I’m making myself write this or I’ll never do it and I’ll regret it. Not because I think anyone cares but because this is my modern way of journaling and it’s not healthy for me to keep a bunch of thoughts like this piling up in my noggin, which is cramped for space as it is. And it is a huge cultural study – one I’m actually really interested in *cough, probably because it involves myself, cough*. So here goes nothing.
This starts with another blog for class that I wrote months ago (which stemmed from something I said in the blog about White Noise, actually). I’d been thinking a lot about what it’s like to be single in America and how much it fucking sucks. Not only is there an edge of loneliness to it, there’s this whole idea that you’re screwing up your life because you haven’t gotten a boyfriend or a girlfriend yet. And I especially noticed this when one of my friends from high school got her first boyfriend. As I’d said before regarding this topic, this runs the risk of sounding like a Dr. Phil show or me psychoanalyzing myself (which would both be lame and totally awkward). So I’m going to try very hard not to do that. It’s going to run like this – the first part is going to be a rough rendition of my original blog about capitalism and why that affects me being single (I know, I’m recycling another blog. Give me a break – it was one of the hardest I’ve ever written. Except for this one). The rest is going to be my reflections and how it’s gotten weirder. It’s gonna be long, so hold on for a bumpy ride.
I.
My friend, who I will refer to as [X] (because I can’t use “her” a thousand times, I can’t think of any girl’s names that start with [X], so no hints at who I’m talking about and, even though not many of my friends read this and if they do, it’ll be easy for them to figure out who I’m referring to, I’d rather be safe than sorry and at least show that I’m not trying to bitch about people online. It’s my way of working through feelings – and cultural concepts. Okay, I’m just a bitch, I admit it. But I’m working on it)… anyway, [X] is nice person (I emphasize she’s nice because, despite anything disparaging I say about her, you the reader should remember that I am biased from knowing her and not without faults myself. Thus it’s a hell of a lot easier for me to point out her downfalls). [X] was my best friend in high school and we bonded over a mutual appreciation for sarcasm, English literature and a sort of solidarity from both being only children. However, now that we’re in college, things are weird, possibly because we both have communication issues (she’s never online the same time I am, I apparently don’t know how to use a cell phone, she won’t really message me first unless it’s really important, and I don’t know how to begin conversations). But then things have gotten really weird.
A few months ago, [X] got her first boyfriend, which if I was a nice person, I would have been really happy for her. But instead, I got ridiculously jealous and pissed off. Why? Because I always thought I’d be dating before her, as she was never interested in high school and she didn’t really seem comfortable with the idea. Of course, people change but I haven’t really been up to speed on her social life as that’s something she doesn’t really tell me much about anymore. So while my high school friends were celebrating (and one proclaimed the day should be a national holiday in honor of [X]’s success), I sulked on my couch feeling sorry for myself. Some great friend I am.
Of course, there’s a lot of extra baggage going on behind the scene - weird unresolved stuff from high school that I could describe if I wanted to make my life sound like a soap opera, caught in an awkward spat between my both of my roommates and [X], difficulties in trust with [X], and general issues with both of us changing in college. But the pissed-off factor I had was fairly excessive. Sure, I was mad that she hadn’t gotten back to me about the global seminar in Scotland we were going on because she was spending more time with her boyfriend. Yeah, it was kind of irritating that everyone was making a giant deal out of her dating (and it was probably embarrassing to [X], I would guess). And yes, it was another nudge at the state of my being single and the fear I have that everyone I know will be married with kids and I will be an old crazy cat lady.
And while I still feel like total shit for being this selfish (“She’s your friend goddammit – can’t you feel happy for another human being?” I’ve berated myself at least twenty times while writing this) an author named Max Weber, who wrote a fantastic book called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, has given me some consolation that at least there’s some reasoning beyond my own experiences that’s influenced me (by the way, I actually bought this text for [X]’s birthday, as a sort of ironic twisted way of thinking that things were going to be just peachy after Scotland. Fail). Weber states that capitalism today “educates and selects the economic subjects which it needs through a process of economic survival of the fittest” and those who don’t “adapt his manner of life to the conditions of capitalistic successes must go under, or at least cannot rise.” In this structure, I feel threatened because I’m not coming across as the fittest – I haven’t accomplished as much as [X], I’m worried I’m not successful, that I haven’t done anything worthwhile. And if I don’t accomplish enough stuff, I’ll fail at life and be miserable. But I have accomplished stuff – I’m in college, I’m happy with my major, I recently got a job. But because everyone else I know (more or less) has these things, then they seem less important. If I do well on a test – so what? As all of my friends from high school are academically successful, there’s this hidden drive to out-do each other. We have to be more academically successful, or successful in other things (like our social lives or outside activities). Thus outside activities and relationships become really heightened in importance. It’s not enough to be on campus – you have to be involved. It’s not enough to have friends or significant others – you have to prove how committed you are to them.
