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

[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.