Creating Inequality

One of the things that bothers me most about single life is how accommodating you are expected to be. People don't seem to think your time is worth as much as theirs; they think that they can throw you a pittance of their time when and if they feel like it, and you should be grateful.

And you are. You're so starved for quality contact that you start to give less respect to your own time as well. You value your enjoyable moments with good friends so much that you gather the tiniest scraps of them eagerly. You keep your schedule open like a doctor on call, ready to drop your own solitary activities the moment someone can spare you a moment.

And it's not just time. You get shuffled around on flights so that couples who didn't bother to check in until the last minute can sit together. You fit yourself awkwardly at the corner of the pub table because you aren't attached to someone specific. You're served much more solemnly by waiters who cheerfully make nearby groups' experiences more enjoyable. And frustratingly, people handle you with patronizing protectiveness in a tacit assumption that you can't take care of yourself.

You feel obliged to defer to everyone around you: couples, seniors, single mothers, children. Unless you're career-driven, you probably defer to anyone you interpret as being professionally above you.

But at some point (after years of this treatment and observation of human nature), you realize that treatment is largely a matter of image. You can command more respect than society deems appropriate for your class. The catch is that you have to give up a piece of your identity to do so, but identity is evolutionary and fluid—and the happy truth is that you can stick up for your lifestyle these days.

What's an Age Worth?

My first long-term job was on the front desk of an administrative office. It was a stepping-stone kind of job, which in a perfect world I would have moved up from almost immediately. It was a good place and I didn't want more than part-time work, as I was in the middle of working on my master's degree and simultaneously trying to knock off exams for my composition ARCT.

One day the watercooler conversation turned its attention on me, and the accounting assistant learned for the first time that I was in graduate school.

"I wouldn't have guessed you were in university," she said with a superior laugh. "I was thinking high school, maybe." I knew exactly what the comment implied: I've always been on the gangly side of willowy, small-chested, deferential, quick to smile, eager to complete directives, and sporting a kind of aged-emo style. In our largely big-boned office, I was like the runt of the litter.

But I'm in the camp that wants my years in this world respected.

People seem to think they are paying you a compliment by grossly underestimating your age. The implication is that you lack life experience, that you don't have adult responsibilities or worries, that you're not independent or successful by their measure. Look a little closer. Take a look at my eyes and you'll see a world of aged pain and wisdom. Really look at my smile, and you'll see how it has etched my skin. Look at my work, and you'll see years of higher education and adult common sense.

If you really want to compliment someone, think about what you actually mean. What is it about the person that looks youthful? Pick a feature—maybe it's their smile, or the sparkle in their eyes, or (and you're walking on eggshells) their physical build—and if you still feel the need to verbalize your thoughts, try to spin it in a non-offensive way.

Lifer

Only one hairdresser ever inspired the loyalty in me to return time after time for over five years. She was a single mother of a teenaged son, a multitalented artist, and a downright beautiful and genuine human.

During one appointment, we chatted about Las Vegas, as I was looking forward to my first Vegas trip. She told me I would have a blast. "There's nothing as fun as girlfriends," she said. I didn't mention that I was traveling alone and meeting up with some people I had never met before. "One of my girlfriends is a lifer, like me," she said. "We went to Vegas and joked that we should get married. I really think platonic marriage should be a thing."

Not being very well informed on her personal life, I had to turn her words over in my mind long after I had left the salon. I was stuck on the word "lifer"—what did it mean? What former circumstances would have prompted this attitude?

Her idea of platonic marriage also intrigued me. It shouldn't be a foreign idea, but it is. You don't realize how hyper-sexualized the world is until you spend time as a single. Everything seems to be focused on romantic relationships and families: advertising, media, social activities, conversations, tv and music and art. Anything that doesn't elevate romance is only the more conspicuous for the steadfast avoidance, and comes across as the resentful thought-child of some spurned being. As a single, you feel out of place, unnatural, terribly visible, like a bright red actor in a black and white film. All this fixation on relationships and romance creates an issue in your life, where a nonissue once stood.

Maybe that's one facet of what some of us singles are—spurned beings. But if so, it's a small facet. To think that a person's life experiences doesn't make them evolve to be larger than any label or category is a rookie mistake. Experience and time will teach you otherwise. More and more, I'm getting to understand what being a 'lifer' means to me, and how it is isn't an oppressive label. Rather, it's an open door of life opportunities, and emotional and physical freedom, and optimism.

Last year, she went on sick leave and never returned. I haven't found a stylist since then who can measure up, and more importantly haven't found one with such genuine wisdom.

Elitist Garbage

My childhood best friend lived on a farm a couple miles down the road from mine. We were born during the same summer, and were friends through thick and thin right up through highschool graduation, after which we largely went our own ways in the world.

She was also good friends with a slightly younger girl even further down the road, on a farm with a few horses. They would occasionally go horseback riding together.

One year she kept a horse as well; I can't recall who it belonged to, but it was a fairly short venture. They went riding more often, and I—knowing that there must be an extra horse now that my friend had her own—asked if I could come along some time.

"You don't have a horse," she said.

Young Me was confused and hurt. We were all in the same general social circle, so the awkwardness of overlapping friend groups didn't seem to be an issue. A long-germinating seed of resentment was planted in me—not toward any person, but toward the very idea of elitism that causes some people to be excluded. The Horse Incident was just one instance in a long childhood full of brushes with exclusivity.

With the optimism of the terminally bullied, I was sure that the adult world was a place where I could find belonging. Children are ignorantly cruel, but surely that behavior wouldn't follow me past the school that spawned it.

Surprisingly, the seed has taken well over a decade to bloom into a useful fruit. The adult world has its own guidelines by which The Other is excluded. It's tough to break into any circle, even as an adult. And don't let the image fool you: circles do indeed have a hierarchy, and someone is usually only loosely attached and easily overlooked. Even the most welcoming of communities will unknowingly make somebody feel unwanted, uncomfortable, and reluctant to return.

But when you can overcome your own anxieties and accumulation of bad experiences, and actually break into a new community—well, that's one of life's triumphs. Just keep an eye toward the periphery; and if you recognize yourself in anyone lingering there, be a champion and welcome them in.