But why do we care about outdoing each other? Why do I care if I [X] is dating or why my friends (and my grandmother) always drill me if there’s “someone special” in my life? “Because people care about each other, duh.” Yes, of course. I do in fact care about my friends, even if what they do happens to piss me off. But people tend to compare themselves to one another and they want to make sure they themselves and other they know are on the “right track.” Weber describes the “valuation of the fulfillment of duty in worldly affairs as the highest form which the moral activity of the individual could assume.” It is our “duty” to be educated, get a job, raise a family and if individuals deviate from this norm, people begin to worry that they aren’t doing the right thing – and that they might end up being both financially and morally lacking in life. I think I’ve mentioned before how my grandmother has already begun to worry that I’m an old maid. Let’s say that I didn’t want to have a family and that I just wanted to be a career woman (not accurate, but for argument’s sake, go with it). My grandmother would flip out – she’d worry that I was loosing a valuable opportunity in my life and (because she’s fairly conservative Christian) she might think I was missing out on God’s plan for me. My friends would be skeptical of my reasoning for this choice – is it because I really don’t want a family or have I just given up trying to plan that way? In their eyes I might be “going under” and risk wasting my life, or that I “cannot rise” by selling myself short and allowing myself to be stuck at a certain point for the rest of my life. I’d be deviating from my duty – to God, to society, to myself and my family.
It’s that worry of deviation that freaks me out and has thus caused me a ridiculous amount of unnecessary stress. [X] was always the one who didn’t want the “norm” and now here she is, running full steam ahead with it, which makes me wonder where that leaves me. If I asked her if she thought it was her duty to have a boyfriend, I’d probably get a really bizarre (and totally warranted) look. People don’t generally think this way (at least not consciously) but it’s there, hovering about. “We are all victims of the West!” my roommate [Львица] keeps (semi-jokingly) declaring while talking about Occidentalism. Maybe Occidentalists have a point…
And victims we are. It’s not capitalism’s fault that my love life sucks – or that we treat relationships in a rather commodifying way. But there is a weird link here, a connection to how capitalism at it’s “not so best” changes how we see the world.
After I posted this on the blog for the class I’d written it for, I got a really sweet response from one of my friends from class, most of which I’ll post below:
…I want to say that I didn't have my first boyfriend until I was 21 (!) years old. And now, three years and two boyfriends later, I'm married. So you should tell your grandmother and your own inner anxieties to chill out.
I know that's not actually very reassuring, because I used to hear similar (albeit less concrete) things from other people: "Oh, don't worry -- you'll find someone eventually!" Yeah, right, I thought. Easy for you to say. I used to ask all of my friends, guy friends included, why no one ever asked me out. I got the strangest answers, like, "You don't signal that you're available." What was I supposed to do -- wear a t-shirt saying, "BTW, I'M TOTALLY SINGLE"? Was I supposed to wear a lower-cut shirt? It was a total mystery to me. Still is.
And now I have to comment on my comment, because otherwise I just sound like more patient version of your grandmother. I definitely agree that -- for women especially, I think -- the pressure to find a "significant other" is deeply tied to the Protestant ethic/capitalist spirit. I mean, look at how people were almost literally telling me to market myself… But it's so difficult to critique the desire to find love, because I think it also exists outside of that ethos. Despite having been a nervous virginal wreck, I was well aware of the full range of lifestyles at my disposal -- I didn't have anyone telling me I had to get married. In fact, I was encouraged to be as self-obsessed as possible (which I totally succeeded at). Still, the simple desire for intimacy -- in all senses of the word -- with another person is strong. It's hard to tell whether the urgency we feel about finding a partner is driven by cultural ideals and pressures, because we believe it's our duty, or whether it's driven by a less manufactured desire.
That said -- since getting married I have found myself constantly missing my friends, with whom I lived in college, and who are now scattered across the country. There is no one relationship that will "complete" you. AND, this totally relates to Foucault! He talks about how sexuality was constructed, to be seen as the key to our identities, blah blah blah. And it relates because I believe we think of boyfriends/husbands that way -- we think of them as our "other halves". Such silliness. I can assure you that I am still just me. I am still lonely, often.
(Insert DeLillo.)
The End.
:)
I know that's not actually very reassuring, because I used to hear similar (albeit less concrete) things from other people: "Oh, don't worry -- you'll find someone eventually!" Yeah, right, I thought. Easy for you to say. I used to ask all of my friends, guy friends included, why no one ever asked me out. I got the strangest answers, like, "You don't signal that you're available." What was I supposed to do -- wear a t-shirt saying, "BTW, I'M TOTALLY SINGLE"? Was I supposed to wear a lower-cut shirt? It was a total mystery to me. Still is.
And now I have to comment on my comment, because otherwise I just sound like more patient version of your grandmother. I definitely agree that -- for women especially, I think -- the pressure to find a "significant other" is deeply tied to the Protestant ethic/capitalist spirit. I mean, look at how people were almost literally telling me to market myself… But it's so difficult to critique the desire to find love, because I think it also exists outside of that ethos. Despite having been a nervous virginal wreck, I was well aware of the full range of lifestyles at my disposal -- I didn't have anyone telling me I had to get married. In fact, I was encouraged to be as self-obsessed as possible (which I totally succeeded at). Still, the simple desire for intimacy -- in all senses of the word -- with another person is strong. It's hard to tell whether the urgency we feel about finding a partner is driven by cultural ideals and pressures, because we believe it's our duty, or whether it's driven by a less manufactured desire.
That said -- since getting married I have found myself constantly missing my friends, with whom I lived in college, and who are now scattered across the country. There is no one relationship that will "complete" you. AND, this totally relates to Foucault! He talks about how sexuality was constructed, to be seen as the key to our identities, blah blah blah. And it relates because I believe we think of boyfriends/husbands that way -- we think of them as our "other halves". Such silliness. I can assure you that I am still just me. I am still lonely, often.
(Insert DeLillo.)
The End.
:)
This was like a warm cup of coffee on the most frigid of Minnesota winter days. This confident post sent me off for a fabulous trip to Scotland, where things went great with [X] – and something drastic changed.
No comments:
Post a Comment