“Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?”
That was the question posed by Vogue opinion columnist Chanté Joseph in her Oct 29 column, where she wrote that it is now “fundamentally uncool to be a boyfriend-girl.” In the piece that has now caused an internet-wide debate about relationships and dating, Joseph described the shifting way women are showcasing their relationships online, with vague and subtle soft launches replacing the full-scale hard launches of the past.
Joseph argued women still want the social benefits that come with having a boyfriend, but at the same time, they don’t want to be perceived as “all about their man.” Instead, the “coveted status” is now being single, because being in a relationship is no longer an achievement.
For the column, Joseph interviewed different women about why they feel a need to hide their boyfriends on their Instagram stories. Women gave many different answers (privacy, the fear of breaking up, and superstitions being some of them), but an overarching theme seemed to be this embarrassment of admitting you were in a relationship.
Unsurprisingly, the internet had very mixed reactions. Some women were cheering on the article, other women called it “rage bait” pitting single women against women in relationships, and some women even used the trend as an excuse to post how great their own boyfriends are.
Many women have interpreted the article as meaning that having a bad boyfriend who does the bare minimum is embarrassing, but having one that actually cares about you isn’t at all. Joseph took to TikTok to clarify some of these conceptions.
“So many people have messaged me to be like… ‘My boyfriend is not like other boyfriends and I’m not embarrassed,’” Joseph said in the TikTok. “I’m telling you…it’s embarrassing. Collectively, the way men have behaved in relationships, it is nothing short of (emotional) terrorism…and this is what we’ve normalized in dating.”
Joseph said that she did not intend to pit women against each other with the article, and clarified that she believes you are able to be both in a relationship and an individual. However, she wanted to investigate why the idea of singleness is so appealing nowadays.
“No one wants to hear that being with a man is embarrassing, especially when you’re in a loving relationship, but just take stock of where we’re at politically,” Joseph said. “The heterosexual fantasy is crumbling.”
Joseph does have a point; the distance between men and women, especially politically, has bled into dating life. As women become more liberal and men trend more conservative, ideological differences have led to many women facing struggles in their dating lives. The “heterosexual fantasy,” has, in fact, crumbled for a lot of women who struggle to find a partner that does not contradict their beliefs.
The article resonated with me in a lot of ways. The first time I found myself in a committed relationship (with a man who is wonderful, smart, and politically aligned with me), I felt as if I was betraying my man-hating, single-life-loving nature. And then I met my now boyfriend, and I was honestly so embarrassed about the time, mental energy, and emotional energy I was dedicating to a man.
But the argument in the article, and the idea that dating a man is embarrassing because of the actions of all men, seems misguided. The conclusion you should take from this article is not to be embarrassed by your boyfriend. As Joseph herself wrote in the article, “there’s no shame in falling in love.” What needs to be questioned is what we’re willing to accept in relationships and what we’re willing to accept in our culture.
Being single is not embarrassing. Dating a man is not embarrassing, but centering your life around men, or changing your values, personality, or identity to better align yourself with your boyfriend, is.
To be clear, talking about men isn’t embarrassing. Discussing love and relationships is part of life and growing up, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But changing your beliefs to better reflect those of your boyfriend, interrupting conversations with your friends to talk about your latest talking stage, slipping your boyfriend into every conversation no matter the topic, or lying about who you are to try and make a man like you: this is what’s embarrassing.
Having a boyfriend isn’t embarrassing for the same reason that being single isn’t embarrassing, because your relationship status has absolutely no correlation to your worth. A relationship doesn’t define you. Loving someone is not embarrassing; losing yourself in the process is.