Originally published in December 2021.
Here’s the annoying thing about questions: We were raised to think we have to answer. There’s a certain amount of pressure and obligation that comes along with questions. They ask, we feel we have to answer, because if we don’t, that’s rude—right? We were also raised to not be rude. This has countless applications that have zero consequences at all, such as “How’s it going,” “How’s your day,” and other situations that are nothing more than casual pleasantries. The difference for single people, is that what our society has come to believe is casual chat about our lives can actually hurt to discuss. It is also no one’s fucking business.
“How’s dating going?”
“Go on any good dates lately?”
“How are you still single?”
“Sooooo….any new booooys?”
Etc. etc. We’d never sit down in a manicurist’s chair next to a married friend and ask them, “Sooo…..how happy is your maaaariaggggeee?” But it’s the same damn thing. It’s an open question into a private area, but for some reason we’ve been taught that single people’s privacy doesn’t matter. We’ve been taught that someone’s dating life, that their actual search for companionship, carries no more emotional weight than asking how they take their coffee. But if you’re the one doing the dating, you know how questions like this can feel.
It’s sometimes not even the question that hurts! It’s the effort involved in either of the following that really stings:
A) Mentally crafting an answer that will satisfy, one that won’t make you sound upset, sad, or angry, lest the person asking the question thinks you’re causing your own singlehood with negative emotions (that you came by extremely honestly, fyi). This is also known as lying.
B) Telling the truth and opening up the wounds our modern dating space has cut into you. Which often leads to the same outcome, or for extra fun: unsolicited, uninformed, and infective advice. Often from someone who met their partner by chance and never had to endure the dating space for years on end.
Invasive questions about dating and singlehood put a single person in a really unfair position, one that often comes with a lot of shame and pain. Our modern dating space has moved forward faster than societally understood aspects of single life. One of those aspects is small talk, and the realm of questions it’s acceptable to ask a single person. Meaning, dating isn’t cute anymore, if it ever was. It often isn’t even fruitful anymore. It’s become a horror show full of ghosts and god knows what else hiding behind every swipe. This isn’t a game, it’s a grind, and to ask how it’s going? Honestly Sharon, you don’t want to know.
You don’t have to answer every question asked of you. Just because someone felt like asking, that doesn’t mean you have to be emotionally available to answer. You’re allowed to decline to answer. That doesn’t make you rude, and it doesn’t make you someone who hurts other people’s feelings. It makes you someone who knows how to protect their own feelings, and takes action aligned with doing so. The questions asked of singles are not an obligation—they’re an intrusion. And until we start teaching people that our single lives are not small talk, we’ll keep having a culture that thinks dating is cute, no matter how ugly dating continues to get.
Here are a few things that are often on the table (literally, asked at dinner) when it comes to the lives of single people. These are also things that are not, in any way, anyone else’s business, nor are they aspects of your life that are open to other people’s shaming. Other people’s opinions about the following literally do not matter at all, because these things are not happening to other people. It might take some practice to get used to declining these discussions, and standing in self worth that knows there’s no shame here, but practice is okay! Take your time, and take small steps if you need to. Just remember your life is happening only to you, and it doesn’t have to be defended to anyone else.
Your Dating Behavior: How you date, where you date, how often you date, if you date at all, which apps you use, which photos you use on which apps, what you say in your messages, what you wear on dates—everything. This is not anyone else’s concern unless you have specifically hired someone to help you with it. (And honestly, I wouldn’t, unless that person is actually hiding your future partner in their back pocket. Dating coaches don’t know where your spouse is. Period.) You don’t have to offer up information on ANY of this, and you most certainly do not have to be available to hear unsolicited advice about any of it, either. Because we’re human beings, and we (still, heaven help me) see singlehood as wrong. So it doesn’t matter what your answers to any of these questions are. The person asking will ASSUME you’re doing something wrong by virtue of the fact that you’re single. Answering these questions is a no-win situation for a single person. So you are allowed to politely decline and remind the person asking that dating is a part of your private life, the same way their relationship is.
How “Long” It’s Been Since You’ve Had Sex: Singlehood is a space looked at with a lot of lack. There are many assumptions made about what is missing in our lives, and very rarely any thought given to all we have. The term “dry spell” is one of shame, used to make singles feel small and lacking, even strange or broken. We never congratulate someone for going years without sex they regretted afterward, but we’ll shame someone for having zero sex at all, as if that’s a) something bad and b) their fault. Everything about the sex you have or don’t have is your business, and yours alone. You don’t have to placate anyone asking about your sexual behavior by assuring them it hasn’t been “that long.” How the actual fuck could your sexual activity or lack thereof possibly have any effect on someone else who is not a sexual partner of yours? They’re not asking because it affects them, they’re asking for entertainment. You don’t have to entertain anyone with tales from your bedroom.
What’s “Wrong” With You That You’re Still Single: We love to find the flaw, don’t we? Our human brains love to have reasons for things, especially things that don’t make sense, like why a successful, beautiful 35-year-old woman with an awesome personality is “still” single. The impulse is to get to the bottom of this mystery, and for some reason, the mystery is always her fault. It couldn’t possibly be a patriarchal dating culture akin to a dumpster that is on fire sitting atop a pile of broken glass that is also on fire, no—it’s definitely something wrong with her. Let’s find out what it is, and then try to fix her! You never have to serve up “reasons” for why you’re single to anyone asking. It’s the same reason we never tell someone going through a divorce all the reasons why it’s their fault. We don’t shame them, we just love them through it. I wish we could do the same for singles.
You are not obligated. Questions are options. You are allowed, and in my house encouraged, to decline any question about your single life that does not feel good to answer. This is how we change narratives, by refusing to go along with the old ones. I know we were also raised to do as we were told, to do what was asked of us. I know we were taught that to decline was bad manners, rude, or offensive. But I say that questions about our singlehood were bad manners, rude, and offensive first. It’s not your job to move through life absorbing discomfort so that it doesn’t have to land anywhere else. Your comfort matters too, your privacy matters too, and you never have to feel bad about boundaries. Happy Holidays.