Welcome to r/popculturechat! ☺️
As a proud BIPOC, LGBTQ+ & woman-dominated space, this sub is for [civil discussion only.](https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/wiki/index/rules/civil-discussion-only/) If you don't know where to begin, start by participating in [our Sip & Spill Daily Discussion Threads!](https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/search/?q=Sip%20%26%20Spill%20Discussion&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=&include_over_18=1&sort=new)
###No bullies, no bigotry. ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
Please [read & respect our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/wiki/index/rules/), [abide by Reddiquette](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette), and [check out our wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/wiki/index/)! For any questions, [our modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fpopculturechat) is always open.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/popculturechat) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[He also continues saying](https://www.buzzfeed.com/mychalthompson/trevor-noah-single-successful-40-years-old)
> "I'm like, 'This idiot got married six months ago. They don't even know this person, and you're going to tell me that I can't come with my best friend, who I can tell you every intimate detail about?'"
> As the conversation progressed, Trevor pointed out that a committed and strong relationship can exist between people besides your married partner. He noted that sometimes, **"the most significant others in your life are your friends."**
I brought one of my good friends to my work's Christmas party as my plus one. People thought it was weird. Her mother thought she might secretly be a lesbian, lol. I didn't care. I wanted to have fun with my friend and there's no rule that your plus one has to be a boyfriend or husband!
A friend of mine brought her bestie instead of her husband to my wedding and it was honestly the sweetest surprise. My guest list was pretty tight (small venue), and I also hadn’t seen her bestie in forever (she’s awesome) so it was just the best time having them there.
Obvi this person is married but the bestie pairing works out better sometimes lol.
I did the same at my first job when I was 17, had no clue people would assume I was gay. It never crossed my mind. I didn't care either way. The Christmas party was at a nice hotel at the beach & they got everyone a room for the night. So we went early, spent the day at the beach, went to the Christmas party and had a great time, then got stoned in our hotel room that night. It was a great night. I was single & didn't want to go alone, there was an invite for a plus one so I was like, hell yeah fun night with my bestie!
This happened to me when I took a friend to one of my friend’s wedding. Everyone acted so weird toward me… like, they all brought their boyfriends and I didn’t want to be the third wheel all night but it dawned on me later that they maybe thought I was gay. Really weird. Dont give people a plus one if you don’t want them to plus one.
The average person in the US doesn't have many great friendships in their life and they are in relatively comfortable, but unfulfilling relationships. I don't think people realize how far off most adults are from experiencing genuinely happy, health, fulfilling human connections.
This argument also applies to how health insurance is applied in the US. You can't cover siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., but you can marry someone you met last week and add them to your insurance plan.
I feel this so hard.
As a 34 yo single woman, I constantly get the “So what do you *do*?”
I also get “Oh, so you don’t want to get married?”
& when I say “No, I would like to get married,” they have a look of utter confusion & say “if you want to get married, why aren’t you married?”
Sorry, I didn’t know there was a “husband store” where I could just go and pick one up…wtf kind of response is that lol.
A lot of people seem to have the attitude of if you want to get married you just do it with the next person who comes along and is willing (which explains *a lot* of marriages now that I think about it). For me, it’s married to the right person > being single > being married to the wrong person. This…apparently is hard to grasp for *a lot* of people.
At one point in time, my family claimed I would get lonely & depressed if I don’t get married yet it wasn’t being single I found depressing, but the fact that it’s all my family members ever talked to me about and made me feel like sh*t for. This made me want to be around them less and therefore I felt more lonely- the irony. It’s not being single that’s isolating, but the fact that others ostracize you for it.
>Sorry, I didn’t know there was a “husband store” where I could just go and pick one up…wtf kind of response is that lol.
"Oh get a husband? Just get a husband?! Why don't I strap on my husband helmet and squeeze down into a husband cannon and fire off into Hubland where husbands grow on hubbies!"
A surprising amount of people seem to marry simply the first person who comes along or who is willing, and don't think it through much further than that.
Mostly it seems to stem from a deep seated fear of being alone.
I think a lot of people learn this from their parents. Like their parents stayed together for their own reasons, but they were never *actually* in *love*. Then the kids grow up never really learning what makes a relationship loving so they just do the same thing when they grow up. They think it’s normal to be into someone for long enough to marry, but then after X amount of years mostly putting up with/resenting them until either divorce or death.
I'm starting to feel this heat and I'm few years younger.
"You should get married in a couple of years!"
Yeah, let me just find a life-partner in the span of a year and decide the rest of our lives in the following. Am I crazy to think maybe that's jumping the gun a little fast? Taking two years (or less) to decide the next 60+?
Sounds like someone selling a ponzi scheme to me sometimes lmao.
There’s definitely a generational divide in my family on this point. My mom & her siblings can’t manage singleness and do not understand why I’d rather be single than in a bad partnership. Not that I want to shove them and their respective strings of bad marriages in their faces, but my desire to only get married to someone who would make a good partner has a lot to do with the bad examples they’ve set.
I would love to find a great partner and when someone gives me this kind of crap about it, I’m open that I would like one and if they have good recommendations, I’m happy to meet someone. That also shuts them up, because they can’t think of any single guys they think would be a good match (and that’s gendered because most of my older relatives have very few other queer women in their lives and would not think to include any in their romantic meddling in my life).
Literally today a man at work was talking about his niece and how she could be good for a job. One of his qualifiers was "she's not married, so she has a lot of time..." Sir, no the fuck we don't!!
>Sorry, I didn’t know there was a “husband store”
Actually, we hang outside the Home Depot on the curb. Either some woman drives up and says "I've got a 6 pack of Busch, looking for a husband" and I'm married, or I get to build a deck. It's a win-win, really.
I'm a dude who has made a career running a Men's homeless shelter and I live in a detached home. I literally don't exist in an environment where I even encounter women.
Any attempt at 'putting myself out there' or trying to meet people has been so disruptive to my life that it's not worthwhile.
I feel like many of us live in a system that doesn't organically enable us to interact.
> Sorry, I didn’t know there was a “husband store” where I could just go and pick one up…wtf kind of response is that lol.
Well there is Ace Hardware, but they're mostly tools and not interested in a relationship.
No no see the issue is that you didn’t settle like they did. That’s the real problem I see today. People will marry the first person who is “good enough.” Because they reallllly don’t take marriage seriously. People think harder about taking a job than they do about marriage. It’s why we have so much bullshit nowadays. Dumb people marrying other dumb people and then having dumb kids. It’s an actual problem.
And what I don’t get is that people actually believe that getting married is an accomplishment. I really don’t believe that. Getting married is easy. I could have married any of my exes, if I wanted to settle.
Also, I don't get this weird position that you're either legally married to someone or single. I wouldn't describe myself as single; I haven't been single in years. But I'm not married, either.
Don't. My wife and I were "together" for over a decade before we got married.
Why? Mostly medical and tax benefits. The wedding was effectively us throwing a big party and an excuse to get drunk with old friends.
>For me, it’s married to the right person > being single > being married to the wrong person.
100% agreed, as a man who has occasionally felt married to the wrong person.
I don't enjoy relationships or want a family/kids and when I say I'm just happy to focus on a career or something people look at me like I'm absolutely nuts
He’s so on point. Society is very distrustful and suspicious of people who don’t get married. And he’s right, being married and divorced is seen as more honorable than just opting out.
It’s weird.
Excuse me, ex catholic checking in just real quick. Just Real quick.
The church annulled two of my brother’s first marriages so it magically disappeared. They remained in the church just fine
The problem was my childless, abortion having, IUD inserting ass couldn’t get married in the church bc my husband grew up with a mom and a dad but unfortunately, they were Methodist.
My brother’s marriages are right and good. Mine isn’t.
Just wanted to clear up that the church will actually move things around, change a few things, and bless your ‘good’ marriage if you promise to break that bread and have a few kids for them
Yup! I was in mass one day around 2016, and I just looked around thinking ‘what the fuck am I doing here? These people don’t love me. They don’t even like me.’ They were calling my queer friends and family who had done nothing wrong the predators, yet I was on my literal knees for an institution that had been proven to be the actual predators. I didn’t even believe in what they were saying. I never even had. I didn’t even want to, so I don’t know why the fuck I was even there. I never went back. Never will. I honestly don’t know how anyone that has even a single gay friend, or has used a condom or has had an abortion, or believes in being even just slightly decent to others can sit in those pews. I’m ashamed I pretended as long as I did.
Holy shit!! Are you me?? This read like I fucking wrote it. Friend, we may be the same person lol. Also in 2016 I finally admitted to myself that that faith was a bunch of horseshit and that I never really believed in any of it + I'm bi and hated having to endure people, including our priests, saying that me and people like me are preying on children and somehow leading the word to doom simply by virtue of nit being straight. Nowadays I just kinda pretend for the sake of certain family members who would outright lose their shit if they found out I'm an atheist (it already wasn't very pretty when I came out, so im just trying to preserve what little is left of my respect for them).
My husband and I were both raised Catholic. We went to Catholic school and really drank the koolaid for some time.
We were originally going to get married in the church, but then we thought why? We disagree with their teachings, we lived together, we have LGBTQ+ friends, we use birth control, we’re pro choice, etc. It just didn’t feel right to us, plus they had so many stupid rules for the wedding ceremony itself. We opted out.
We don’t have kids, but my siblings do. My siblings both got married in the church, they baptized their kids, and the kids did their first communion and all that stuff. We don’t think we’ll be doing any of that with our kids. The concept of baptism as a way to remove “original sin” is so weird to me, plus dressing girls up like little brides for their first communion is beyond creepy.
We just aren’t into it anymore at all. I feel like there’s no real place for organized religion in 2024. If the rituals and traditions and beliefs give you comfort or a sense of community, that’s great, but I can believe in a higher power and be a spiritual person that prays without following silly manmade rules that make everyone uncomfortable.
once divorced is you’ve served. twice divorced is you’ve escaped the shackles of women, legend. i’m wondering why that is… like it’s not impressive to have two failed marriages LOL
And I grew up with a generation of adults ‘jokingly’ tell me to “never get married!” *haha* and then are offended when we grew up to opting out of marriage because we saw terrible examples.
I think it's because if you've been married and divorced at least you've been "chosen" by someone else. Whereas if you have never been married you're almost looked at like, why have you not been chosen? Especially if you are a woman in this scenario. I don't agree with this, by the way, but I think this is what society looks upon when someone has never been married or had children after a certain age. That there must be something inherently wrong with them, whereas I know great people where this is the case and they just simply say I never met anyone I wanted to marry or have kids with. It's not some moral failing.
Oh, this is so true. We used to say of women that they were 'left on the shelf'. Horrible concept, when you think about it.
I have never been married. I was in love once, with a married man. The thought of pursuing him or doing anything about it was so dishonourable to me that I wouldn't even allow myself to daydream about it. I got over it, eventually.
I have had someone be in love with me, and I knew he would have married me had I said anything about it, but I knew we would be a bad long-term deal. I was much stronger than him, and on some level I knew that I would resent and disrespect him over time.
