Singleness

[liv]

Can't remember where I saw the link to this, but it really spoke to me: Moya ZB on Living single. It's a great article, heavily referenced in a style that Tim Berners-Lee would approve of. This paragraph in particular made me shout "Yes, this!" at the computer screen:

I want to live in a world where there isn’t a hierarchy of relationships, where romantic love isn’t assumed to be more important than other kinds, where folks can center any relationships they want whether it be their relationship to their spiritual practice, kids, lovers, friends, etc. and not have some notion that it’s more or less important because of who or what’s in focus. I want to feel like I can develop intimacy with people whether we are sleeping together or not that I will be cared for whether I am romantically involved with someone or not. I want a community that takes interdependency seriously that doesn’t assume that it’s only a familial or romantic relationship responsibility to be there for each other.

This kind of thing is why I hesitated for so long over whether to get married, and why I still define myself as quirkyalone even though I did eventually marry. Over recent months, it's been a significant source of frustration to me that every random data entry clerk or market survey bod I come across knows that jack is important to me, but even people who know me quite well often have no idea how important some of my friends are to me. Everybody accepts that employees want to balance work with commitments to spouses and offspring if applicable, but balancing work with commitments to, say, my religious community isn't really even a concept. Even caring responsibilities towards parents or siblings or, hell, unmarried partners have to be argued from scratch every time the issue comes up.

Of course, the fact that I did choose to get married, and was in a position where that's possible, gives me immense, unearned privilege for exactly the reasons described in the linked article. I have a lot of advantages that are simply not available to huge numbers of people whose relationship structures look a lot like mine, or are even closer to the romantic pair-bond ideal, who are not able to get married because they live in a jurisdiction where the law restricts marriage by gender. I also have a lot of advantages that are not available to people like Moya ZB who choose not to structure their relationships like that, or people who ideally would like to get married but have not met, and may never meet, a person who wants that particular form of relationship with them.

It's not just an accident of birth that gives me these advantages, it's a choice that I made. So in lots of ways I'm really part of the problem. I got married even though I don't really "believe in" marriage. Or at least, I don't think there's anything wrong with getting married (otherwise I really would be a massive hypocrite), but I don't believe in the idealization of marriage at the expense of every other form of relationship. The problem is partly that marriage is over-valued, but it's more significant I think that a romantic, monogamous dyad is ridiculously over-valued compared to every other form of human connection. I want to live in a world where there isn’t a hierarchy of relationships, even if currently one of the key relationships in my life puts me towards the top of that hierarchy.

And I can't really complain, I know. I totally had the choice to follow through on my original plan to stay "single" forever, to have friends and lovers but not to pick one to be the person in my life. Given my other advantages in life, the stigma and problems I would have faced if I'd made that choice would have been really minimal. So you should pay attention to Moya ZB, who does have something to complain about!

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I work in healthcare in Australia. The government lets all family members share medical costs - so if a person reaches a certain threshold of spending on (already subsidised) medications or tests, more medications and tests are free for the rest of the calendar year (or paid back afterwards, if you prefer). A "family" has the same threshold as a single person. This wouldn't bother me as much (the single pension is more than half of the couple pension) except that the government defines "family", and I frequently have to explain that no, two adult siblings running a farm together cannot share costs. The two nuns at the local church can't share costs. Parents and their disabled adult offspring cannot share costs. Three people in a marriage cannot share costs. An elderly woman and her asthmatic nephew who cares for her cannot share costs. And I wonder, why not? What is so important about a couple (same-sex or opposite-sex, married or not) and their under-18 children or under-25 full-time student that trumps everything else?

Since 2009, my same-sex partner and I count as a family, though we can't get married. But having got to the point where our relationship is barely less than a straight couple just makes me think more about how arbitrary that rule is.

[liv]

Yes, those are really clear and important examples. There is gradual progress towards counting same sex couples as a family, and I hope the trend continues to full equality. But that still excludes couples and groups that are not romantic, and that's really unfair. Particularly when it comes to non-spouse carers, let alone siblings or platonic housemates. Bah.

[jack]

*hugs* I think I would apply my standard descriptivism treatment, and say "It may or may not be true that most people structure their lives around a primary romantic partner, but just because we have a word for it certainly doesn't mean people should be socially and legally required to do so!"

[liv]

Hmm. I think it's not purely a language problem, here. It's not so much that we have a word for "husband" and lack a word for "soul-friend," it's just that there are all these social structures and prevalent memes that assume the former is more important than the latter.

[jack]

Oh yes, I agree it's much much more entrenched in society than language-determinism things (which can be surprisingly entrenched by themselves).

