Shabby Chic

February is the worst month of the year by far: February has only 28 days in it, which means that if you rent an apartment, you are paying for three full days you don’t get and it is the host month for Valentine’s Day.

Try to avoid February’s whenever possible.

Valentine’s Day is the one day of the year when unhappily married women don’t envy their Happy Single Friends and their happily single friends are tempted to spend their “shoe money” on a dating service.

VD, a day when even penicillin won’t cure what’s ailing you.

Valentine’s Day is the day when Happy Singles envy something they don’t necessarily even want.

Chorus in the song Valentine’s Day Lament: “What’s wrong with me”.

Chorus in the song I Survived Valentine’s Day: “What was I thinking”.

Valentines Day is like the measles. We all have to go through it and hope we survive. If we don’t scratch the irritation, we’ll have fewer scars. So let’s duck tape mittens to our hands and not scratch.

After all, it may be one “mother” of a long day but it’s only one day.

Suggestions on how to get through it intact:

Avoid restaurants of any kind – let’s face it, this is not the night you want to utter the words : A table for one please”. Don’t do that to yourself.

If you have any single friends you can get together with, get drunk and beat the hell out of a heart-shaped piñata full of chocolates.

If you don’t have any single friends you can get together with, get drunk, pin a picture of your ex’s face on a cupid shaped piñata filled with chocolate and beat the hell out of it.

If you can’t think of anyone you would want to be with given the choice, broaden your horizons – give serious consideration to becoming gay. Then plan to write a book about it, naming all the names of the people that made your “changing teams” so easy.

Install caller ID on your phone and DO NOT talk to anyone who thinks you should be married or involved in a relationship with potential (your disappointed Mother can go for one day without talking to you).

To combat the inclination to go “postal” at work after you have seen the tenth vase of red roses on your co-workers desks, put on one of those sexy black satin sleeping masks. Suggestion: If you are on a budget you might want to consider renting a seeing-eye dog for the day instead of buying yourself roses .

While most celebrate romance on this day try celebrating your life and all the family and friends who love you “just the way you are” and pretend that matters (some alcoholic beverages may be required to pull this off).

Remember all the bad sex you have had.

Flowers don’t judge - buy some for yourself just as a reminder that you don’t need someone else to do it for you (15% of single women do this by the way).

3% of singles buy their pets Valentine’s Day gifts. BAD IDEA. Do you really want to loose the respect of your cat? I for one will not buy a Valentine’s Day gift for my Persian cats. I have not, however, ruled out buying myself flowers and having dinner with them.

If you are a Drama Queen – think of this day as a new episode in your personal soap opera.

If thinking about being dateless on Valentine’s Day hurts, stop doing it.

On February 15^th, to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself for next February 14^th. talk to as many women as you can whose significant other or spouse did absolutely nothing for them on Valentine’s Day worth bragging about.

Remember there’s nothing wrong with any of us – it’s just not our day.

In the words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. “

The fact that the “commercial dating machine” is so damned good at it is unfortunate.

So be pro-choice, choose not to buy into the billion dollar hype.

Most importantly, hold onto your sense of self and your sense of humor.

Get through the day and before you know it your unhappily married friends will be back to envying you.

Till the next time,

Shabby Chic

A Single Response from a Fellow Blogger to One Man’s Point of View - with thanks from Shabby Chic

“Perhaps this whole “sex, hot food, and clean clothing” perspective is precisely why women want more independence. Being in “service” to one’s husband is hardly a fulfilling life, and women have long known that. Besides, being married has never stopped men from getting sex at home AND elsewhere.

“I think the point that the first article (The Cultural Threat of the Happy Single Woman) was trying to make is that women no longer feel as compelled to get married and are enjoying the independence and freedom that men have enjoyed for many generations prior. The guy arguing that men marry for “sex, hot food, and clean clothing” is totally missing the point. Men have never really needed or wanted to get married as much as women (as far as the myth goes and his argument supports that). His argument is just bull.

“The one thing the guy is right about is that never in history have men been able to get so much free extramarital sex. Every sexual liberation movement has benefited men more than women. Particularly this one, which is clearly focused more on men’s pleasure in its philosophy than on a woman’s. And this is our error, us women, for not demanding more for ourselves and refusing certain behaviors and requests.”

