While lying in bed contemplating whether or not to get up or go back to sleep, my BFF Christine called. She had a blogspiration for me and she was quite furious about it. She found this article on the Huffington Post website. Go ahead, read it. I'll wait.
Why I'm Still Single, Apparently.
How sweet of her to gift single women with this article the day before Valentine's Day (aka: Alkeehall Day). While Ms. McMillan has a some good points, they are few and far between. I must wonder if she has ever met a single woman. By single, I don't mean previously married. I mean single, single, single. Like me. She has been married three times so far, so she knows plenty about marriage. She knows nothing about being single. As she states, she was born knowing how to get married and did so the first time at the oh-so-ignorant age of nineteen. When I finished reading the article, I scrolled down to the comments and was surprised to find that several of them held a favorable opinion of it. How scary to realize that readers are going to think that her analysis of single women is accurate.
The silliest part of the article, of course, is the beginning. She has the juvenile view of marriage, which is all about the ring, the dress, and dreaming of one's own wedding while attending others' big days. As a seasoned 40 year-old single woman, I can assure Ms. McMillan and every other married (doesn't matter if she's single -- she's married in spirit) out there that single women past the age of thirty don't see marriage as a party followed by bliss. We think about the ever after, the not being alone, the not being solely responsible for everything, and not being...pardon the pun...singled out for being single. From this point on, you'll find Ms. McMillan's points in red.
Because the fact is -- if whatever you're doing right now was going to get you married, you'd already have a ring on it.
What a brilliant insight. Why didn't I think of that? Oh, wait...I did. And do. And will continue to do until I get it right. Maybe she should jump ahead onto my train of thought instead of running behind, trying but failing to catch up. Marriage would be nice, but it's really love I'm seeking. It's too bad she has no suggestions on that one. She does have six convenient reasons why I'm not married:
1. You're a bitch. (followed up with) Most men just want to marry someone who is nice to them.
On what planet? I'll fly there right now. The bitches are always married. They're married because they browbeat some poor slug (or three...) into it. They continue to treat their husbands terribly because they can. I've never met a man married to a bitch who divorced her because she was a bitch, nor does this attitude prevent a woman from getting married in the first place. In fact, it helps. The truth is that men like drama just as much as they think women do. They like the fights. Fights mean passion, passion means fights and fights mean makeup sex. You just can't beat the makeup sex. She continues with this insanity by discussing her teenage son's fascination with Kim Kardashian, and the fact that the woman is never angry. What does she have to be angry about, I wonder? Anger requires thought and I've yet to be encountered with any proof of a Kardashian thought process. It's insulting to be compared to a woman who isn't working full-time and barely making ends meet, who is only successful because she's a reality star (an oxymoron if there ever was one). Single women: don't allow yourself to be compared to a Kardashian, a Hilton or any of the other celebutards out there. You're better than that. We're all better than that. McMillan isn't asking us not to be angry; she's asking us to play stupid. If Kim Kardashian is the epitome of the ideal woman, why isn't she married...oops, I mean re-married?
2. You're shallow.
What a ridiculous assumption. I don't look for a man because of his physical characteristics or his bank account. Those things can and will fluctuate. I do expect a man to have what I have -- an education, a career, and an interest in some form of self-improvement. Just because I haven't wound up with a man with the character traits I prefer doesn't mean I haven't been looking for him. Mr. Perfect Citizen dumped me for a tiny little Asian. He was the shallow one. I was fine with being three inches taller.
3. You're a slut.
This is one of the few places in which this article makes sense. Not the slut part, of course. Women should never refer to other women as sluts, but McMillan's animosity towards other women compels her to do so. I'm guessing at least one of the three cheated on her and that woman is known as The Slut Who Stole My Man.
It's never easy to figure out exactly when sex should come into the picture. As I've mentioned before, I never seem to know if he dumped me because I did or he dumped me because I didn't. The line between taking things too quickly and not moving things quickly enough is a thin one. If you blink, you'll miss it. It isn't as though I can give a guy a survey and include "At what stage of the relationship is sex a deal-breaker?" on it, can I?
4. You're a liar.
So now I'm an angry, lying, shallow slut. At least I don't live in Dreamland where Mr. Right rides a unicorn and gifts me with the pot of gold from the end of the rainbow. If I did, I would find a man who is honest about what he's looking for in a relationship. I can't tell you how many times I've dated men who insisted that they were finished with dating and sleeping around only to find out that they're just getting started. The point at which I'm told that he thinks we're taking things too fast and he wants to slow down and maybe not take things so seriously...I know what time it is. I'm outta there. I'm going to tell 22,000 of my girlfriends something I don't tell the man I'm dating? I'm not a teenager. Maybe she should try to catch up instead of using her son as a dating frame of reference.
5. You're selfish.
I love this one. This is where the Childbirth Standard comes in, the silly idea that one is only responsible and loving and giving if one has children. Strangely enough, only women with children adhere to this standard. The rest of us know it's ridiculous. You chose to have children; don't put your anxieties and insecurities on me. Having children does not make you special or enlightened or unselfish. It just makes you a mother. I'm sorry that you expected to be crowned Woman Of The Year because you gave up a yoga class to take your kid to the orthodontist. That's what you signed up for. Celebrities who adopt children find husbands because they've proven themselves unselfish? What a selfish idea. They find husbands because they're celebrities and in our shallow society, innately desirable. The kids really have nothing to do with it. Motherhood has a way of weeding out the lotharios. That's so cute! And immature. And untrue. Single mothers are just as likely to find unsuitable men as the rest of us, but instead of going through the pain alone, they get to drag a child through it with them. How is that unselfish? The selfish part is to have a child with no clue as to how I'm going to support him or her.
6. You're not good enough.
I think Ms. McMillan had a difficult time coming up with a sixth reason I'm not married, so she recycled the You're Shallow. Once again, I'm not looking for Brad Pitt or Bill Gates here. I want an average man who has what I have. That's it. I don't need a man to be the sole breadwinner, nor do I care if his family is more or less screwed up than anyone else's. I just care that he wants to be with me. This is the point where she makes sure to let us know that her son is the recipient of a private education and that all of the other moms are the salt of the earth -- and flat-chested. They jumped through all of her hoops and came out on the other side with a husband. How much do you want to bet that at least a third of those women will go home and yell at their husbands for looking at them the wrong way?
If anyone knows that marriage won't make a woman happy, it's McMillan. She's done it three times and hasn't succeeded yet. She tells us that marriage is about giving as if we didn't know that. She apparently holds the secrets to the universe. What will she tell us next? Money doesn't grow on trees? Not to count our chicks before they've hatched? No, she tells us that once we achieve her standards (which most of us did a long time ago, it's sad that it took her so long to catch up), we will find love.
Awww.
That's cute.
For a twelve year-old.
Not Twelve,
D
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