I have found that in some recent social situations, I've been reluctant to admit that I'm in a relationship. It's not about wanting to cheat on J or having guys hit on me, but I think it's more about fitting in or being perceived as "fun" or "interesting." People in relationships have this stigma upon them of being lame, dull, boring and the list goes on. People that are single, who have dating drama or who are "so over dating" are more interesting to talk to because their lives are a lot less predictable and they most likely have a juicy breakup story in the bag. Nobody cares about the old, married couple who has fights about socks and dirty dishes.
Singles hang out with other singles and couples tend to hang out in couples. As much as I despise this perpetual trend, it is a reality. If you're in a relationship and you hang out with a bunch of people that are not in relationships or pretending not to be in relationships, there is this feeling of not wanting to be outed because of the exclusion or attention that comes with it. Once you tell people that you're in a relationship, it seems to be all they want to know about or they lose interest in you all together. The range of your topics of conversation shrinks drastically and though you don't mind talking about your significant other, you also miss just being an independent entity with more intriguing aspects to your life than a relationship.
On a recent episode of How I Met Your Mother, Robin became friends with a group of single girls and Lily felt left out because she's married. Groups of single people do not want to hang out with people that aren't single because they might have different going out objectives or singles assume that the attached would rather be at home in their pod.
Through my thoughts about this topic, a google search turned up this article. It gave me some reassurance that my feelings are common for others and perhaps a function of society and that it doesn't have any negative bearing on my feelings for J.
So, what do you think? Is it ok to avoid admitting relationship status so as not to be relegated to the default relationship conversation and stigma?
2 comments:
Okay, so even if directly asked you (not specifically you) would say "I'm single?" Or is it just withholding that information until asked? Or just hemming and hawing?
i think i had a blog like this from over the summer! i'm glad i'm not the only one. =D although i didn't have quite the same analysis as you...but i def felt the exact same way about saying i went to princeton back during the college days: people lost interest or they could only ask me about how hard school must be...i think it's the other people that have the problem, not us. =P
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