(No. 7) It’s cool not to have a boyfriend
A February examination on dating status power
Do you think it’s cool to be single? I saw a Tiktok eons ago; a popular creator said they had a boyfriend of 4 years and no one knew.1 That video, along with this one about losing the cool and unobtainable single life factor has me wondering about the implications behind romantic status and why they can’t seem to hold quite as steady as the 1950s
At the end of this piece, I’ll include a short list of relational titles for those who feel conflicted about what to call your... exactly.
Who remembers “soft launching” on social media? What a campaign executed by a bunch of business people. Our romantic interest properly sized for mobile ads.
The amount of personal information we feel willing to share online only inflates as the 21st century creeps along; with romantic tidbits serving as juicy fodder. Not only that, but we feel entitled to these tidbits, trained as diligent voyeurs of peers, celebrities, and 6th-grade enemies.
But a rockstar can’t tout their secure long-term relationship online because their career depends on a hot and heavy fanbase. It’s not that being single is inherently useful—sociopolitical incentives are extremely anti-single—but being single is a tool because it’s cool.2
Alright, so what if we’re not rockstars? We’re still conditioned that dating is all anyone wants to talk about. The sitcom model praises the single character who moves the story forward. Why not a whole cast of single characters (enter: Seinfeld)? A narrative that passes without a romantic interest is praised for its individuality, its daringness to tell an unattractive story.
There are stipulations to the coolness of being single, though. You must be within a certain age range, not single for too long, looking but not desperate. We’ve all been sipping a round of first-date drinks listening to someone talk about how they’re “seriously over” their last ex of last week. The coolness of being single is quantified by how well you can avoid being a walking red flag—how well you can refine yourself.
For me, I turned out to be a shiny shell, plucked right from the shore in the image of my date. I was single and I was effortless and I had never done anything wrong. This is why our Tiktok creators dread seeming anything other than single; being single is a state of refinement if you play by the rules of cool. Only refined are we desirable to others and only desirable are we valuable. The dating finish line may be a grand finale of personal success and social status but it’s also a mini-death of desirability. A sweet cool ego death.
The fictional cool aunt in our minds is single by definition. She’s untethered, full of opportunity and potential energy. A tiny wooden racecar poised at the very top of a steep and winding course. She arrives late to the party wearing a full-length coat and appeals to all with stories of travel, I think.
Being tethered is the fabric that we wear to live and survive, but the rejection of this tethering or the small, scarce glint of James-Bond-ness captures our attention with potentiality. It’s the sacrifice of immediate support for freedom of some kind that leads us to imagine we could all be international spies if weren’t tethered with the people we love. We could all be the cool aunt who turns down suitors by choice; she would rather be free.
We view this freedom with envy (and maybe even contempt) because this untetheredness contrasts the model of nuclear family units we’ve been shoehorned into—the model that’s rewarded financially, socially, and politically. The model that isolates us. This is the austere model we celebrate yearly in a wave of Valentine’s Day niceties.3
Even if single people decide to find other ways to tether themselves, say joining a sewing club or lending out their snow blower, they’re still informally scorned and ostracized. We all have or know a family member (usually cousins in some strange phenomenon) who is spoken about in low tones with a sense of urgency as to the status of their singlehood. If it’s true that being single is a useful tool because it promotes desirability within the heterosexual nuclear familial context, then why are single people so incredibly ostracized within this same living context? Because there are two sides to the same rusty coin.
Monarcharist roots have grandfathered in the story that serious partnerships (and/or unions) equate to power. Tabloids are still splattered with headlines of the hottest “power couples,” who rule us now in other ways. But a majority of Western societies aren’t governed by an upper class that marries internally and strategically anymore. (No, we’re free to be ruled by billionaires who steal from us and just might marry each other but don’t have to. Distinctions.)
We’ve all heard about the spinster who, during the middle ages, referred to unmarried women whose status reflected their low-income work spinning yarn or thread. This colloquialism blends class and social status into one vulnerable person. But even if you’re a wealthy person of any gender or age who is single by choice, there are suspicions and murmuring. Speculation warps the limits of any flaw; soon personhood is irrelevant.