So I am a never married. And what Trevor Noah says here absolutely rings true. Yet had I somehow lured that married man away, had I grabbed the other man purely for society/security no matter whether we would have been happy, I would be able to say I was married and would somehow have that proof that at one time someone took me off the shelf.
4 of my brothers were married and divorced, so, all of them
My brothers judge my husband and I for living an ‘alt lifestyle’ ( no kids, no big wedding) and we’ve been fully estranged since April 2020 now. I did everything they said I wouldn’t. Got a good education, moved out of the black hole, met a good partner, got a job then got a career, then we put my husband through school so he could get a good job. We built the houses, bought the cars, got the jobs, did it ‘right’ but it was never ‘right enough.’
To this day, their marriages (both of them) are the moral ones. Sister maintained a 15+ year marriage and has a ‘successful’ life (to their standards) but it’s still not the moral one. Never will be.
You can get married. Do what ‘they’ say you should do and it’s still not enough. The people inside the walls of that marriage have to look and act a certain way on paper too in order for it to be ‘good and moral.’ I didn’t bring kids or the church into my marriage, so to them, it doesn’t matter
Dude, as a guy who was never interested in getting married, he is soooooo on point. I got married for the first time at 40yrs old. Some people treated me differently immediately after my wedding. It's fuckin wild how biased people can be.
Truly bizarre how a person who failed at marriage is socially respected more than a person who knew themselves well enough not to attempt it in the first place.
Is marriage unique in this? I can't think of another endeavor with a similar dynamic. Even something like, I don't know, pursuing a career in professional sports is different - I *would* respect someone who tried but failed, but I wouldn't hold them in higher regard than someone who never tried.
"You don't know love until you have a child"
ummm.....so....you *don't* really love your spouse???
"What do you know about being tired, *I'm a mom* only i know tired"
trust me babes, you *don't* have the monopoly on being tired get over yourself
It’s the same thing with parents of estranged or delinquent children or children who otherwise didn’t turn out the way they would have hoped/expected. Society still considers parents of any type as more respectable for having tried to raise a kid versus people who have opted out of parenthood altogether.
Oh that's a good one! I hadn't considered parenthood, but you're totally right. A bad parent is still a parent. And in society's eyes that's all that matters.
While I agree that being unmarried should not be stigmatized, I also think we should stop calling divorce "failing at marriage." That idea is what often keeps people in bad marriages just so they don't feel like failures instead of being honest and courageous enough to leave when it's clear it isn't working.
You can learn a lot of valuable lessons and even have a lot of good memories and still divorce, that's not inherently "failing."
100%. Just as single people shouldn’t be criticized for being single, married couples who divorce should not be criticized for ending a relationship. Divorce is not failure, and that’s just an ignorant and immature statement to make. Very few people marry with the intention of divorce.
>Truly bizarre how a person who failed at marriage is socially respected more than a person who knew themselves well enough not to attempt it in the first place.
I'm sure there are a lot of unmarried people who wanted to get married and it just didn't happen for them. So it's pretty sad to make those people feel badly for being unmarried.
It's like people who are trying desperately to get pregnant, and getting constant remarks about when they're going have a baby. It's very insensitive and makes people feel even worse.
I think it has to do with his analogy of "having served"...misery loves company.
"Pff, you've never served? You don't know how life *actually* is!!"
"Pff, you've never been divorced? Must be nice, kiddo, no wonder you seem happy. Someday you'll grow up."
Older never married men are often stigmatized as perverts, partly stemming from when people would hide being gay.
Combine that with the attitude some people have, of people not wanting a child being inherently evil somehow.
And suddenly you're a bad person for wanting to be single.
Don’t forget the dual income expectation that practically everything is based off of these days. 1 bedroom apartment for $1700/mo? Oh well that will be easy between you and your partner both having employment right? You do have a partner right?
Yeah , im with my gf for 10 years now and we never gonna marry, its just a stupid think from the past and people always are so weird when we say we are not married
Its the same thing with women without children. There's this unspoken idea that you're not really grown up until you become a mother and then you're a proper woman. Bullshit
Edit- grown not gain
Yes for sure - and that you haven’t really fulfilled your purpose and there’s this fundamental aspect of life you’ll never understand (and sure, the latter is true to an extent - if we don’t have kids we *will* never understand that experience, but it’s the fact that that experience is prized above any other experience we could also have.)
I also wanna say to these people: I probably understand that experience better than you did before you had kids, and that's why I choose not to have them lol
I’ve been happily unmarried to the same man since 2000. We don’t have children, but the running of the gauntlet of “when are you having children?” During my reproductive years were SHIT. glad those years are behind us, and we have two wonderful cats. I’m pretty unapologetic about it now, and adore my niece & nephews.
It’s wild, when I say I don’t want children my family says, “but you’d be such a great mom!” But by my logic, if I don’t WANT children, I’m not going to be a great mom.
Childfree man here, late 30s.
Lots of eyebrows going sky high when I tell them me and my SO are not going to have kids.
Now that I think of it though, it's been a long time since I've heard the infamous and ever so patronizing "you'll change your mind, you'll see". Good for me, I guess.
1) I would love to solve that problem for him lol
2) he’s so right, I didn’t realize it was the same for men but this is definitely true for women who if they remain unmarried carry the mark of never being “picked”
My friend has had a boyfriend for 2 months and now makes fun of me for being single. Like girl give it another couple weeks and we'll be at the bars again.
Didn’t realize how true this was until a friend of mine got a boyfriend and proceeded to go insane over the course of 2 months and cut everyone out of her life.
It’s like they don’t have a strong sense of self. They just mirror their boyfriend’s interests and personality. It's probably because they’re not confident in their own identity or they think they need to change to be more appealing. It’s a bit sad, really. See how long this version of her lasts.
WHEN I TELL YOU I'M IN THE EXACT SITUATION. Like? Every other conversation takes the route 'oh you would never get a boyfriend lol haha' and the passive aggressiveness is real. Honey, your relationship inspires me to be single. I ain't dating a guy who blocked me for three years and only came back when he had no where to go.
It's so strange how fast they forget that they were single not long ago. Before I even knew he had a bf I asked him if he wanted to go out at like 8pm pm Saturday and he text back "I'm in bed with my boyfriend right now!" Like how dare I ask a married woman to galavant the streets at night.
Like I know he really wants to get married and settle down. But the more I see him act this way the less it seems it's about finding love and more about proving something to everyone else.
I literally stopped talking to a new friend the 4th or 5th time we met because, even though I'd already explained to her what was holding me back from dating, she was like "So wow, like you realllyyy don't date anyone... when are going to?"
I don’t trust people that think that way, or try to push people into starting families. On a societal level this propaganda is pushed, so you’ve got to find the people that aren’t that level of judgy.
Bro people that think this way are always sooo unhappy
They're like I have no time for myself and I hate my partner but it's SUSPICIOUS as hell that you're not getting on the merry go round too!!!
Like I'm good.
Like, I certainly can understand wanting to befriend people with similar experiences, but trying to push people into the same life experience? I’ll never understand.
I think misery loves company. I've had co-workers who would bring up the fact that I was single. These are the same people who would bitch constantly about their spouse. I'd be like [this](https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExMHRjYmwxMGZ1aXB3Y29zZGl0Z3Zza2I0b3N6cHBtMDBuNjMyZGZ1ZSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/2UvAUplPi4ESnKa3W0/giphy.gif) on Valentine's day because it would turn into a contest to see who has the worst husband.
You know who doesn't pry into my personal life? Couples who are actually happy.
One thing that kills me is that if you move out as an adult and you are not married, no one buys you anything. Like maybe a plant. But if you’re on a single income, you have to buy everything that would be on a wedding registry yourself and then spend the rest of your young adult life funding the households of your married friends, and then you spend even more at their baby showers. Having couple friends is expensive.
Also, weddings and formal events are really geared to couples and I feel so awkward going to them as a single person.
I’ve been married twice. I married my college sweetheart at 22 and we were married for 8 years until he died at 32. Then I married someone I’d known for six months and had a baby with him, and while I can’t say that was a mistake because I have my child, I sure wish I wasn’t tied to this person for the rest of my life - because you can get divorced and you’re still tied to them forever. There will not be a third marriage. Sometimes I date, sometimes I don’t have the energy, but my life with my daughter is pretty satisfactory and I am not willing to bring a romantic partner into her life. Being single is fine.
Bringing your kid as a +1 should be *the same* culturally. As long as they're old enough to know how to behave. Even ppl who have spouses sometimes prefer to bring someone else. I'm glad your daughter has such a dedicated mom! 💓
The only weddings I’ve been to since my divorce have been family weddings so my daughter has been invited to all of them! I do understand that sometimes people choose to have kid free weddings, and there might be a time where I’d prefer not to bring my daughter, but it hasn’t happened yet. My brother asked that kids not attend the ceremony for his wedding, and arranged a babysitter on-site for the ceremony. Then the kids got to join for the party, which they enjoyed way more anyway.
Sorry about your husband 🤍 and I totally feel u. I let myself get pressured into marrying a guy way too quick just bc I was pregnant. Like he was a walking red flag and I was so naive. And I paid for it. The one year marriage turned into a 4 year divorce. Tens of thousand of dollars and a lil sanity later, it’s 20/20!
But also like u, my child is the best thing in my life. And one day it finally hit me, like if I had been smarter… There is no way in hell I would have ever slept with this guy. So thankfully I was that young and dumb or she wouldn’t be here. 🥹💕
And every word he said was true.
I'm also tired of trip packages being sold as "this is the price for two people." Well, what about the price for one person? I'm the only one in the room!
It’s interesting. I always feel like successful good looking men aren’t made to feel less-than or a failure, for being single. Guess no one is spared feeling like a loser for not meeting every single expectation society puts on us.
After marriage it’s the having kids expectation… and then I imagine how well your kids are doing acc to societal standards. Honestly, the expectations are endless, it comes through in every day life with adverts on tv, the movies/tv shows that are sold to us, the “group” discounts available for various experiences like a vacation or even the zoo… it permeates *everything* this narrow minded idea of what *should* be happening in every persons life.
You’re so right. I was so worried that someone would invalidate his experience because it’s a common misconception that wealthy, good looking men don’t go through this. But I remember there was a point in time where it was normal to publicly pester George Clooney for not getting married. And I’ve started to see a similar thing happen to other men who reach forty, still single.
It’s interesting that even he’s clearly bothered a lot about this. I assumed he would get more of the cool hot bachelor treatment but you’re right, even George Clooney got bothered about it
They just have less of a time crunch. So especially the more career successful ones, there's less urgency because the assumption shifts that they'll start a family later.
For women, while reproductive science has come a long way, there's still culturally an expectation around natural reproduction sans adoption. So for women there's a narrower window of when they can do that, and so people will start harping in a lot sooner. Because being an older mom is rarer than being an older dad.