But that’s another post, right?

Velvet Verbosity @ http://velvetverbosity.com

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Response From My Side of the Computer Screen

You bet it is!
To be fair and factual all women do not hate being married. Statistics, however, have told us for quite some time, that for many in America marriage has not lived up to the promise of “living happily ever after” and men and women alike are walking away.

But let’s face it, for disenchanted women, all of the factors you mention have been a part of the “marriage misery” index forever. That more women are choosing to divorce, to delay marriage or choosing not to get married at all is not surprising for the reasons you sited and many more. What is significant about women choosing to be single, is the fact that more women today are in a position financially and emotionally to live with that choice. Therein lies the cultural, socio- political “seismic shift” the cultural critics are worried about. It is one thing to be single because no one has proposed. It is quite another to say “no thanks”. Instead of investing in risky stock market options, more women are taking risks with their own futures and finally betting on themselves.

That some women are happy in “singledom” because they are “enjoying the independence and freedom men have enjoyed for many generations” is equally true.

It is, however, important to acknowledge that independence and freedom are reality based experiences -neither one can happen in vacuum. To truly experience either requires the existence of the element of choice. Some would argue that everyone has choices they can make. I would like to remind these individuals that there was a time not long ago when the only choice the common woman had was between marriage and poverty. For these women marriage was not a choice, it was a survival tactic. Today, for the millions of American women living in poverty that is still their reality.

I believe the term pro-choice should not be confined to the realm of woman’s reproductive rights. It should be used in the context of women’s life rights. Both are worth fighting for.

So how did all of this come about?

It’s important we understand what’s going on because seismic changes have a habit of rocking our world. Change is everywhere and we all need to keep up.

There are a few things we can count on in life – death, taxes and the power of numbers.

Pick any single minded large group in American history and any one us with access to Google can track the impact they have had on the government and society of this country. The growing number of singles in America will, in time, change the workplace, the tax code and social convention as we know it today.

Is our two-by-two Noah’s Ark culture starting to tip - one by one?

Stay tuned for the next conversation, “The Single Minded: “Why now? What does it mean? “ .

Read Part I and Part II of the Single Minded Woman.

Till the next post,

Shabby Chic

Excerpt from the New York Times: “The news that 51 percent of all women live without a spouse might be enough to make you invest in cat futures………”

So how’s that for a stereotype?

The fact that I have two Persian cats as my roommates should in no way be interpreted as factual support for such profiling.

Or does it? Ah hell, who cares?

Since I don’t want men to feel excluded from the “Single Minded Woman” discussion here’s a little something for them.

Point Taken from a Male Perspective

Lane Filler, reporter for the Spartanburg Herald Journal, SC objected to the fact that men were not mentioned or consulted in the NYT’s article reporting that for the 1^st time more adult women are living without a husband than with one. So he called up one of Sam Robert’s key sources for the article, William H. Frey of the Brookings Institute, to discuss this omission.

Here’s how that conversation went.

Mr. Frey called the new statistic “a clear “tipping point” reflecting post 1960 trends associated with greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women.

Mr. Filler countered with, “Everyone’s saying, women no longer have to marry for money, security and to have kids, and that explains these statistics. But couldn’t it just as easily be that men no longer have to marry to get sex, hot food and clean clothing?”

“That is another angle and you’re correct,” Frey answered, adding that while the marriage dip is generally seen as a female choice, it is obviously mutual.

In his article Lane Filler also had this to say “To read the story by Sam Roberts, you’d think men all over the country are chasing women on bended knee (which would explain their lack of success catching them), rings in hand, and gals are fleeing them, singing along to “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar” on their iPods and writing “I hate stinky boys” in their diaries each night.

My Counter Point

What time capsule are you in?

Remember the 60’s, the Free Love generation? It has been quite some time since men have had to marry a woman to get sex - hardly a recent development. Nor does a man have to marry to get a hot meal or clean clothes. That’s what laundries and diners are for.

I think it is unlikely one can be a woman in this country and not have heard the overused saying referring to marriage in the post 60’s era “Why should a man buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?”