Power in romantic unions was enforced in the ruled peoples to bolster the monarchies (a concept spreading rapidly by colonialism) and contain the power of a connected community. Monarchies are and were rooted in patriarchy (hang in there with me), and the society they’ve shaped still lingers. This is a society in which eligible young people are projected to be attractive to other eligible young people, and ready for more familial units.
But how does single go from a state of desirability, availability, and perfection to a practice of socio-political punishment?4
Let’s flip over the coin.
It’s not true that being single is a useful tool because let’s say that tool is a pencil—the lead would be a nice balsamic vinaigrette glaze, sweetly sabotaging the instrument’s purpose. Because, while we’re operating in a society that adheres to patriarchal norms, we’re expected to be both desirable and unavailable, sterile and sexy.
There are many incentives to being married or in some kind of legal or religious union in America.5 Besides the obvious financial benefits, there are other baked-in benefits like social approval, success at work, and emergency contacts. Newish relationships might share a living space as a function of good budgeting sense to kind of preemptively feel the benefits of a union. Singlehood is a status that’s meant to result in dating but dating is a danger zone of both undesirability and unprotection.
“Cool single” is only achievable with stipulations too, remember? Stipulations that require you to dodge recognition of red flags and become refined in an inhumanly way. I’m a bad culprit of these “cool single” fantasy gymnastics. I’ve claimed I’m an animal person instead of explicitly a cat person. I’ve insisted I’m not that clean, I just like to tidy up. I’ve dyed my hair blonde for half my adulthood. I’ve listened to artists with dollar signs in their names when I actually like music that’s a mixture of western folk and alien pop. But I’m not a bit confused about why I did these things.
The word “dating” doesn’t quite fit the bill anymore for a lot of folks in relationships. I remember seeing the (yeah, silly) movie He’s Just Not That Into You (2009) and thinking for a long time afterward about how Jennifer’s character couldn’t remedy thoughts that their serious relationship wasn’t legitimate without a religious or legal union. More and more people are finding themselves comfortable in long-term relationships that don’t require a grand finale of marriage for a variety of reasons, but calling these situations “dating” doesn’t quite convey the breadth of connection.
I’ve always struggled with an internal debate about the term partner. I felt betrayed when I first discovered that my college professor was not queer as I had thought, but rather used the term partner to refer to their heterosexual spouse. When I reflect on it, I can see that using the term partner in heteronormative contexts creates safety for the queer community to use it too, while still co-opting some of the space that is rightfully theirs.
So if you think that “dating” doesn’t portray the gravity of the relationship, try tearing up and breaking into song or try calling your partner a partner. No matter what we call ourselves, we’re still doing it wrong no matter our romantic status. We’re only valuable and cool if we’re cooperative so here’s my petition to be uncool and uncooperative.
Today, I saw a post on Instagram from a creator I like called @zestinferna saying they had just turned 30 and they were “coming of hag.” The male gaze begone, they were free to be in their “hagboihood.” I just love that.
The coolest thing we can do is tether ourselves to others in ways that fit our needs and suit us well in any romantic status.
[Fin]
As promised, here’s a list of relational titles I like to have handy that could sub in for boyfriend/girlfriend/themfriend. Oh, handy is a good one too.
Darling
Dearest
Honeydew
Valentine
Beloved
Suitor
Spark
Admirer
Romance Partner
Sweetheart
Squeeze
Beau
Partner
Flame
Wooer
Date
Significant Other
Tootsie
Sugar
Companion
Mate
Domestic Partner
Angel
Treasure
If you know what I’m talking about PLEASE SEND IT TO ME because I can’t find it.
Starting around the 1930s, cool began appearing in American English as an extremely casual expression to mean something like ‘intensely good.
At least, in America there are increasing escalating costs to being single (on top of the negative social reception).
See the article “Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny: Modern Action and Superhero Films Fetishize the Body, Even as They Desexualize It” by RS Benedict
Addition to relational titles:
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