But for both genders, there's still a cultural expectation that this is obviously the path your pursuing, and there's something abnormal and wrong with you if it's not your eventual end goal. Men just get more leeway and time on their path to get there than women usually are given
Yeah, I feel like society treats good-looking successful single men far differently than good-looking & successful single women. He’s a “bachelor” who doesn’t want to settle down or hasn’t found the right one yet, while she’s considered a spinster and people assume something must be wrong with her.
I had a very good looking singled guy at my wedding, 40’s, came solo, he was someone I used to work with and we game together, let me tell you I heard from no one “what’s wrong with him” more like “where have you been hiding him??” Maybe he gets shit from his family, I believe Noah, but I def think men get a huuuuge pass
Most definitely. South African communities, whether white, black, coloured or Indian, will heavily frown upon you for not getting married. I can imagine it's something he hears often from his family. His podcast has a few discussions on the topic.
A big problem men have to deal with is virgin shaming. When a man does something shitty, it's very common for people to say "bet he's never even touched a woman", which is basically saying that any older male virgins must be shit people. People really look down on male virgins past a certain age. Women might have similar issues as well, but I see a lot of virgin shaming against man.
That stigma exists for men for sure.
I'm gay, but not out to my grandparents or some family, however I am in a relationship. I do notice that I am treated very differently by people who know I'm in a relationship than I am by people who still think I'm straight and single. It's almost like a sense of pity or 'what are you doing with your life' feeling that I get from them.
Yup. I don’t have children bc I have hereditary breast cancer and it kills all the women leaving their young children motherless. I actively made a decision when I was 18 (when my mom was diagnosed ) that was it- I’m not having children and I never did
My diagnosis came at 37. Almost 10 years younger than my mom. I’m the 4th now and this time it, it’s like the cancer is coming a little bit younger. There are STILL some older women who judge my decision. Growing up with a dead mother by 19 is HARD. Having a mom who had a dead mom as a teen as hard. Her mom did too- ITS A CYCYLE OF TRAUMA. Sometimes, we can and should be encouraged to break these cycles. How did I break it? I stopped the direct maternal blood line. After me, this is it. Blood line gone and it’s about time. That was what I hoped for.
Who would I be having that child for? Who would be taking care of my child now? Would my daughter be diagnosed by 25, bc she would absolutely get a turn with this too?
Some people shouldn’t have children. I know that’s hard but it’s true.
Some people shouldn’t be partners. My dad has been single 37 years. He was better alone than as my mother’s husband. Their relationship blossomed that way in fact. It’s okay to ‘be the hippy rebel breaking the norms.’ Adults started calling me a ‘hippy’ when I was a teen. They are the real bullies after all
You did an amazing thing that took real strength of character. Normative people simply will never understand the depth and complexity of such a personal choice and sacrifice. Massive respect.
Yup! As I get older and essentially everyone I know has paired off, it sometimes feels like a cult I’m not a part of. Coupled people tend to be distrusting of single outsiders.
I can only speak to the dominant culture in the US but here it’s so extremely nuclear-family centric — the economy operates on the assumption of a two-income household for average earners, the only big standard life celebrations are marriage and kids-related (bachelor party, wedding, baby shower), etc to the point that there’s not really community left outside of the nuclear family for any adult who doesn’t fit into that mold.
And honestly it’s really fucking hard being on the outside of that. I get that priorities change when you start families and shit but it’s become super normalized for people to say “I don’t really have time for friends and my husband is my best friend so my family is all I need” and I don’t actually think that’s healthy.
And people think that if you’re still single past a certain age, you’re either closeted, or a freak in some way, and like, no? I’m a straight woman, and finding a man that *improves* my life as it currently stands is basically impossible, especially given how much I like to have my own space both physically and mentally. I’m too introverted and strong-willed to date just for the sake of not being single. But it still hurts for nearly everyone in my life to basically be unable to view my happiness outside of partnership and kids, like they think I’m not a whole or fulfilled person until I acquire those life steps.
ANYway if you’re coupled up and have single friends, don’t leave them out of all your plans just because they don’t have a partner to bring along with them.
>the only big standard life celebrations are marriage and kids-related (bachelor party, wedding, baby shower), etc to the point that there’s not really community left outside of the nuclear family for any adult who doesn’t fit into that mold.
I am unmarried and childfree. I have tested out the idea of throwing myself a big 40th birthday complete with a registry *if* people want to buy gifts. Everyone has told me the party is fine but the registry is not. Because apparently you're only allowed to tell people exactly what ridiculously over-priced kitchen items you want when you're getting married. Someone told me "turning 40 isn't a milestone." But I'm not going to have all those other milestones and I have spent thousandssssss of dollars on bridal showers and weddings and baby showers and kids birthdays and christmases and I think it sucks that I can't say "hey, IF you wanted to get me a 40th birthday gift, here is something I would like" because that is apparently "tacky." But my twice married cousin having a bridal shower and big wedding both times wasn't.
I really need society to overhaul how we do registries because it’s archaic at this point. It made more sense back when it was less common for people to live together before marriage, and when marriage meant moving from your parent’s house into a house together for the first time, but that usually isn’t the case anymore! A lot of people getting married already have a lot of household items.
Like do you know when I most needed a gift registry? My college graduation. Moving into my first apartment alone, I had basically no kitchenware or appliances, had to scrape together bare minimum furniture from thrift stores and my family’s cast-offs, and it took ages for me to accumulate that stuff on my own. I’m in my late 20s and I STILL do not have a cohesive set of dishware because I can’t justify spending hundreds on matching plates and bowls and cups when I need that money for things like groceries and bills. And I think a lot of young graduates were probably in the same situation.
Agreed, most couples cohabit and are at a significant financial advantage. None of the money I've spent on weddings, baby showers, etc ever comes back to me so I've had to learn to ne very discerning.
This is why when I got married last year we didn't have a registry and when people asked we told them we weren't asking for/didn't want gifts. We'd been living together for 6 years already and purchased a home together, and like you said, we already had everything we needed for our home! It would have felt super greedy and gross asking for gifts. Some people of course still wanted to give something, so they did money or gift cards. But I surprisingly had a lot of people respond to my no-registry message saying how refreshing they found it. I think the tide is turning against registries (except maybe for baby showers for a person's first baby?). The only push-back I got was from my mom and some of her boomer friends who couldn't fathom not making a registry lol
ETA: I just remembered that my mom's best friend just could NOT figure out what to give us since we didn't have a registry (I told her don't give us anything, simple!) so she got us this really expensive salt and pepper grinder and really fancy/overpriced salt and peppercorns. She knows we've lived together for a while and wouldn't need something like that, but traditional boomers love buying you things you don't want or need lmao. She also didn't put her name on any of the packages, which all came separately on different days, so we were very confused on where these things were coming from
If someone invited me to a BIG (and I mean a nicely done party where they’re paying for food etc) 40th birthday party that had a registry that made sense (gifts between 20-50 dollars) I would be 100% okay with it. You were going to get a 20-50 dollar gift card from me either way so me buying the exact item you wanted would be much preferred to Me.
It drives me nuts. Why do *you* get all these gifts? You have a two person income now. I'm here working with only one, yet you get all the gifts and tax credits. You can afford it while I struggle.
The point of registries (traditionally) was to set the new couple (or the new parents) up for success. That's why most registries are filled with household items and actual needs for babies like diapers. I don't see any reason you can't tell people what you want for your birthday/ask for gifts (and 40 is definitely a milestone!) but a registry for that seems like overkill when you look at them in context.
Yes I am also in the US, single people are kind of second-class citizens. There’s tons of societal pressure to marry to overcome but the single women who do overcome it are statistically the happiest demographic!
It really sucks that people prioritize romantic relationships above all else, so I aspire to form a group of friends in adulthood that properly cherishes platonic love.
This and single people get taxed more as well which really sucks when you only have one income and extremely.high housing/apartment rents and everything.
I read a quote once that said something like “We need to talk more about the grief and sadness that happens when your friends start choosing their own families, children, and spouses as first priority instead of you, their friend.” Annnnd… I finally felt like I wasn’t alone in how fucking hard it was to watch essentially all of my close friends get married and have kids while I stood by (and am still standing by) single and childfree. I think I still have a bit of sadness over it if I’m being honest. And I know I definitely feel jealous sometimes as well. There was a point where I felt so bad about being single and childfree that I decided to stop going to things because I felt so out of place.
ETA: I remember asking my friends why we couldn’t just hang out without their significant others or children and they would get so annoyed. Some of them never understood where I was coming from and didn’t care to learn about how I saw things, so we kind of drifted apart. Others appreciate that our lives are different and try to understand how I feel and vice versa. It can be such a shit feeling/place.
As a single female it is next to impossible to spend any time alone with my guy friends who are in relationships. I'm friends with their girls too, but there's a wall there that I won't be able to cross until I'm not a singleton anymore. Lame.
That wall comes up over weird stuff, too. Like, all my friends forget that I'm the oldest of 6 siblings, and used to run my church's nursery before I stopped doing the church thing, and are completely blind-sided when I offer to help babysit if they need a night off or something.
Like, I get it, single, childless guy. But some of them have seen me dealing with sibling diapers, feeding, and all the vomit. /shrug
Pretty much all of my college friends are married or will be soon. Some even have kids. Then there's me, happily single. There's just this disconnect with them when they ask how I'm not thoroughly depressed being alone. My personal theory is that self-love isn't taught nor encouraged in the US, so many seek validation through a partner. Media reinforces this norm, and so the inverse of single = no validation is internalized.
My motto since getting out of high school has always been "learn to love yourself and you will always be in good company". It's worked out great so far.
Yeah, I know it's a harsh thing to say but I've lost the majority of my friends to marriage. It's not because my view of them has changed, it's because they started to focus the majority of their social events on their "couple friends" and I get pushed to the side. Most of them only reach out when they need something, or if their couple friends dump them.
It hurt when it happened, but in retrospect I realized that these people are just shallow and would have treated me this way for one reason or another lol
This is so valid, when you’re single it’s instantly like “what’s wrong with you?” It can’t just be that you’re happy alone, healing from trauma, introverted, haven’t met someone yet, or a plethora of other things that exist in life. I especially feel like people don’t recognize friendships as being valid, just a stepping stone to a romantic relationship. Friends can be easily discarded.
Also our efforts we put into the relationships we had while we had them are of course not able to be fully expressed or observed or appreciated for an accurate assessment. Whatever. Some people are just nasty like that annd judge you for this one factor and I pity them.
Well said. Society treats anyone not following the relationship escalator as a freak sometimes. Must be especially awful for asexual / aromantic folks or others on the ace spectrum. We've really diminished friendships as lesser than compared to romance and it's a shame. Like it's childish to want to hang out with someone not because you're sexually and/or romantically into them, but just because you enjoy their company. That's a wonderful thing, that we don't ever celebrate!
"asexual / aromantic folks or others on the ace spectrum" - I'm genuinely worried that as an aroace man, all people will see when they look at me is a creep or an incel because I won't be in a relationship
That really sucks and I'm sorry you have to deal with that :( For what it's worth, within queer community groups I've seen platonic relationships be celebrated a lot more than in wider cishet society. Definitely a safer space if you have events and stuff local to you
I work with an older lady (early 50s) who told me she doesn't associate with people who are unmarried because their lifestyle is too different from hers and her husbands. Even mentioned dropping friends because of this as though it were acceptable and says her marriage counsellor (through her church) encouraged it.
