This past weekend, my friend and I planned a night in to watch movies and eat. She suggested we watch “How to be Single”. I had personally been avoiding that movie considering I was not interested in watching some rom-com with an over-played love story.
Much to my surprise, it wasn’t as cliché as I expected it to be! In fact, in a lot of ways it was empowering, and would make any single girl feel proud. However, I am over this idea that there are only two ways that single women are portrayed in Hollywood.
The first being the type that are currently single and desire getting out of that dark hole of loneliness by finding the love of their life, also known as “the self-discovery type”. The lead-female character goes on this huge quest to some exotic place like India or Thailand to find herself, and she still ends up with the guy she met in the hostel in Turkey. So, “finding” herself was finding a man.
Then there’s “the party girl” portayal who has casual sex all of the time, which is great for her, but not as realistic as Hollywood makes it seem. It is with every right that women are enjoying and pursuing their sexual desires but these party nights (for me at least) got old and tiresome.
The idea that being single is just a phase all women try so hard to avoid is exhausting, and quite honestly offensive. Big production companies sell the concept that the only way out of this “phase” is from the love of a man (or woman). Only then will you find your way out of this spell of shear loneliness.
Now, as a girl who is in fact single, I am in no way bashing the idea of being in a relationship. I see some of my dearest friends thrive in healthy and mature relationships. It is not the fact that being in a relationship is bad but rather the expectation that women should be in one is the issue.
Hollywood tends to portray women who aren’t married or dating as a vice. In movies, single women are not viewed as bachelorettes, but rather old maids, and undesirable whereas men who are living the single life are deemed as free and the other bachelors should envy and practice this “freedom”.
This is not a new phenomenon and I am not the first nor last to point it out. The internet has also played a large role in the idealizing relationships, with memes and tweets of men buying their girlfriends expensive makeup, clothes, and an overall life style that many cannot afford. This trend of “relationship goals” is conditioning young girls to strive to have a boyfriend. This boyfriend will not only show how much they are worth but how others should strive and envy their relationship.
It is important to address the issue that girls are expected to crawl their way out of this single life. I personally recognize that there are times and moments when some arm candy would be nice, and when a guy on your side would make the dark of night seem less scary. However, there is something you should remember in these bouts of loneliness; it is not forever. I am not saying that you will find the one and he will change it but rather this is a fleeting emotion that can be changed with productive work.
Whether one is in a relationship or not, women are strong, independent and capable of much more. Life is about the friendships, the paths taken, and the impact made; big or small. Don’t worry about what life you want and with whom. No single women (or man) is going through it alone at all. In so many ways, we are never actually single.