Browsing the Internet today I came across an article on Yahoo! News that gave me pause for thought. It’s enticing headline, ‘Dating 101:Why am I still single?’ drew me in, I needed to know why I was still single! Psychology Professor Jean Twenge reveals research that shows, while there are a lot of good people, there are most certainly reasons why they are single. Since I am habitually a singleton (see: Things I Want to DO: Dating), I decided to read on and see if I could glean some wisdom as to my perpetual single hood.
The first reason people aren’t pairing up according to Twenge’s research?
‘The Singular Syndrome’
No longer pitied by society, it’s more acceptable to be a single person. Not hard to believe. People are always telling me how lucky I am to be single with no children. They envy my freedom to do; whatever I want, whenever I want, without the shackles of marriage, family or a mortgage to tie me down.
There is in fact a massive cultural shift at work here. …the number of women who are romantically uninvolved is a result of one major factor: our culture tells us we don’t need relationships.
I definitely think that is true. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard this from my mother, girlfriends, even my therapist! I understand why they say these things. We don’t want women to believe their happiness hinges on the love of a man. However, part of being human is coupling up, sharing life experiences with another person and building a life together. So while, I herald the self esteem boosting efforts of well meaning friends, I do think we do ourselves an injustice by trading self love for true love.
…young American adults view deep emotional involvement with others as weakness and dependence. It’s not just that our culture accepts and accommodates the single lifestyle now — it’s that it actually disparages the individual who isn’t focused solely on her own personal advancement. The ubiquitous teachings from our capitalist culture media, Boomer-generation parents who toiled to teach us the importance of pursuing personal goals, and teachers in an increasingly survival-of-the-very-fittest education system — all these emphasize the individual and her goals, not her need for involvement with others.
Reason #2 Social Networking
Oh boy. Guilty, guilty, guilty. While I have tried to curb my lust for social networking, I am still online a lot. I maintain an active online persona and it has been hard to remove myself from it. Of course I use social networking to promote my blogs but I would be lying if I told you I have not utilized my online social network for dating purposes. You get more attention than you do offline. It’s an opportunity for someone to get to know me without really knowing me. Narcissistic? Absolutely!
…narcissism in America is higher than it’s ever been before, and by definition of considering themselves more important than the people they associate with, narcissistic people make terrible relationship partners. Twenge blames this spike in narcissism on societal teachings … but also feels that purported social networking devices like MySpace and Facebook are less a method of connecting with others than a means of shameless self-promotion, giving the individual limitless opportunity to think about themselves and advertise why other people should want to know them.
My online profiles put me in my best light. I choose the content, the images, even who I am friends with. I wouldn’t say I am a shameless self promoter but I do use it to my advantage, mostly to elevate my sites’ traffic but to also to foster my own image. In the ad biz they call it ‘branding’. And I like to think that’s what I am doing.
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