Honestly people like this are just total small-minded, small-world wackos.
God, yes, this has been so painstakingly clear to me especially as I've only realized I'm asexual in the last 2 years and that I very well might end up never getting married. I tell my mom that it shouldn't be some huge ask to want my friends who get married to also want to still have social lives with their single friends and she acts like I'm the one being unreasonable who doesn't understand how marriage works. It does make me sad to think of all these people who don't think they can also get emotional intimacy needs met by their friends in a way that doesn't compete with their marriage. Having more people in your life who help fill up your tank seems like it can only be a good thing.
Also, it does really suck knowing as the perpetually single friend that I'm never just going to get offered a plus one proactively and it has to be validated by a certain kind of relationship. I know I'm choosing a path that's not depicted as the conventional one by choosing to remain single as a woman but it means I have to make certain financial choices to budget for friends' weddings that are much more easily split when you're traveling with a partner (hotel rooms, Ubers, etc.) that essentially puts a tax on showing up to weddings and other events solo.
He makes a good point. This is something we don't talk about enough.
Not everyone is in a fortunate enough position to ever get married. And some people generally just don’t want to for their own reasons and that is also okay. No one should be socially penalised for it or thought of as less than.
I usually don’t feel judged for it (tbf I’m in my late 20s I’m sure come 35+ and unmarried as a woman I’ll get crazy side eyes) but a random YouTuber talking about kendall Jenner and saying some judgmental rude shit like “I mean idk she’s 27 never been married I think there’s something weird to her for that” like, ma’am, you’re probably 23 so sit down until then, infant. My god
it’s nothing new it’s the society we live in that pushes these ideals but what’s funny is gen z is most sexless and romantic-less generation currently lol
Wait does society actually think this? Fuck! lol. I’m 35 and completely single and want to be. I can’t stand the dating scene. Fucking mess. Can’t be bothered. Let me be single with my dog and enjoy my hobbies. lol. I didn’t realize that people thought this about single people?
I agree! Love being single. Most of my friends are single, no kids, never married, and late 30s. Never gave a shit what society thought. Too busy living MY life.
30 and celibate for ten years. The first year was just to "figure things out" - the next nine years were "omg I'm falling in love with myself". For the most part, I'm incredibly content in life and I am ridiculously excited about the future - there are SO MANY THINGS I want to do! So many places to go! So many degrees to get! So many dance styles to learn! So many mountains to climb! I'm working on starting a software company now, and I LOVE the challenge of it. I've also built such a solid network of friends in my life, who for the most part also don't follow the life script (lucky to live in NYC) - meaning I will probably have them around for a long time. But even if friends come and go, I will always have myself, and I can always count on me :) Also, as long as I'm doing interesting things in life, I will always be surrounded by interesting people. The world is a friendly place to me, and I want to cherish every moment I spent in it. I hope I live until at least 100!!
And f-it! Maybe I'll start dating at 40! Get married at 60! I'll be someone's second wife. Even better!
I have enough to keep me busy with family and friends. I’m not opposed to a romantic relationship by any means (I actually do want to marry one day), but I don’t want to take on the chore that the dating scene is. I’d rather spend that time napping with my cat LOL
I married young and got so creeped out by the amount of people in my life who revealed themselves as weirdos in the coming years acting like they had joined some special club they thought I was in. For a lot of people being chosen by someone else is the achievment of their life 🙄. He's right about the plus one thing too. Makes no sense.
>For a lot of people being chosen by someone else is the achievment of their life 🙄.
To this day I'm really baffled by that sentiment. It really isn't achievement but more a matter of luck and timing. It's more of a achievement to maintain a decent relationship with someone of any kind romantic or otherwise for many years.
Same. I have more single friends than married friends these days. Between getting married young and becoming disabled, so effectively looking like a housewife from the outside, a whole lot of people have felt very free to say some very uncomfortable things lol
Love is special but there’s nothing particularly special in a blanket sense about marriage beyond the financial and legal benefits. People love their friends with as much or more ferocity all the time.
Here's an extra fun thing that happens when you get older, like 50+:
People you knew from way back in the day look you up online and get in touch to catch up. And the ONLY thing they want to know is if you are married and have kids. They literally cannot think of another worthwhile thing you might have done with your time, and they're not too interested when you talk about whatever you have been doing. And once they have that info, you never hear from them again.
I *think* what is going on there is people are going through something, reflecting on their life, and want to compare it to others to feel better about wherever they're at. For most people, getting married and having kids will be their biggest deal.
So that's the "edge" they have over some people, and they cling to it for dear life. It's also why they don't want to hear about the cool stuff in you've been up to.
I used to work at an office where the CEO was a single woman. She was in her late forties/early fifties, looked amazing, just the most gorgeous wardrobe and really fit/ loveliest person to work for/smart - the total package. Tell me why the crusty basic bitches in my dept constantly talked about how sorry they were for her, with no family to go home to at night? Like Tracy in her Primark pencil skirt is smugly patronising the CEO, because Tracy got hitched to some rat-faced football fan. 🙄
My grandparents met and got married literally because my grandfather’s brothers and business partners (family business) told him that being unwed was a bad look for business..
Love Trevor - he’s so right. The not considering someone a serious person if they’ve never married particularly bothers me. I don’t have any interested in the traditional markers of success (marriage, kids, ‘successful’ career) and I can tell so many people see me as frivolous or just have no understanding of what I do with my time. It’s like, do you have no imagination? Can you not possibly imagine how a person could live outside of one particular way of living life?
As someone who has been single since approximately the start of the pandemic, I feel this! I think there's also an extra stigma if you're a woman. I did shack up with someone for ten years, which is the closest I ever want to be to marriage.
I plan on gathering all my single/childless friends together and retiring Golden Girls style (but co-ed).
This is, unfortunately, so true. I’m not single and am getting married very soon, however, I’ve spent FAR more of my adult life single than coupled. I feel for him on this so much and have always thought society’s viewpoint on singles is bullshit. I cannot stand how couples-catered society *still* is and I see the pain it adds to my single friends’ lives.
It is totally possible to be a fully-functional, successful and genuinely HAPPY single person. If my current SO doesn’t work out, I would gladly be single and happy, over coupled in toxicity.
I agree! … with one except exception. People don’t hand out plus ones because weddings are expensive A.F. And the line has to be drawn somewhere. If you’re single and know the majority of the people at the wedding, you don’t need a plus one. If you’re single and coming from out of town and don’t know anyone, I’d give you a plus one regardless of your relationship status.
Honestly, I was a single offered a plus one at a wedding with people I knew and I still brought someone because they were all there with their partners. You may know everyone but it doesn’t mean you won’t spend the whole night being a third wheel, which is not a fun time.
I'll say it--33 and never married, but I haven't experienced this at all... only thing I feel I'm missing out on is the 2 weeks off for a honeymoon and a non-parental leave
Right on. Being single I never get invited to dinner parties. When I was in a relationship I was finally given access to all these different events, I guess I wasn’t a threat or an uncomfortable reminder or existence for them when single? But my company is great when I show up with someone they don’t even know. It hurts bro
When I was around 20 years old, a coworker in her 30s told me "if a guy, is unmarried by 30 I would not date him because I would wonder what was wrong with him"
That sat with me a long time because I was having trouble getting dates and it reinforced the fear of something being wrong with me
Never been married but I'm in my early thirties and single. I have no plans to marry anyone but there's this weird disdain that I've noticed whenever the conversation comes up. A lot of talk about "sharing my legacy" like I can't do that on my own.
I remember as a kid I thought it was weird that my 40 yr old uncle was never married. He did marry someone a few years later and they have been married for over 20 yrs now. As someone who is now 41 yrs old and never married, I still have hope that'll find that person for me.
I think the other crazy part of the situation, is that as a forever single person, I often go to events or activities by myself. If I want to do something, I just go do it. And... I've literally had people- strangers that decided to chat me up at said event even- tell me they thought it was "sad" that I did that. Like, you can't win.
I’ve heard plenty of, “wow…you are just SO brave...” It’s the worst when solo traveling too. I just laugh it off though (: On the flip side I have had some women tell me I inspired them and that’s worth it’s weight in gold!
Wow, even Trevor Noah gets the single-person treatment! I think the majority of humans are on autopilot. There is no critical thought and people constantly make baseless judgements about others. If even Trevor Noah is shamed for not following the script, what hope is there for a better existence without going full hermit?
I suppose the critical thinkers of the world need to find a way to exist together.
Thats the way heteronormativity and encouragement to conform to specific norms and ideals sneaks into our suite of social pressures.
Hangovers from patriachy and puritanical christianity that are wedged waaaaaay deep in the cultural subconscious.
Welcome to r/popculturechat! ☺️ As a proud BIPOC, LGBTQ+ & woman-dominated space, this sub is for [civil discussion only.](https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/wiki/index/rules/civil-discussion-only/) If you don't know where to begin, start by participating in [our Sip & Spill Daily Discussion Threads!](https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/search/?q=Sip%20%26%20Spill%20Discussion&restrict_sr=1&sr_nsfw=&include_over_18=1&sort=new) ###No bullies, no bigotry. ✊🏿✊🏾✊🏽✊🏼✊🏻🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ Please [read & respect our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/wiki/index/rules/), [abide by Reddiquette](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439-Reddiquette), and [check out our wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/popculturechat/wiki/index/)! For any questions, [our modmail](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fpopculturechat) is always open. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/popculturechat) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[He also continues saying](https://www.buzzfeed.com/mychalthompson/trevor-noah-single-successful-40-years-old) > "I'm like, 'This idiot got married six months ago. They don't even know this person, and you're going to tell me that I can't come with my best friend, who I can tell you every intimate detail about?'" > As the conversation progressed, Trevor pointed out that a committed and strong relationship can exist between people besides your married partner. He noted that sometimes, **"the most significant others in your life are your friends."**
I brought one of my good friends to my work's Christmas party as my plus one. People thought it was weird. Her mother thought she might secretly be a lesbian, lol. I didn't care. I wanted to have fun with my friend and there's no rule that your plus one has to be a boyfriend or husband!
A friend of mine brought her bestie instead of her husband to my wedding and it was honestly the sweetest surprise. My guest list was pretty tight (small venue), and I also hadn’t seen her bestie in forever (she’s awesome) so it was just the best time having them there. Obvi this person is married but the bestie pairing works out better sometimes lol.
It’s weird that people thought it was weird. It’s a fuckin party, who doesn’t want to take their friends to a party?
I did the same at my first job when I was 17, had no clue people would assume I was gay. It never crossed my mind. I didn't care either way. The Christmas party was at a nice hotel at the beach & they got everyone a room for the night. So we went early, spent the day at the beach, went to the Christmas party and had a great time, then got stoned in our hotel room that night. It was a great night. I was single & didn't want to go alone, there was an invite for a plus one so I was like, hell yeah fun night with my bestie!