But to me it felt like the same conceptual error on a grander scale. People almost never actively evaluate whether "something other than a stereotypical heterosexual marriage" can be equally fulfilling: they just assume it isn't because they think "stereotypical heterosexual marriage" is the default.

[jack]

And I'm sorry for contributing to us being so sell-out-y, although I hope being married will be worthwhile :)

FWIW, I was thinking about marriage and I think it's not that I specifically want to be married, it's that I want to propose an open-ended romantic alliance. And my brain is massively conditioned to equate that with marriage. And there are two possible solutions: (1) get married or (2) reassure my brain that "not get married" doesn't automatically mean "we're not interested in spending life together". And that reassurance is eminently possible (though may be an ongoing project). So I'm sorry I didn't consciously realise the distinction two years ago or suggest (2) as an explicit option -- I hope we're happy with (1), but FWIW, we do have another option if we ever decide we'd prefer it :)

[jack]

PS. *hugs*

*hugs*

[liv]

I don't think you should apologize for asking me to marry you, cos I could totally have said no if this line of thinking had won out in my internal arguments. To my memory, we did have some quite serious discussion of having an open-ended romantic alliance and not calling it marriage, we talked of "betrothal" and of just making a private agreement without any big ceremony. In the end it seemed like the advantages outweighed the downsides, but I think it's a bit unfair that there should be all those advantages which aren't available to everyone.

I am still very tempted to convert our marriage to a civil partnership if they ever do allow that for opposite sex couples. But even if we had hypothetically made a different decision, or if we do convert in future, we would still have lots of unearned social respect because of being a romantic couple.

[iddewes]

As someone who did not get into a serious relationship till the age of 42 I am totally with you. I am happy with Dirk now but I also felt that there was a lot of stigmatisation about being a single female of a certain age. Even on Facebook I kept getting ads coming up for cat rescue associations, as if being single and over 40 automatically meant 'crazy cat lady'. I just read your Australian friend's comment about the health care set up there and I hadn't thought about that before but I can really see how that is wrong too - if you are living with someone and caring for them, surely that should be just as important if the person is your great aunt as if they are your wife.

[liv]

Yeah, one of the bad consequences of valuing marriage above everything else is there's a shockingly narrow window during which it's acceptable to form a serious relationship. Younger than about 27 you're too young, because it's assumed that once you're married your whole life revolves around your spouse and eventually children, so by getting married you're squandering your one chance to develop your own interests and career. Older than about 28 and you're too old and you might miss out on the all-important goal of getting married. I'm glad to hear you had a happy time being single for a while, and that you're also happy in the relationship you now have. There really shouldn't be anything so surprising about that!

[iddewes]

Well, I did still want to get together with someone, and I don't know how much of that was because of societal norms. It didn't come from my mother, who kept telling me I would be better off getting a dog.
And, it's still worse for women than men - the over 28 thing really only applies to women. Which is REALLY annoying.

[liv]

I think you're right, there is somewhat more flexibility for men than for women in terms of age. But I also think that there is in some ways more stigma towards single men than single women, whether that's by choice or because they don't happen to have met someone who wants to marry them. Also, men really aren't expected to have any caring responsibilities at all, even towards their own spouse and children, let alone anyone else who might be important in their life.

[syllopsium]

it really isn't exclusive to women. yes, perhaps there's more leeway than dictating a certain age but the stigma increases year by year with queries as to whether you will actually settle down.

There's also a stigma against one half of a married couple (usually opposite sex, haven't seen this behaviour with same sex couples yet but it probably exists) being friends with a single person of a certain age - the implication being they simply shag around and will tempt the married person into undesirable behaviour..

[daharyn]

Take a step back and read this essay in comparison with the "my wedding got me a great European vacation without much economic or logistical hardship" post, as I did (coming over from LJ and reading a bunch at once).

Liv, I think you're great. But the "I can't complain... here's a whole post that's really kind of complaining" attitude here is galling. I mean, so much of the Croatia post is about the privilege you were afforded because of this decision.

Let me give you a comparison. I work for an incredibly under-resourced, under-funded public university that is stretched to its breaking point. But I happen to work in what is probably the only unit of the university that gets the resources it needs and the money it needs and really has zero problems with overcrowding. I go do my job in a beautiful building in a wealthy neighborhood with ample room to do what I need to do, as opposed to being one of 200 adjuncts in a community college department where none of the rooms have windows and I can't get any chalk. (And yes, I've also had that job in my time here.)

When I go out with my friends, and people are bitching about work, you know what I do? I keep my mouth shut. Because I know my friends have to deal with far more hardships than I do. Part of dealing with your privilege is, frankly, keeping a lid on it. Sure, I could leave my job--and you could get divorced. But since that's not likely to happen, a woman married-by-choice musing on singleness feels akin to a man putting forth strong opinions on abortion.

