Smashing the single woman stereotype

Single women are not generally unhappy.

However if someone were to ask me three months ago if I was terribly unhappy being single, I would have only half-way raised my hand. I say half-way because terribly unhappy is an exaggeration. A little unhappy was a realization. But if you asked me today, I would say I was finally content. That resolve didn’t happen overnight nor was it an easy road. However if you are an unhappy single woman, consider this: In a January Talk of the Nation segment, the following was discussed.

For what may be the first time, 51 percent of American women are living without a husband. And single women are more socially connected, economically stable, and happier than ever before.

This is no coincidence. Women are just getting stronger by the minute and realizing they don’t need a husband to survive. They are making their own way through life and finally putting rest the old fashioned idea of needing a significant other. Those statements aren’t my proclamation of a feminist movement. It is just fact. In my company alone there are several women who have just been promoted passed the glass ceiling and are continuing to whack the hell out of it. Even though some of them are married, they were the driven type of individuals who were well on their path of success. If they weren’t married, they could still stand on their own two feet.

As for me, the timing of my own contentment coincided with several self-realizations.

A.) I finally accepted my place in my career.

B.) I began venturing out in several avenues of self-improvement.

C.) I stopped beating myself up about marking SINGLE on those annoying little boxes on various paperwork.

Being single isn’t a fault. It isn’t something to appologize for when people around you may shake their heads and ask, “What’s so great about being single?”

From BaltAmour writer Maryann James.

I was out with two of my friends the other night, one (Friend 1) who is going through a break-up and another (Friend 2) who is still fighting a fake-up, when Friend 1 asked us, “What’s so great about being single?”

There was silence at the table. Then, being the swinging single I am, I responded, “Because you’re free! You don’t have to answer to anyone! You can be your own person!”

Which is partly true, and partly a lie. When you’re in a relationship, you can still be your own person. (In fact, I’d say it’s better when you are.) The only difference between being single and taken is that when you’re single, you can afford to be selfish and have some measure of all-about-me focus, because, well, it is only you.

Someone tell me, what is really all that sad about that?!