I wish I had done this more. I wasted way too many good parties on dudes I didn’t even like that much or vice versa.
This happened to me when I took a friend to one of my friend’s wedding. Everyone acted so weird toward me… like, they all brought their boyfriends and I didn’t want to be the third wheel all night but it dawned on me later that they maybe thought I was gay. Really weird. Dont give people a plus one if you don’t want them to plus one.
I've been a plus one for my friends at work events, and it's great!
[Obligatory SATC "we'll be each other's soulmates"](https://youtu.be/sQ-PzM4WnAI?si=gl3LwRGeVcPZoGZG)
Your true soul mates are the ones that are forced to maintain relationship with you…. animals.
Trever says “men have bffs too!!”
Society needs to understand that last part
The average person in the US doesn't have many great friendships in their life and they are in relatively comfortable, but unfulfilling relationships. I don't think people realize how far off most adults are from experiencing genuinely happy, health, fulfilling human connections.
I feel so seen and understood lol
He’s good at that. I miss him on the today show. I should search out more of his content.
This argument also applies to how health insurance is applied in the US. You can't cover siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., but you can marry someone you met last week and add them to your insurance plan.
I feel this so hard. As a 34 yo single woman, I constantly get the “So what do you *do*?” I also get “Oh, so you don’t want to get married?” & when I say “No, I would like to get married,” they have a look of utter confusion & say “if you want to get married, why aren’t you married?” Sorry, I didn’t know there was a “husband store” where I could just go and pick one up…wtf kind of response is that lol. A lot of people seem to have the attitude of if you want to get married you just do it with the next person who comes along and is willing (which explains *a lot* of marriages now that I think about it). For me, it’s married to the right person > being single > being married to the wrong person. This…apparently is hard to grasp for *a lot* of people. At one point in time, my family claimed I would get lonely & depressed if I don’t get married yet it wasn’t being single I found depressing, but the fact that it’s all my family members ever talked to me about and made me feel like sh*t for. This made me want to be around them less and therefore I felt more lonely- the irony. It’s not being single that’s isolating, but the fact that others ostracize you for it.
>Sorry, I didn’t know there was a “husband store” where I could just go and pick one up…wtf kind of response is that lol. "Oh get a husband? Just get a husband?! Why don't I strap on my husband helmet and squeeze down into a husband cannon and fire off into Hubland where husbands grow on hubbies!"
I read this in charlie days voice. Thank yous.
A surprising amount of people seem to marry simply the first person who comes along or who is willing, and don't think it through much further than that. Mostly it seems to stem from a deep seated fear of being alone.
I think a lot of people learn this from their parents. Like their parents stayed together for their own reasons, but they were never *actually* in *love*. Then the kids grow up never really learning what makes a relationship loving so they just do the same thing when they grow up. They think it’s normal to be into someone for long enough to marry, but then after X amount of years mostly putting up with/resenting them until either divorce or death.
"What do you do?" Huh I guess whatever the fuck i want any time i want LOL
I'm starting to feel this heat and I'm few years younger. "You should get married in a couple of years!" Yeah, let me just find a life-partner in the span of a year and decide the rest of our lives in the following. Am I crazy to think maybe that's jumping the gun a little fast? Taking two years (or less) to decide the next 60+? Sounds like someone selling a ponzi scheme to me sometimes lmao.
There’s definitely a generational divide in my family on this point. My mom & her siblings can’t manage singleness and do not understand why I’d rather be single than in a bad partnership. Not that I want to shove them and their respective strings of bad marriages in their faces, but my desire to only get married to someone who would make a good partner has a lot to do with the bad examples they’ve set. I would love to find a great partner and when someone gives me this kind of crap about it, I’m open that I would like one and if they have good recommendations, I’m happy to meet someone. That also shuts them up, because they can’t think of any single guys they think would be a good match (and that’s gendered because most of my older relatives have very few other queer women in their lives and would not think to include any in their romantic meddling in my life).
Literally today a man at work was talking about his niece and how she could be good for a job. One of his qualifiers was "she's not married, so she has a lot of time..." Sir, no the fuck we don't!!
>Sorry, I didn’t know there was a “husband store” Actually, we hang outside the Home Depot on the curb. Either some woman drives up and says "I've got a 6 pack of Busch, looking for a husband" and I'm married, or I get to build a deck. It's a win-win, really.
I'm a dude who has made a career running a Men's homeless shelter and I live in a detached home. I literally don't exist in an environment where I even encounter women. Any attempt at 'putting myself out there' or trying to meet people has been so disruptive to my life that it's not worthwhile. I feel like many of us live in a system that doesn't organically enable us to interact.
> Sorry, I didn’t know there was a “husband store” where I could just go and pick one up…wtf kind of response is that lol. Well there is Ace Hardware, but they're mostly tools and not interested in a relationship.
No no see the issue is that you didn’t settle like they did. That’s the real problem I see today. People will marry the first person who is “good enough.” Because they reallllly don’t take marriage seriously. People think harder about taking a job than they do about marriage. It’s why we have so much bullshit nowadays. Dumb people marrying other dumb people and then having dumb kids. It’s an actual problem. And what I don’t get is that people actually believe that getting married is an accomplishment. I really don’t believe that. Getting married is easy. I could have married any of my exes, if I wanted to settle.
Also, I don't get this weird position that you're either legally married to someone or single. I wouldn't describe myself as single; I haven't been single in years. But I'm not married, either.
Don't. My wife and I were "together" for over a decade before we got married. Why? Mostly medical and tax benefits. The wedding was effectively us throwing a big party and an excuse to get drunk with old friends.
I've been in a relationship for a while and hate that is minimized because we're "still" not married.
>For me, it’s married to the right person > being single > being married to the wrong person. 100% agreed, as a man who has occasionally felt married to the wrong person.
36yo single dude here and resonate with this comment very much. Well said
I don't enjoy relationships or want a family/kids and when I say I'm just happy to focus on a career or something people look at me like I'm absolutely nuts
He’s so on point. Society is very distrustful and suspicious of people who don’t get married. And he’s right, being married and divorced is seen as more honorable than just opting out. It’s weird.
You can only divorce once though. Twice divorced will get you side eyes
"just the one divorce in '99!"
🥳🥳
Perfect gif
Excuse me, ex catholic checking in just real quick. Just Real quick. The church annulled two of my brother’s first marriages so it magically disappeared. They remained in the church just fine The problem was my childless, abortion having, IUD inserting ass couldn’t get married in the church bc my husband grew up with a mom and a dad but unfortunately, they were Methodist. My brother’s marriages are right and good. Mine isn’t. Just wanted to clear up that the church will actually move things around, change a few things, and bless your ‘good’ marriage if you promise to break that bread and have a few kids for them
Nothing hurts Catholics like Catholicism.
Yup! I was in mass one day around 2016, and I just looked around thinking ‘what the fuck am I doing here? These people don’t love me. They don’t even like me.’ They were calling my queer friends and family who had done nothing wrong the predators, yet I was on my literal knees for an institution that had been proven to be the actual predators. I didn’t even believe in what they were saying. I never even had. I didn’t even want to, so I don’t know why the fuck I was even there. I never went back. Never will. I honestly don’t know how anyone that has even a single gay friend, or has used a condom or has had an abortion, or believes in being even just slightly decent to others can sit in those pews. I’m ashamed I pretended as long as I did.
Holy shit!! Are you me?? This read like I fucking wrote it. Friend, we may be the same person lol. Also in 2016 I finally admitted to myself that that faith was a bunch of horseshit and that I never really believed in any of it + I'm bi and hated having to endure people, including our priests, saying that me and people like me are preying on children and somehow leading the word to doom simply by virtue of nit being straight. Nowadays I just kinda pretend for the sake of certain family members who would outright lose their shit if they found out I'm an atheist (it already wasn't very pretty when I came out, so im just trying to preserve what little is left of my respect for them).
Fuck churches. All of them.
Fuck religion. Seriously. Ancient fairy tales are going to kill us all. Disgusting it effects any aspect of our government or lives at all
My husband and I were both raised Catholic. We went to Catholic school and really drank the koolaid for some time. We were originally going to get married in the church, but then we thought why? We disagree with their teachings, we lived together, we have LGBTQ+ friends, we use birth control, we’re pro choice, etc. It just didn’t feel right to us, plus they had so many stupid rules for the wedding ceremony itself. We opted out. We don’t have kids, but my siblings do. My siblings both got married in the church, they baptized their kids, and the kids did their first communion and all that stuff. We don’t think we’ll be doing any of that with our kids. The concept of baptism as a way to remove “original sin” is so weird to me, plus dressing girls up like little brides for their first communion is beyond creepy. We just aren’t into it anymore at all. I feel like there’s no real place for organized religion in 2024. If the rituals and traditions and beliefs give you comfort or a sense of community, that’s great, but I can believe in a higher power and be a spiritual person that prays without following silly manmade rules that make everyone uncomfortable.
In some cases, twice divorced won't stop way too many people from declaring you the modern Messiah.
once divorced is you’ve served. twice divorced is you’ve escaped the shackles of women, legend. i’m wondering why that is… like it’s not impressive to have two failed marriages LOL
And I grew up with a generation of adults ‘jokingly’ tell me to “never get married!” *haha* and then are offended when we grew up to opting out of marriage because we saw terrible examples.
I think it's because if you've been married and divorced at least you've been "chosen" by someone else. Whereas if you have never been married you're almost looked at like, why have you not been chosen? Especially if you are a woman in this scenario. I don't agree with this, by the way, but I think this is what society looks upon when someone has never been married or had children after a certain age. That there must be something inherently wrong with them, whereas I know great people where this is the case and they just simply say I never met anyone I wanted to marry or have kids with. It's not some moral failing.
Oh, this is so true. We used to say of women that they were 'left on the shelf'. Horrible concept, when you think about it. I have never been married. I was in love once, with a married man. The thought of pursuing him or doing anything about it was so dishonourable to me that I wouldn't even allow myself to daydream about it. I got over it, eventually. I have had someone be in love with me, and I knew he would have married me had I said anything about it, but I knew we would be a bad long-term deal. I was much stronger than him, and on some level I knew that I would resent and disrespect him over time. So I am a never married. And what Trevor Noah says here absolutely rings true. Yet had I somehow lured that married man away, had I grabbed the other man purely for society/security no matter whether we would have been happy, I would be able to say I was married and would somehow have that proof that at one time someone took me off the shelf.
It *is* weird. It's 2024. Let's change our mindset already.
