platonic, self and romantic love are on the same platform, but they simply play different roles in our lives. This trio becomes the actors on the stage of our lives; we, as directors, can choose where to project the spotlight – why not place a spotlight on them all? Perhaps that’s why so many women feel embarrassed to discuss their own relationships publicly, online or privately; with the rise of women becoming more independent, recognising the value in platonic, romantic and self-love, and prioritising themselves.

There has definitely been a shift, a monumental change in how women perceive themselves, relationships and others; singleness is no longer a taboo, being in a relationship is not a sole accolade anymore, and women can aim for more and can break cycles. Yet, I think the current conservative and chaotic, socio-political climate has stripped back the autonomy and voices of women. That’s why the horror of having a boyfriend has emerged,the  harrowing nightmare of women losing their independence and replacing it with co-dependency – regressing from “my boyfriend and I” to “my boyfriend.” Having a boyfriend is not shameful or uncool. I believe a lot of women are genuinely worried about being shelved from the starring role in their lives into the supporting role in a man’s life. Her light snubbed out, the darkness enclosing over her cage.