Single society
Some story about single hood popped up in my recommendations…Something about a 35 year old woman in yoga pants watching Netflix with her dog and her cat. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing; I hasten to add. But for some reason it inspired me to write this because I have been thinking about the singles phenomenon for some time.
I am 30 and single too. Living in Europe, so I might have a slightly different perspective then most of you who are Americans. But let me tell you what I’ve learned.
The typical 1950’s style feminist nightmare family model with a manly man and a womanly woman has been destroyed by our comfort, our wealth and our freedom. About 200 years ago nature was still better at killing us then we were at killing it. People basically had no choice but to make a family unit because singles had shitty, poor and dangerous lives. And it was impossible to be a single mother without… y’know… starving. Ok; so some marriages were unbalanced and people got oppressed here and there but mostly it was just men and women fighting side by side to stay alive… Accepting the compromises of marriage was not a big deal compared to hunger, disease and social isolation.
Fast forward to today and people can actually afford to go at it alone. The consequences of staying single are no longer bad. Quite the opposite, many are saying. So it might get a little lonely sometimes but that’s not something people think they can’t fix by buying some Ben&Jerry’s or a that cool new cordless power drill that looks like a power ranger’s underarm.
Children raised in these days get told by their well meaning parents they are the most important being in the universe. I understand that. But this makes it hard for people to look beyond their own desires and aim at something bigger then them. Why strive for anything if you have the illusion of being ultimately desirable? Because of this men look for designer women and women look for designer men. They look for a partner that suits their needs instead of looking what they themselves could do to get someone else to accept them.
In the ol’ days you had to pick some guy or gal from the ‘hood because you couldn’t really move that far from your community. You couldn’t be picky by today’s standards and you had to get at it quickly.
In these connected times, people are made to feel there is an infinite menu of partners to choose from. The evil little app they use is just designed to make you interact for longer, nothing more. Dating apps and sites are a sweet honeypot of fictitious potential made hyper palatable by algorithms that actually shield you from the fact that you got rejected at least million times last week. This is especially a problem for young men, I think, because the stupid app is just a slot machine that doesn’t take coins but sill promises a jackpot. Sending a dick pick is the equivalent of some broke deadbeat smacking a slot machine.
For both men and women: What makes you think that if your ideal partner was out there somewhere he or she would want YOU?
I don’t mourn the loss of the limited traditional family model. But I think we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater. We need to revert a little bit. Get the baby back: Put the ideal of the couple above the ideal of the self. People will have to accept that they themselves are limited and deeply flawed and that, if they work hard, they may create a bond with another flawed person and create a unity together, who is whole and approximates the ideal.
You must have noticed that last sentence had a religious tinge to it. I swear I did not do it on purpose. It’s just that religion provided general, relatively sophisticated, information about how we should behave ourselves. “Thou shalt not kill”, and all that. But the modern religious types were so bad at marketing their message that all of the sane people understandably abandoned it. There goes another baby with the bathwater. What I said about putting a higher ideal above yourself is no longer taught to young adults. They are getting their clues by checking out some gangsta rapper on Twitter building a coffee table out of dollar bills or watching a YouTube video full of plastic Kardashians bouncing around on their yacht.
Again. We need to revert back a little bit. Let some traditions, symbols, morality, humility and a higher ideal back into our lives.
The thing is; We’ve been throwing out so many figurative babies we are no longer making actual babies. Fertility rate in the US and EU is about 1.5 children per woman (or thereabouts). No wonder because all the cool girls are too busy being independent and all the cool dudes are hangin’ with the bro’s having an extended adolescence. I can’t decide yet if this is a bad thing or not. Guess I should find a happiness survey or something. At least Greta will be happy, though.
I guess what I am trying to say is: I’m getting a dog. I am looking forward to watching Netflix with it together with my cat wearing slacks. It ‘ll look great next to my motorcycle, my 3D printer and my powertools. Maybe that will give my dating profile just the little edge it needed to find that perfect wife I want. As long as she comes and live with me, of course, and likes all my hobbies. It’d be great to have someone to help with the household too. And…
Oh fuck…