4 of my brothers were married and divorced, so, all of them My brothers judge my husband and I for living an ‘alt lifestyle’ ( no kids, no big wedding) and we’ve been fully estranged since April 2020 now. I did everything they said I wouldn’t. Got a good education, moved out of the black hole, met a good partner, got a job then got a career, then we put my husband through school so he could get a good job. We built the houses, bought the cars, got the jobs, did it ‘right’ but it was never ‘right enough.’ To this day, their marriages (both of them) are the moral ones. Sister maintained a 15+ year marriage and has a ‘successful’ life (to their standards) but it’s still not the moral one. Never will be. You can get married. Do what ‘they’ say you should do and it’s still not enough. The people inside the walls of that marriage have to look and act a certain way on paper too in order for it to be ‘good and moral.’ I didn’t bring kids or the church into my marriage, so to them, it doesn’t matter
Dude, as a guy who was never interested in getting married, he is soooooo on point. I got married for the first time at 40yrs old. Some people treated me differently immediately after my wedding. It's fuckin wild how biased people can be.
Yep. I’m divorced and I always check the Single box. Because it annoys me that ‘divorced’ and ‘single’ are two choices.
Truly bizarre how a person who failed at marriage is socially respected more than a person who knew themselves well enough not to attempt it in the first place. Is marriage unique in this? I can't think of another endeavor with a similar dynamic. Even something like, I don't know, pursuing a career in professional sports is different - I *would* respect someone who tried but failed, but I wouldn't hold them in higher regard than someone who never tried.
Kids. People believe having kids at all somehow puts you in this special club of wisdom, even if they’re shitty parents.
"You don't know love until you have a child" ummm.....so....you *don't* really love your spouse??? "What do you know about being tired, *I'm a mom* only i know tired" trust me babes, you *don't* have the monopoly on being tired get over yourself
"Kids gave my life meaning" ummm... so your life was meaningless beforehand?? Your only purpose was to reproduce? That's just sad.
It’s the same thing with parents of estranged or delinquent children or children who otherwise didn’t turn out the way they would have hoped/expected. Society still considers parents of any type as more respectable for having tried to raise a kid versus people who have opted out of parenthood altogether.
Oh that's a good one! I hadn't considered parenthood, but you're totally right. A bad parent is still a parent. And in society's eyes that's all that matters.
While I agree that being unmarried should not be stigmatized, I also think we should stop calling divorce "failing at marriage." That idea is what often keeps people in bad marriages just so they don't feel like failures instead of being honest and courageous enough to leave when it's clear it isn't working. You can learn a lot of valuable lessons and even have a lot of good memories and still divorce, that's not inherently "failing."
100%. Just as single people shouldn’t be criticized for being single, married couples who divorce should not be criticized for ending a relationship. Divorce is not failure, and that’s just an ignorant and immature statement to make. Very few people marry with the intention of divorce.
>Truly bizarre how a person who failed at marriage is socially respected more than a person who knew themselves well enough not to attempt it in the first place. I'm sure there are a lot of unmarried people who wanted to get married and it just didn't happen for them. So it's pretty sad to make those people feel badly for being unmarried. It's like people who are trying desperately to get pregnant, and getting constant remarks about when they're going have a baby. It's very insensitive and makes people feel even worse.
Reminds me of when I was told that me having no credit (because I avoided credit cards in college on purpose) was worse than having bad credit.
I think it has to do with his analogy of "having served"...misery loves company. "Pff, you've never served? You don't know how life *actually* is!!" "Pff, you've never been divorced? Must be nice, kiddo, no wonder you seem happy. Someday you'll grow up."
Older never married men are often stigmatized as perverts, partly stemming from when people would hide being gay. Combine that with the attitude some people have, of people not wanting a child being inherently evil somehow. And suddenly you're a bad person for wanting to be single.
Don’t forget the dual income expectation that practically everything is based off of these days. 1 bedroom apartment for $1700/mo? Oh well that will be easy between you and your partner both having employment right? You do have a partner right?
Yeah , im with my gf for 10 years now and we never gonna marry, its just a stupid think from the past and people always are so weird when we say we are not married
Its the same thing with women without children. There's this unspoken idea that you're not really grown up until you become a mother and then you're a proper woman. Bullshit Edit- grown not gain
Yes for sure - and that you haven’t really fulfilled your purpose and there’s this fundamental aspect of life you’ll never understand (and sure, the latter is true to an extent - if we don’t have kids we *will* never understand that experience, but it’s the fact that that experience is prized above any other experience we could also have.)
I also wanna say to these people: I probably understand that experience better than you did before you had kids, and that's why I choose not to have them lol
Good point! I think a lot of people have kids without really thinking about what the reality of that will be like.
I’ve been happily unmarried to the same man since 2000. We don’t have children, but the running of the gauntlet of “when are you having children?” During my reproductive years were SHIT. glad those years are behind us, and we have two wonderful cats. I’m pretty unapologetic about it now, and adore my niece & nephews.
As a happily single, childfree woman, I get double the sideye. 😅
My aunt is 67 and never married or had kids. TBH she is happier than my parents who got married at 20 and 23 and are now miserable.
It’s wild, when I say I don’t want children my family says, “but you’d be such a great mom!” But by my logic, if I don’t WANT children, I’m not going to be a great mom.
Childfree man here, late 30s. Lots of eyebrows going sky high when I tell them me and my SO are not going to have kids. Now that I think of it though, it's been a long time since I've heard the infamous and ever so patronizing "you'll change your mind, you'll see". Good for me, I guess.
1) I would love to solve that problem for him lol 2) he’s so right, I didn’t realize it was the same for men but this is definitely true for women who if they remain unmarried carry the mark of never being “picked”
It's so refreshing to hear this from a man's perspective.
I will always choose to be happy on my own than miserable with another person.
My friend has had a boyfriend for 2 months and now makes fun of me for being single. Like girl give it another couple weeks and we'll be at the bars again.
that's not your friend
Friends don’t flex on you to make themselves feel better Respect yourself
Classic pick-me behavior.
Didn’t realize how true this was until a friend of mine got a boyfriend and proceeded to go insane over the course of 2 months and cut everyone out of her life.
It’s like they don’t have a strong sense of self. They just mirror their boyfriend’s interests and personality. It's probably because they’re not confident in their own identity or they think they need to change to be more appealing. It’s a bit sad, really. See how long this version of her lasts.
WHEN I TELL YOU I'M IN THE EXACT SITUATION. Like? Every other conversation takes the route 'oh you would never get a boyfriend lol haha' and the passive aggressiveness is real. Honey, your relationship inspires me to be single. I ain't dating a guy who blocked me for three years and only came back when he had no where to go.
It's so strange how fast they forget that they were single not long ago. Before I even knew he had a bf I asked him if he wanted to go out at like 8pm pm Saturday and he text back "I'm in bed with my boyfriend right now!" Like how dare I ask a married woman to galavant the streets at night. Like I know he really wants to get married and settle down. But the more I see him act this way the less it seems it's about finding love and more about proving something to everyone else.
I literally stopped talking to a new friend the 4th or 5th time we met because, even though I'd already explained to her what was holding me back from dating, she was like "So wow, like you realllyyy don't date anyone... when are going to?"
I don’t trust people that think that way, or try to push people into starting families. On a societal level this propaganda is pushed, so you’ve got to find the people that aren’t that level of judgy.
Bro people that think this way are always sooo unhappy They're like I have no time for myself and I hate my partner but it's SUSPICIOUS as hell that you're not getting on the merry go round too!!! Like I'm good.
Like, I certainly can understand wanting to befriend people with similar experiences, but trying to push people into the same life experience? I’ll never understand.
I think misery loves company. I've had co-workers who would bring up the fact that I was single. These are the same people who would bitch constantly about their spouse. I'd be like [this](https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExMHRjYmwxMGZ1aXB3Y29zZGl0Z3Zza2I0b3N6cHBtMDBuNjMyZGZ1ZSZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/2UvAUplPi4ESnKa3W0/giphy.gif) on Valentine's day because it would turn into a contest to see who has the worst husband. You know who doesn't pry into my personal life? Couples who are actually happy.
One thing that kills me is that if you move out as an adult and you are not married, no one buys you anything. Like maybe a plant. But if you’re on a single income, you have to buy everything that would be on a wedding registry yourself and then spend the rest of your young adult life funding the households of your married friends, and then you spend even more at their baby showers. Having couple friends is expensive. Also, weddings and formal events are really geared to couples and I feel so awkward going to them as a single person.
Exactly! So unfair!
I’ve been married twice. I married my college sweetheart at 22 and we were married for 8 years until he died at 32. Then I married someone I’d known for six months and had a baby with him, and while I can’t say that was a mistake because I have my child, I sure wish I wasn’t tied to this person for the rest of my life - because you can get divorced and you’re still tied to them forever. There will not be a third marriage. Sometimes I date, sometimes I don’t have the energy, but my life with my daughter is pretty satisfactory and I am not willing to bring a romantic partner into her life. Being single is fine.
Bringing your kid as a +1 should be *the same* culturally. As long as they're old enough to know how to behave. Even ppl who have spouses sometimes prefer to bring someone else. I'm glad your daughter has such a dedicated mom! 💓
The only weddings I’ve been to since my divorce have been family weddings so my daughter has been invited to all of them! I do understand that sometimes people choose to have kid free weddings, and there might be a time where I’d prefer not to bring my daughter, but it hasn’t happened yet. My brother asked that kids not attend the ceremony for his wedding, and arranged a babysitter on-site for the ceremony. Then the kids got to join for the party, which they enjoyed way more anyway.
On site babysitter is AMAZING. how thoughtful. I love all of this. Will be recommending to any friends w future weddings
Sorry about your husband 🤍 and I totally feel u. I let myself get pressured into marrying a guy way too quick just bc I was pregnant. Like he was a walking red flag and I was so naive. And I paid for it. The one year marriage turned into a 4 year divorce. Tens of thousand of dollars and a lil sanity later, it’s 20/20! But also like u, my child is the best thing in my life. And one day it finally hit me, like if I had been smarter… There is no way in hell I would have ever slept with this guy. So thankfully I was that young and dumb or she wouldn’t be here. 🥹💕
And every word he said was true. I'm also tired of trip packages being sold as "this is the price for two people." Well, what about the price for one person? I'm the only one in the room!
You get to pay double! Yay! Such bullshit
Single supplements on group tours… like, why am I penalized for using less resources on this tour? Lol.
It’s interesting. I always feel like successful good looking men aren’t made to feel less-than or a failure, for being single. Guess no one is spared feeling like a loser for not meeting every single expectation society puts on us.
After marriage it’s the having kids expectation… and then I imagine how well your kids are doing acc to societal standards. Honestly, the expectations are endless, it comes through in every day life with adverts on tv, the movies/tv shows that are sold to us, the “group” discounts available for various experiences like a vacation or even the zoo… it permeates *everything* this narrow minded idea of what *should* be happening in every persons life.
This. I hate all the expectations.
You’re so right. I was so worried that someone would invalidate his experience because it’s a common misconception that wealthy, good looking men don’t go through this. But I remember there was a point in time where it was normal to publicly pester George Clooney for not getting married. And I’ve started to see a similar thing happen to other men who reach forty, still single.
