Thoroughly modern millennial
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![Confession: I have been single for my entire life. ...and with that confession I'm inviting in a whole truckload of stereotypes about the idea of being single girl in the 21st Century. [image] Stating 'single' as your relationship status comes with a wealth of contradicting views and feelings. In some ways it's empowering, yet you feel prudish for not putting out; envied for your independence and free agency, but bound to the clock that counts down to getting a boyfriend/girlfriend, marriage; pressured to follow your own dreams, your own career and your own path, but are consistently fighting off questions about your dating life, when you’ll have kids, whether you’ll ever settle down. At nearly 24 it’s literally taken me this long to come face to face with the reality of what 'being single' really means and the societal pressure that comes with it. Sure, I felt it in small bursts at school, at College, at University. But it didn't really hit me until now, two years out into the 'real world' living away from home and a year into a 'proper job'. Where once the statement 'No I'm not seeing anyone' was met with 'Well you're young, you have so much more time to think about all that', the response now garners wide eyes, a questionable 'Oh', and a '...well have you thought about online dating?' And round her house she set Such a barricade of barb and check Against mutinous weather As no mere insurgent man could hope to break With curse, fist, threat Or love, either. - Spinster, Sylvia Plath Sometimes it feels like women are wholly defined by their romantic entanglements and relationships status. Nowadays this is only escalated by social media and the 'fear of missing out'. We see our friends, classmates, colleagues, and family getting hitched/starting families/getting mortgages, whilst I sit in my pj's and Netflix and chill on the sofa on a Saturday night. And that reality - the one where 'being single' gives off the air of not a real grown up, just plain 'sad' and inevitable thoughts that I will end up alone with loads of cats - is a really horrible, hard pill to swallow sometimes. To put it bluntly it f*cking sucks. [Spinster book cover] I reviewed Spinster by Kate Bolick recently and aside from it being a Grade A for Awesome read, she highlights the stigma that comes attached with being a single 'spinster' in our society and how much absolute bull that is. Because in reality there really shouldn't be any shame attached to being single. As Bolick so eloquently presents in the book, what is important is that women should be free to carve a path of their own life. Whether that includes marriage and children, or not is - frankly - none of your business. [Charlene Kaye GIF] For me Bolick's sentiments in the book infer that choosing the so-called Spinster life will not lead you to becoming the crazy cat lady from The Simpsons. In fact you are in wonderful company. Louisa May Alcott, Jane Austen, Coco Chanel, Greta Garbo, Florence Nightengale, and Bolick's 'awakeners' - columnist Neith Boyce, essayist Maeve Brennan, social visionary Charlotte Perkins Gilman, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and novelist Edith Wharton, were all incredible women who lived amazing and fulfilling lives. The take away is to choose the path want to lead consciously and with a self-awareness that is not driven by societal pressure to be one or the other. It's feeling comfortable with outcome of both imagined futures. Your time may come to say 'I Do' or it may not and that's ok. You are valid in both entities. --- I'd love to hear any thoughts you had on so-called 'Spinster-hood' and relationships in the comments. I've also listed a couple of links below from more eloquent people if you fancy skimming around the Internet on the topic. A letter to my not so happy single self, Medium https://medium.com/life-learning/a-letter-to-my-not-so-happy-single-self-43a338350007#.chvsv49i2 Spinster Girl, Justkissmyfrog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUCqeoXTuHk All the single ladies, Kate Bolick http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/308654/ Why We Should All Be Spinsters: Writers Take on a New Feminine Mystique, Flavorwire http://flavorwire.com/513970/why-we-should-all-be-spinsters-writers-take-on-a-new-feminine-mystique](http://thoroughlymodernmillennial.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/spinster-plath.jpg)
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