Singles Day 2022 – You’ve got this!
When it comes to smashing the patriarchy and breaking taboos, we’ve come a long way, babe! Or have we? Well, there seems to be one final taboo: being single. Even though more than literally half of all American adults are currently single, most of us are still obsessed with the idea of romantic love and its ultimate happy ending: a big-ass wedding, straight or gay. And as I found recently, being a single guest at someone’s fairytale wedding can be rather awkward.
“You can come, but you can’t bring a plus-one, “ my friend, who had turned into a bit of a Groomzilla since he started organizing his wedding, warned me on the phone. “And you have to sit at the singles table,” he added nervously. For a second, I considered showing up as the Wicked Single Witch and curse the whole thing to give him a different kind of fairytale wedding, but I love him too much. Wearing my highest heels, flashiest dress and biggest smile, I showed up on the big day, only to feel my heart sink when I saw the location of singles table: hidden away in the farthest corner. We were literally ‘singled out’. Well, guess what? Within 10 minutes, we had become the life of the party, while the guests seated next to their partners looked pretty bored. ‘You’ve got this!” I said to myself as I grabbed the girl next to me and pulled her onto the dance floor where we totally killed it. And when the moment came for the bride to toss her bouquet, we just shrugged our shoulders and kept dancing. Two perfectly happy, prince-less Cinderellas.
We are raised to believe that we are not complete until we have found our other half. It’s a romantic myth which seems innocent enough. My mother hoping I would ‘find the one and settle down’ for example, was an expression of her love. But the labeling that comes with it can be limiting and even dividing. Even though we constantly find ourselves in a multiplicity of relationships – with our friends, our family, our lovers, our pet – we can only check one of two boxes at the doctor’s office: ‘single’ or ‘married’. And depending on whether we are single or taken, we are assumed to be either lost or found, sad or happy, empty or fulfilled. If we define ‘taboo’ as something that is unthinkable, then perhaps singledom itself isn’t so much a taboo as being happily single, or being fulfilled without a partner. Perhaps that’s the real reason behind singles tables at weddings: proud, empowered singles undermine the fairytale. This Singles Day, let’s smash that ‘final taboo’ by dancing on the singles table and showing the world: we’ve got this, people! Happy Singles Day!
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