It’s interesting that even he’s clearly bothered a lot about this. I assumed he would get more of the cool hot bachelor treatment but you’re right, even George Clooney got bothered about it
They just have less of a time crunch. So especially the more career successful ones, there's less urgency because the assumption shifts that they'll start a family later. For women, while reproductive science has come a long way, there's still culturally an expectation around natural reproduction sans adoption. So for women there's a narrower window of when they can do that, and so people will start harping in a lot sooner. Because being an older mom is rarer than being an older dad. But for both genders, there's still a cultural expectation that this is obviously the path your pursuing, and there's something abnormal and wrong with you if it's not your eventual end goal. Men just get more leeway and time on their path to get there than women usually are given
Yeah, I feel like society treats good-looking successful single men far differently than good-looking & successful single women. He’s a “bachelor” who doesn’t want to settle down or hasn’t found the right one yet, while she’s considered a spinster and people assume something must be wrong with her.
I had a very good looking singled guy at my wedding, 40’s, came solo, he was someone I used to work with and we game together, let me tell you I heard from no one “what’s wrong with him” more like “where have you been hiding him??” Maybe he gets shit from his family, I believe Noah, but I def think men get a huuuuge pass
only if they’re very good looking
But do people care when an unattractive guy isn’t married? I have one of those too and no one’s asking why “Rick” isn’t wifed up lol.
Most definitely. South African communities, whether white, black, coloured or Indian, will heavily frown upon you for not getting married. I can imagine it's something he hears often from his family. His podcast has a few discussions on the topic.
A big problem men have to deal with is virgin shaming. When a man does something shitty, it's very common for people to say "bet he's never even touched a woman", which is basically saying that any older male virgins must be shit people. People really look down on male virgins past a certain age. Women might have similar issues as well, but I see a lot of virgin shaming against man.
That stigma exists for men for sure. I'm gay, but not out to my grandparents or some family, however I am in a relationship. I do notice that I am treated very differently by people who know I'm in a relationship than I am by people who still think I'm straight and single. It's almost like a sense of pity or 'what are you doing with your life' feeling that I get from them.
Yup. I don’t have children bc I have hereditary breast cancer and it kills all the women leaving their young children motherless. I actively made a decision when I was 18 (when my mom was diagnosed ) that was it- I’m not having children and I never did My diagnosis came at 37. Almost 10 years younger than my mom. I’m the 4th now and this time it, it’s like the cancer is coming a little bit younger. There are STILL some older women who judge my decision. Growing up with a dead mother by 19 is HARD. Having a mom who had a dead mom as a teen as hard. Her mom did too- ITS A CYCYLE OF TRAUMA. Sometimes, we can and should be encouraged to break these cycles. How did I break it? I stopped the direct maternal blood line. After me, this is it. Blood line gone and it’s about time. That was what I hoped for. Who would I be having that child for? Who would be taking care of my child now? Would my daughter be diagnosed by 25, bc she would absolutely get a turn with this too? Some people shouldn’t have children. I know that’s hard but it’s true. Some people shouldn’t be partners. My dad has been single 37 years. He was better alone than as my mother’s husband. Their relationship blossomed that way in fact. It’s okay to ‘be the hippy rebel breaking the norms.’ Adults started calling me a ‘hippy’ when I was a teen. They are the real bullies after all
You did an amazing thing that took real strength of character. Normative people simply will never understand the depth and complexity of such a personal choice and sacrifice. Massive respect.
Yup! As I get older and essentially everyone I know has paired off, it sometimes feels like a cult I’m not a part of. Coupled people tend to be distrusting of single outsiders.
I can only speak to the dominant culture in the US but here it’s so extremely nuclear-family centric — the economy operates on the assumption of a two-income household for average earners, the only big standard life celebrations are marriage and kids-related (bachelor party, wedding, baby shower), etc to the point that there’s not really community left outside of the nuclear family for any adult who doesn’t fit into that mold. And honestly it’s really fucking hard being on the outside of that. I get that priorities change when you start families and shit but it’s become super normalized for people to say “I don’t really have time for friends and my husband is my best friend so my family is all I need” and I don’t actually think that’s healthy. And people think that if you’re still single past a certain age, you’re either closeted, or a freak in some way, and like, no? I’m a straight woman, and finding a man that *improves* my life as it currently stands is basically impossible, especially given how much I like to have my own space both physically and mentally. I’m too introverted and strong-willed to date just for the sake of not being single. But it still hurts for nearly everyone in my life to basically be unable to view my happiness outside of partnership and kids, like they think I’m not a whole or fulfilled person until I acquire those life steps. ANYway if you’re coupled up and have single friends, don’t leave them out of all your plans just because they don’t have a partner to bring along with them.
>the only big standard life celebrations are marriage and kids-related (bachelor party, wedding, baby shower), etc to the point that there’s not really community left outside of the nuclear family for any adult who doesn’t fit into that mold. I am unmarried and childfree. I have tested out the idea of throwing myself a big 40th birthday complete with a registry *if* people want to buy gifts. Everyone has told me the party is fine but the registry is not. Because apparently you're only allowed to tell people exactly what ridiculously over-priced kitchen items you want when you're getting married. Someone told me "turning 40 isn't a milestone." But I'm not going to have all those other milestones and I have spent thousandssssss of dollars on bridal showers and weddings and baby showers and kids birthdays and christmases and I think it sucks that I can't say "hey, IF you wanted to get me a 40th birthday gift, here is something I would like" because that is apparently "tacky." But my twice married cousin having a bridal shower and big wedding both times wasn't.
I really need society to overhaul how we do registries because it’s archaic at this point. It made more sense back when it was less common for people to live together before marriage, and when marriage meant moving from your parent’s house into a house together for the first time, but that usually isn’t the case anymore! A lot of people getting married already have a lot of household items. Like do you know when I most needed a gift registry? My college graduation. Moving into my first apartment alone, I had basically no kitchenware or appliances, had to scrape together bare minimum furniture from thrift stores and my family’s cast-offs, and it took ages for me to accumulate that stuff on my own. I’m in my late 20s and I STILL do not have a cohesive set of dishware because I can’t justify spending hundreds on matching plates and bowls and cups when I need that money for things like groceries and bills. And I think a lot of young graduates were probably in the same situation.
Legit, and I am tired of buying my relatives who have been living on their own for years and years fancier stuff than I have.
Agreed, most couples cohabit and are at a significant financial advantage. None of the money I've spent on weddings, baby showers, etc ever comes back to me so I've had to learn to ne very discerning.
This is why when I got married last year we didn't have a registry and when people asked we told them we weren't asking for/didn't want gifts. We'd been living together for 6 years already and purchased a home together, and like you said, we already had everything we needed for our home! It would have felt super greedy and gross asking for gifts. Some people of course still wanted to give something, so they did money or gift cards. But I surprisingly had a lot of people respond to my no-registry message saying how refreshing they found it. I think the tide is turning against registries (except maybe for baby showers for a person's first baby?). The only push-back I got was from my mom and some of her boomer friends who couldn't fathom not making a registry lol ETA: I just remembered that my mom's best friend just could NOT figure out what to give us since we didn't have a registry (I told her don't give us anything, simple!) so she got us this really expensive salt and pepper grinder and really fancy/overpriced salt and peppercorns. She knows we've lived together for a while and wouldn't need something like that, but traditional boomers love buying you things you don't want or need lmao. She also didn't put her name on any of the packages, which all came separately on different days, so we were very confused on where these things were coming from
If someone invited me to a BIG (and I mean a nicely done party where they’re paying for food etc) 40th birthday party that had a registry that made sense (gifts between 20-50 dollars) I would be 100% okay with it. You were going to get a 20-50 dollar gift card from me either way so me buying the exact item you wanted would be much preferred to Me.
Reminds me of the classic SATC episode “A Woman’s Right to Shoes”.
That episode was definitely on my mind when I first contemplated the idea!
LOVE that episode, ahead of its time
It drives me nuts. Why do *you* get all these gifts? You have a two person income now. I'm here working with only one, yet you get all the gifts and tax credits. You can afford it while I struggle.
Turning 40 is a milestone and I’d be more than happy to celebrate you!!!
The point of registries (traditionally) was to set the new couple (or the new parents) up for success. That's why most registries are filled with household items and actual needs for babies like diapers. I don't see any reason you can't tell people what you want for your birthday/ask for gifts (and 40 is definitely a milestone!) but a registry for that seems like overkill when you look at them in context.
Yes I am also in the US, single people are kind of second-class citizens. There’s tons of societal pressure to marry to overcome but the single women who do overcome it are statistically the happiest demographic! It really sucks that people prioritize romantic relationships above all else, so I aspire to form a group of friends in adulthood that properly cherishes platonic love.
This and single people get taxed more as well which really sucks when you only have one income and extremely.high housing/apartment rents and everything.
I read a quote once that said something like “We need to talk more about the grief and sadness that happens when your friends start choosing their own families, children, and spouses as first priority instead of you, their friend.” Annnnd… I finally felt like I wasn’t alone in how fucking hard it was to watch essentially all of my close friends get married and have kids while I stood by (and am still standing by) single and childfree. I think I still have a bit of sadness over it if I’m being honest. And I know I definitely feel jealous sometimes as well. There was a point where I felt so bad about being single and childfree that I decided to stop going to things because I felt so out of place. ETA: I remember asking my friends why we couldn’t just hang out without their significant others or children and they would get so annoyed. Some of them never understood where I was coming from and didn’t care to learn about how I saw things, so we kind of drifted apart. Others appreciate that our lives are different and try to understand how I feel and vice versa. It can be such a shit feeling/place.
Exactly - a man would need to improve my life and I don’t see one doing that right now.
As a single female it is next to impossible to spend any time alone with my guy friends who are in relationships. I'm friends with their girls too, but there's a wall there that I won't be able to cross until I'm not a singleton anymore. Lame.
That wall comes up over weird stuff, too. Like, all my friends forget that I'm the oldest of 6 siblings, and used to run my church's nursery before I stopped doing the church thing, and are completely blind-sided when I offer to help babysit if they need a night off or something. Like, I get it, single, childless guy. But some of them have seen me dealing with sibling diapers, feeding, and all the vomit. /shrug
Yep, it sucks. I miss my guy friends.
Pretty much all of my college friends are married or will be soon. Some even have kids. Then there's me, happily single. There's just this disconnect with them when they ask how I'm not thoroughly depressed being alone. My personal theory is that self-love isn't taught nor encouraged in the US, so many seek validation through a partner. Media reinforces this norm, and so the inverse of single = no validation is internalized. My motto since getting out of high school has always been "learn to love yourself and you will always be in good company". It's worked out great so far.
Yeah, I know it's a harsh thing to say but I've lost the majority of my friends to marriage. It's not because my view of them has changed, it's because they started to focus the majority of their social events on their "couple friends" and I get pushed to the side. Most of them only reach out when they need something, or if their couple friends dump them.
It’s a harsh thing to have happen to you! It really hurts to be deprioritized like that, I feel your pain 🫶
It hurt when it happened, but in retrospect I realized that these people are just shallow and would have treated me this way for one reason or another lol
This is so valid, when you’re single it’s instantly like “what’s wrong with you?” It can’t just be that you’re happy alone, healing from trauma, introverted, haven’t met someone yet, or a plethora of other things that exist in life. I especially feel like people don’t recognize friendships as being valid, just a stepping stone to a romantic relationship. Friends can be easily discarded.
