May is Self-Awareness Month

by Eric Francis Coppolino, April 29, 2011

Earlier this year, one of the Planet Waves editors posted to our blog an article she found about the odd relationship options offered by Facebook (for example, the category “it’s complicated” being a stand-in for everything other than something supposedly normal, without saying what; the insinuation is “more than one partner”). Following that article back to its source, a blog called Onely.org, I discovered the existence of a singles movement.

This is about people for whom conventional relationship models do not work, or more simply put, a movement of people who want to go solo. They don’t want to date in any conventional way, they don’t live with the expectation of marriage, they don’t cohabitate, and they don’t do the boyfriend-girlfriend thing. They don’t want to be half of a couple, in the immortal words of Erica Jong; they want to be a whole person, and the easiest way for them to facilitate that is to be single.

They might count all their friends on an equal par, on the basis that all relationships have value. One is not on a higher rung than another. There’s substantial questioning of how society compels many people to embrace relationship options that might not (or absolutely do not) work for them. There is as much questioning of heteronormative conditioning as there is in any queer community. In case you haven’t heard that word, it’s a keeper—a concept to contain all the rules and regulations you’re supposed to follow in a world oriented primarily on heterosexual relationships, which are considered the norm.

The idea of a singles movement immediately sounded revolutionary because much of the relationship discussion is about what form of long-term committed relationship one chooses (mono or poly, married or living together, gay or straight), rather than questioning the orthodoxy of relationship. Many people have the feeling that if they’re not “in a relationship,” they’re not normal. Many places having a partner or spouse is the equivalent of fully vested citizenship. Once you have someone on your arm, you’re allowed into society.

Exploring other websites in this genre, the discussion I read was often politically astute and a bit indignant. Why should the dentist be asking about your marital status? Is that vaguely relevant to getting your teeth cleaned? If they need to notify your next of kin that you have cavity, they can call your sister.