[daharyn]

Oh, also, the other thing to do, besides keeping a lid on it...

...is to find a way to make sure that privilege is afforded to more people. I think that's what you're trying to get at here on an intellectual level, but I'd love to know how you're going to take this from introspection to, helloooo, actual activity. Lobbying seems necessary. You recognize that you have privilege and that you're still dealing with it. Are you going to take the next step, though? I wonder.

(To continue the comparison: I got three of my friends interviews for teaching positions at a private school that would pay better and has more resources. Two of them went on to teach there.)

[daharyn]

But to further reply to my OWN comparison--my effectiveness was limited because the solution really is to agitate for a more equal distribution of resources across the university.

OK done now. sorry for making my own thread.

[liv]

I'm with you entirely. I have been politically active towards marriage equality, both on the level of writing to politicians and filling in petitions, and on the level of advocating for marriage equality in my general life. Thinking beyond gender equality, towards truly valuing relationships that are not romantic pair-bonds, I am trying to come up with useful things that I can do on a practical level.

Explicitly promoting that political stance in how I interact with other people is one thing, and I have a little bit of influence as a lecturer and as a community leader. I make a pretty big point of calling out single shading when it comes up in conversation. What else, though? There isn't an organized pro-friendship political movement, and I'm not sure poly activism is my scene although it's a possibility that that would be better than nothing. I could give people expensive presents and rearrange my life to travel to visit them for reasons other than weddings, but that's rather a little thing and benefits me as much as anyone else. Likewise with making an effort to introduce / invite friends of friends to my social circle as well as just partners of friends.

I definitely appreciate your strong encouragement to act rather than just introspect, many thanks for that.

[khalinche]

I have to say, I find this 'don't critique or complain about a situation which doesn't negatively affect you' approach quite baffling. Would you rather people stayed silent about unfair situations of which they were, however unwillingly, the beneficiary? Liv is discussing a situation here in which she made a choice to form a particular state-sanctioned relationship structure, and the implications that has had for her life. This is completely different from a man talking about abortion - it's more akin to a woman who had an unplanned pregnancy and chose to keep the baby, talking about abortion. It's someone who chose a certain road talking about how it's unfair that their way is made easier for reasons that seem unfair to them.

But seriously, when did it become unacceptable to talk about unfair situations if they don't adversely affect you? Am I, as a white person, supposed to refrain from talking about how much less likely I am to suffer police violence or other discrimination, for example? Or is that, by your logic, rubbing other people's nose in it?

[liv]

Could I ask you to tone this down a little? What you've written here is certainly closer to my intentions with this post than daharyn's interpretation. But in a lot of ways that doesn't matter; if I communicated poorly enough that I ended up hurting a friend who doesn't have a socially / state sanctioned relationship structure, that friend doesn't deserve to get yelled at for being upset about how my post came across.

[khalinche]

I apologise that this comment comes across as too aggressive. When you say 'tone it down', would you like me to edit the original comment or be less confrontational in subsequent discussion? It may be better if I bow out here, really.

[liv]

Thank you, I really appreciate this response. I was asking you to be gentler in any subsequent discussion that may arise from your comment. I don't want to drive you away from the discussion, and I don't often moderate heavily, but I want to avoid going down a route where I say something hurtful (accidentally) and my friends jump in to defend me.

[khalinche]

Thanks. I think I am quite bad at carrying on discussions where there is a combination of not wanting to hurt people's feelings, or a risk of being hurt, myself, and disagreement over an approach or fact. I agree that having people dogpile onto anyone who challenges you would be a bad thing, or rather, I respect your wish for counterchallenges to be courteous, and I'm sorry that I crossed a line. I stand by the point I was making in the original comment, though I would now choose to phrase it differently.

[syllopsium]

I think there are two main issues here - societal and monetary. It would be nice if all relationships did not have value judgements applied to them, but like it or not many people do have a hierarchy of relationships (possibly including myself; whilst on the one hand I'd try to assess things on their own merits, on the other hand if there are two simultaneous demands on your time there is by definition a hierarchy). There is quite possibly the reasoning to provide minimum standards that apply to all : most people help their immediate family in times of need; you can't have work etc denying this as it would then have to be applied regardless of position.

The economic position is slowly improving but generally applies to state recognised partnerships. In cases of marriage and civil partnerships there have to be mechanisms to recognise serious commitment, usually by making it difficult to dissolve that partnership. For other types of relationship there's probably a long way to go legally!

I'd also note that as a single person with good friends, that tends to lean towards monogamy as a serious relationship model, whilst I have some decent support from friends and family I tend to think for more guaranteed support it's likely to come from someone I'm in a commited relationship with, or from myself, rather than any other source.