Originally published in June 2022.
The youth don’t know me yet. They don’t know the growth work I’ve done, the people-pleasing I’ve left behind. They’re still on their parent’s health insurance for fuck’s sake what do they know about life? They don’t know that when they say mean shit to me on the internet, I will dissect their comments and then dance upon what remains. Did I sign up for more exposure to tomfoolery when I got TikTok, yes. Does that mean I have to be okay with egregiously bad manners? Never. The manners I refer to today involve viewing my content, which is intended to support, soothe, and empower single women, and in response…calling me bitter.
“If you’re lonely and bitter just say that.”
“Someone’s bitter.”
“You’re just bitter because you’re single”
“Careful, you sound bitter.”
Imagine having…not just these thoughts, but the wherewithal to put thumb to phone and actually type them out and hit send. It’s so baffling to me. The longer I’m alive the more I recognize that the internet we’ve allowed to fester like crabgrass in an abandoned yard is little more than a place for people to be abrasively brave, rude, and wrong with zero consequences.
They call me bitter because my content isn’t patriarchal. It’s not man-pleasing, it doesn’t value a woman’s ability to attract a man above all else, in general it really doesn’t give a shit about what men are thinking so much as it gives a shit about a tired-ass narrative changing. We’ve been blaming single women for their singlehood, insinuating it has something to do with how “desirable” they are since essentially the dawn of modern civilization and all I’m doing is suggesting that in a romantic world with so many moving parts maybe single women aren’t the part that’s broken, shitbirds.
Bitter as an insult is part of a Romantic Relationship Superiority Complex I thought was dead or dying but as it turns is out is alive and well and living rent-free in its parents McMansion in a suburb somewhere. I don’t prize romantic relationships. I don’t think so many aspects of our lives such as our ability to afford rent and health insurance should depend on whether or not we’re regularly fucking the same person. Does that even make sense to you? Your quality of life depending on whether or not you’ve bound yourself to another person?
The deeper I dig, the more baffled I am by how entitled we’ve groomed couples to believe they are, and how unworthy we’ve taught singles to feel, for essentially no logical reasons other than wanting to perpetuate the capitalist myth that marriage and children are the “correct” life path. We’ve gone so far as to teach the youth it’s okay to call a grown woman bitter if she deviates from that, thereby making societal shame of single women not only accepted, but encouraged—we’re hoping this shame shoves them back in line where they belong.
Anyone calling a single woman who challenges antiquated narratives “bitter” is communicating a few things to me:
They’re still assigning their worth to whether or not they’re in a relationship
They haven’t been in a relationship long enough to feel burdened by it, either in terms of restriction from sexual exploration or via the emotional and domestic labor that accompany relationships, specifically those that involve cohabitation—and if we’re talking about heterosexual relationships guess which gender more often bears those burdens…
They are in for an extremely rude awakening one day and I really hope it comes before they’ve been married to someone for long enough to make three kids with them before their spouse cheats, falls in love with someone else, and reinvents themselves (because we actually do change quite a bit between decades) and leave a bewildered partner wondering what the hell they just spent their twenties and thirties doing, and why
You know who never calls me bitter? Divorced women. They call me smart.
A part of me understands that I can’t get upset with mean commenters who simply haven’t experienced enough of life to know a) why their comments are insulting or b) that they’re about to embark on a massive education that is, one can only hope, going to teach them some manners. But the other part of me thinks…why am I doing this if not to affect change? Improving the ways the world views and talks about single women is entirely my shit, so hell yes I’m going to say something to try and broaden the perspective of those so narrowly focused that they think a woman’s worth is tied to whether or not a man desires her romantically.
Bitter is just brilliance in a bad outfit, and I know I dress well don’t lie to me. People don’t like change, and they certainly don’t like being challenged, and my work is poking a giant outdated bear with a stick. Couplehood Superiority feels comfortable, and safe. And one of the ways we’ve told humans it’s okay to feel superior is when they are in a romantic relationship and someone else is not. It’s a very basic and false level-up that people who call me bitter enjoy relying on. My work takes a saw and weakens that rung on the ladder so of course I guess the business end of their meanest thoughts in a comments section.
Being in a relationship doesn’t make you better, and not being in one doesn’t make you bitter. In actuality, we’re all equal in value, but in practice, someone who makes their partner act out staged romantic scenes for TikTok videos while that partner tries to not roll their eyes doesn’t know it yet. They will soon. I just hope the lesson leaves them loving life, rather than hating it—because when you make romantic relationships your whole value, you ignore all the real value you bring to the world, and waking up to that realization far too late in life can make you deeply regretful and angry. Sit in your stew of superiority, I guess, and look at someone who is free and daring to care for a group of people society shames—as the “bitter” one. You don’t know this yet, and I try to teach you but you dismiss me with rude comments: life really starts to get good once you understand that single or partnered, knowing your inherent, individual self-worth is pretty sweet.