Romina Julian
Staff Writer
@excalweb
When Jack Donaghy first met Liz Lemon in 30 Rock, he described Liz as a “single-and-pretending-to-be-happy-about-it” woman. While there are many women who are single and pretending to be happy about it, I can proudly say that I have been single for all my life.
- You don’t need to be in a relationship to be happy. Ana Rancourt.
It’s not that I’m desperate for love or that I’m unable to get a boyfriend. It’s not even that I decided to be a spinster and become the crazy cat lady. It’s just that I do not feel mature enough to start a relationship.
Growing up, I watched Disney princess movies and dreamt that I would find my Prince Charming someday. Throughout my teenage years, I was—and to this day, still am—a huge sucker for romantic comedies. I will watch any movie where the overstressed, career-oriented woman who’s unable to settle down meets the easy-going, handsome leading man with the million-dollar smile and they both fall in love. Music by Train plays during the closing credits.
I still feel like a little girl when it comes to love. I’m childish, and I act as if boys have cooties. I thought that I was mature enough to be independent and responsible when I entered university, but deep down I’m still a kid.
When I spent my summer getting ready for university, I kept promising myself to stop acting like a kid and start acting like an adult. I kept telling myself to stop relying on my parents for everything, to make my own decisions, and to be more mature. I haven’t kept those promises. My first day at York was like my first day at kindergarten. I felt awkward introducing myself to new people and seeing all the boys on campus was like seeing aliens from another planet. I still need my parents’ approval for everything and if I have any personal problems, I talk to my mother for help. I may be turning 20 soon, but I still act like a child.
It seems like everywhere I go, someone is in a relationship. And not only that, but, everyday, I’m surrounded with signs telling me to get a boyfriend, whether it’s from a friend or the media. It causes me to feel pressured to be in a relationship just so I can feel included. If a single girl is depicted in the media, she’s either crying for a boyfriend or is the crazy cat lady.
There are so many negative depictions of single girls in the present media. The Mary Tyler Moore Show revolutionized TV back in the 1970s with the main character, Mary Richards, portrayed as a 30-year-old who just broke up with her fiancee and was working in the city. She remained single for the entire series. There are still characters on TV that are incarnations of Mary Richards, but they will still get paired up with their love interests and end up happy with their relationships. Even shows on The Disney Channel have characters in relationships. Is it ever possible to survive high school single and happy?
In the past, it was common for a woman to either marry in her early 20s or end up dead. A YouTube video of Joan Rivers appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show discussed that topic in her stand-up routine, saying it was easier for a man in his 90s to be single and be accepted, than it was for a woman to be single after the age of 21. Nowadays, it’s probably common for a woman to marry in her 30s, 40s, or so on. My mother, for one, is a real life example.
My mother has been my biggest role model. She told me how she spent her twenties enjoying life. She went to school, travelled, hung out with her friends, and so on. Sure, she had suitors, but they never brought her down. When she married my father, she was thirty, had a successful job, and was content with everything she accomplished. She always tells me to take my time and enjoy anything life offers me until I find the one.
With my mother proving that staying single past the age of 25 does not equal the end of the world, it tells me that I have time to mature. I have time to grow up, live the way I want, and most of all, learn to fall in love. You can spend your entire life doing whatever you want and rebuilding past mistakes, but I believe the chance of finding true love is once in a lifetime.