I think these new statistics are saying that a lot of women are taking the cow off the auction block and mooo-ving on.

More women today are in a position of choice. According to the stats, many are choosing to take life by the horns and live it on their own terms.

And that’s no bull!

Read Part Ior Part III of the Happy Single Minded Woman

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Being Single Minded and Happy - debunking the myth of the lonely single woman.

Women being able to own property, women getting the vote, women becoming more educated, women having financial independence and women running countries is now culminating into a new disturbing trend for some– women being happy single.

Oh my God will it never end?

I sure hope not, cuz ladies apparently, we’re on a roll.

And the statistics rolling out bear witness.

What can it possibly mean?

In a New York Times article from January 16, 2007, Sam Roberts reported;

“For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

In 2005, 51 % of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 % in 1950 and 49% in 2000. Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and work place policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits”.

Let’s all of us single women stay tuned for these results – like revisions to the tax code that will eliminate current penalties exacted against single tax payers. Being single shouldn’t mean you pay more to the IRS.

Jillian Straus, Psychology Today Magazine May/June 2006, in her article “Lone Stars: Being Single” references research psychologist Bella DePaulo, a single woman, and her decision to put aside her established professional career to write a book on singles. Bella DePaulo aid she could never have considered leaving her secure position as a tenured professional and writing her book if she were part of a couple.

Jullian Straus interpreted Bella’s statement as follows;
“DePaulo’s own path exemplifies a seismic shift in the place of singles in American culture – in the lives they lead, in the way others see them and more profoundly, in the way they see themselves. Not only are singles the fastest-growing population group in the country, most of us will spend more of our adult lives as single than married. That hard demographic fact is rapidly turning singlehood into a satisfying destination rather than an anxiety-ridden way station, a sign of independence rather than a mark of shame, an opportunity to develop a variety of relationships rather than a demand to stuff all one’s emotional eggs into one basket.

“Single hood is no longer a state to be overcome as soon as possible. It has its own rewards. Marriage is not the gateway to adulthood anymore. For most people it’s the dessert – desirable, but no longer the main course – neither the coupled nor uncoupled life is an automatic ticket to bliss’ ” quote by social historian Stephanie Coontz

The New York Times article brought about some fairly vitriolic response on both sides of the argument. Some opposing journalists tried to dispute the results by pointing out that the New York Time stats included 10 million females under the age of 18 etc, etc. Maybe it did. So really who cares? The trend is clear, no matter whose calculator is used. More women are single, some by choice others by circumstance.

Surprising as this may seem, many single women are happy. According to recent research, as each year goes by, more and more women are choosing to marry later or not at all. This trend has some cultural observers concerned.

Cathy Young, Contributing Editor, Boston Globe

“Is this merely a fact of life or a manifestation of cultural decline – a “titanic loss of family values”, as the title of a column in The Washington Times put it?….

The single woman has become a focus of concern.”

Apparently, if women want to be truly scary we don’t need to carry a gun, or earn a black belt in martial arts, all we need to do is tell pollsters we are happy being single.

How shocking!

Are single women throwing America a “cultural curve ball”?

Are single women, as some would have it, the instigators of a cultural decline in family values?

Are women upsetting the marital apple cart?

If we are, I don’t believe it has been intentional.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In the sixties young women burned their bras in protest and demonstrated en mass. Today we don’t see wives demonstrating en mass or throwing their wedding rings onto the flames of a social pier,

instead we see escalating divorce statistics and declining marriage statistics. Our public bean counters guage a growing disinterest in the status quo – a desire by some not to partake in the choices of yesteryear

What we are hearing from women in America is, “I don’t need to settle. I choose not to settle. Being single is OK. My marriage status will not define me. My worth is not a wedding band. I will be my own security. I will be happy with my choices.“

Well if this is the case, what will become of the American “Ozzie and Harriet” world of past generations??

What will happen to American society if even more women decide to stay single, decide not to have children or refuse to be a participant in a marriage where they are the sole caretakers of the children, the home, their husband and their aging parents?

Look out ESPN, American males may soon find themselves too busy to stay tuned.

Read Part II “Point Counter Point to Being Single Minded and Happy”

Read Part III “The Single Minded Woman- So How Do You Really Feel?”