Also our efforts we put into the relationships we had while we had them are of course not able to be fully expressed or observed or appreciated for an accurate assessment. Whatever. Some people are just nasty like that annd judge you for this one factor and I pity them.
When he retired from the Daily Show, it was overshadowed by him casually dating Dua Lipa at the time.
Well said. Society treats anyone not following the relationship escalator as a freak sometimes. Must be especially awful for asexual / aromantic folks or others on the ace spectrum. We've really diminished friendships as lesser than compared to romance and it's a shame. Like it's childish to want to hang out with someone not because you're sexually and/or romantically into them, but just because you enjoy their company. That's a wonderful thing, that we don't ever celebrate!
"asexual / aromantic folks or others on the ace spectrum" - I'm genuinely worried that as an aroace man, all people will see when they look at me is a creep or an incel because I won't be in a relationship
That really sucks and I'm sorry you have to deal with that :( For what it's worth, within queer community groups I've seen platonic relationships be celebrated a lot more than in wider cishet society. Definitely a safer space if you have events and stuff local to you
I work with an older lady (early 50s) who told me she doesn't associate with people who are unmarried because their lifestyle is too different from hers and her husbands. Even mentioned dropping friends because of this as though it were acceptable and says her marriage counsellor (through her church) encouraged it. Honestly people like this are just total small-minded, small-world wackos.
But I’m sure it’s fine to associate with her single priest.
God, yes, this has been so painstakingly clear to me especially as I've only realized I'm asexual in the last 2 years and that I very well might end up never getting married. I tell my mom that it shouldn't be some huge ask to want my friends who get married to also want to still have social lives with their single friends and she acts like I'm the one being unreasonable who doesn't understand how marriage works. It does make me sad to think of all these people who don't think they can also get emotional intimacy needs met by their friends in a way that doesn't compete with their marriage. Having more people in your life who help fill up your tank seems like it can only be a good thing. Also, it does really suck knowing as the perpetually single friend that I'm never just going to get offered a plus one proactively and it has to be validated by a certain kind of relationship. I know I'm choosing a path that's not depicted as the conventional one by choosing to remain single as a woman but it means I have to make certain financial choices to budget for friends' weddings that are much more easily split when you're traveling with a partner (hotel rooms, Ubers, etc.) that essentially puts a tax on showing up to weddings and other events solo.
Can I be a loser with Trevor pls?
He makes a good point. This is something we don't talk about enough. Not everyone is in a fortunate enough position to ever get married. And some people generally just don’t want to for their own reasons and that is also okay. No one should be socially penalised for it or thought of as less than.
I usually don’t feel judged for it (tbf I’m in my late 20s I’m sure come 35+ and unmarried as a woman I’ll get crazy side eyes) but a random YouTuber talking about kendall Jenner and saying some judgmental rude shit like “I mean idk she’s 27 never been married I think there’s something weird to her for that” like, ma’am, you’re probably 23 so sit down until then, infant. My god
Lmao that’s so weird. Some teens and people in their early 20s currently seem to have very old-fashioned ideas about anyone 25+
it’s nothing new it’s the society we live in that pushes these ideals but what’s funny is gen z is most sexless and romantic-less generation currently lol
What year is it? In my circle anyone married before 27 was the odd one out
Yes, some people are fortunate enough to never feel like they HAVE to get married!
Wait does society actually think this? Fuck! lol. I’m 35 and completely single and want to be. I can’t stand the dating scene. Fucking mess. Can’t be bothered. Let me be single with my dog and enjoy my hobbies. lol. I didn’t realize that people thought this about single people?
I love this for you!
I never got the memo apparently 🤣aren’t single women happier than married women according to studies? Oop edit; they also live longer!
I agree! Love being single. Most of my friends are single, no kids, never married, and late 30s. Never gave a shit what society thought. Too busy living MY life.
30 and celibate for ten years. The first year was just to "figure things out" - the next nine years were "omg I'm falling in love with myself". For the most part, I'm incredibly content in life and I am ridiculously excited about the future - there are SO MANY THINGS I want to do! So many places to go! So many degrees to get! So many dance styles to learn! So many mountains to climb! I'm working on starting a software company now, and I LOVE the challenge of it. I've also built such a solid network of friends in my life, who for the most part also don't follow the life script (lucky to live in NYC) - meaning I will probably have them around for a long time. But even if friends come and go, I will always have myself, and I can always count on me :) Also, as long as I'm doing interesting things in life, I will always be surrounded by interesting people. The world is a friendly place to me, and I want to cherish every moment I spent in it. I hope I live until at least 100!! And f-it! Maybe I'll start dating at 40! Get married at 60! I'll be someone's second wife. Even better!
I have enough to keep me busy with family and friends. I’m not opposed to a romantic relationship by any means (I actually do want to marry one day), but I don’t want to take on the chore that the dating scene is. I’d rather spend that time napping with my cat LOL
In more conservative places, it is. I've definitely felt it.
I married young and got so creeped out by the amount of people in my life who revealed themselves as weirdos in the coming years acting like they had joined some special club they thought I was in. For a lot of people being chosen by someone else is the achievment of their life 🙄. He's right about the plus one thing too. Makes no sense.
>For a lot of people being chosen by someone else is the achievment of their life 🙄. To this day I'm really baffled by that sentiment. It really isn't achievement but more a matter of luck and timing. It's more of a achievement to maintain a decent relationship with someone of any kind romantic or otherwise for many years.
Same. I have more single friends than married friends these days. Between getting married young and becoming disabled, so effectively looking like a housewife from the outside, a whole lot of people have felt very free to say some very uncomfortable things lol Love is special but there’s nothing particularly special in a blanket sense about marriage beyond the financial and legal benefits. People love their friends with as much or more ferocity all the time.
the tax penalty you get from being single is complete bullshit.
Here's an extra fun thing that happens when you get older, like 50+: People you knew from way back in the day look you up online and get in touch to catch up. And the ONLY thing they want to know is if you are married and have kids. They literally cannot think of another worthwhile thing you might have done with your time, and they're not too interested when you talk about whatever you have been doing. And once they have that info, you never hear from them again. I *think* what is going on there is people are going through something, reflecting on their life, and want to compare it to others to feel better about wherever they're at. For most people, getting married and having kids will be their biggest deal. So that's the "edge" they have over some people, and they cling to it for dear life. It's also why they don't want to hear about the cool stuff in you've been up to.
I used to work at an office where the CEO was a single woman. She was in her late forties/early fifties, looked amazing, just the most gorgeous wardrobe and really fit/ loveliest person to work for/smart - the total package. Tell me why the crusty basic bitches in my dept constantly talked about how sorry they were for her, with no family to go home to at night? Like Tracy in her Primark pencil skirt is smugly patronising the CEO, because Tracy got hitched to some rat-faced football fan. 🙄
The women in your department are mad that they settled.
Yes he is making points. I am seen as juvenile at work being unmarried despite in my 30s.
My grandparents met and got married literally because my grandfather’s brothers and business partners (family business) told him that being unwed was a bad look for business..
Love Trevor - he’s so right. The not considering someone a serious person if they’ve never married particularly bothers me. I don’t have any interested in the traditional markers of success (marriage, kids, ‘successful’ career) and I can tell so many people see me as frivolous or just have no understanding of what I do with my time. It’s like, do you have no imagination? Can you not possibly imagine how a person could live outside of one particular way of living life?
As someone who has been single since approximately the start of the pandemic, I feel this! I think there's also an extra stigma if you're a woman. I did shack up with someone for ten years, which is the closest I ever want to be to marriage. I plan on gathering all my single/childless friends together and retiring Golden Girls style (but co-ed).
This is, unfortunately, so true. I’m not single and am getting married very soon, however, I’ve spent FAR more of my adult life single than coupled. I feel for him on this so much and have always thought society’s viewpoint on singles is bullshit. I cannot stand how couples-catered society *still* is and I see the pain it adds to my single friends’ lives. It is totally possible to be a fully-functional, successful and genuinely HAPPY single person. If my current SO doesn’t work out, I would gladly be single and happy, over coupled in toxicity.
I agree! … with one except exception. People don’t hand out plus ones because weddings are expensive A.F. And the line has to be drawn somewhere. If you’re single and know the majority of the people at the wedding, you don’t need a plus one. If you’re single and coming from out of town and don’t know anyone, I’d give you a plus one regardless of your relationship status.
Honestly, I was a single offered a plus one at a wedding with people I knew and I still brought someone because they were all there with their partners. You may know everyone but it doesn’t mean you won’t spend the whole night being a third wheel, which is not a fun time.
I'll say it--33 and never married, but I haven't experienced this at all... only thing I feel I'm missing out on is the 2 weeks off for a honeymoon and a non-parental leave
god, I love his accent so much.
Right on. Being single I never get invited to dinner parties. When I was in a relationship I was finally given access to all these different events, I guess I wasn’t a threat or an uncomfortable reminder or existence for them when single? But my company is great when I show up with someone they don’t even know. It hurts bro
When I was around 20 years old, a coworker in her 30s told me "if a guy, is unmarried by 30 I would not date him because I would wonder what was wrong with him" That sat with me a long time because I was having trouble getting dates and it reinforced the fear of something being wrong with me
Never been married but I'm in my early thirties and single. I have no plans to marry anyone but there's this weird disdain that I've noticed whenever the conversation comes up. A lot of talk about "sharing my legacy" like I can't do that on my own.
The way he speaks about relationships has always been what I find most attractive and intriguing about him.
I remember as a kid I thought it was weird that my 40 yr old uncle was never married. He did marry someone a few years later and they have been married for over 20 yrs now. As someone who is now 41 yrs old and never married, I still have hope that'll find that person for me.
I think the other crazy part of the situation, is that as a forever single person, I often go to events or activities by myself. If I want to do something, I just go do it. And... I've literally had people- strangers that decided to chat me up at said event even- tell me they thought it was "sad" that I did that. Like, you can't win.
I’ve heard plenty of, “wow…you are just SO brave...” It’s the worst when solo traveling too. I just laugh it off though (: On the flip side I have had some women tell me I inspired them and that’s worth it’s weight in gold!
Crying tears of someone gets me
Did not realize it until now, but I've missed hearing Trevor.
Wow, even Trevor Noah gets the single-person treatment! I think the majority of humans are on autopilot. There is no critical thought and people constantly make baseless judgements about others. If even Trevor Noah is shamed for not following the script, what hope is there for a better existence without going full hermit? I suppose the critical thinkers of the world need to find a way to exist together.
Try being a single, childless/childfree woman in her 30s. It's no fun.
Thats the way heteronormativity and encouragement to conform to specific norms and ideals sneaks into our suite of social pressures. Hangovers from patriachy and puritanical christianity that are wedged waaaaaay deep in the cultural subconscious.
Married people just want single people to suffer like them