00:00:00: Music.

00:00:10: Come back to a new episode of bitch breathe I am your host ricardia.

00:00:16: Today I'm going to talk about something that I've actually touched upon in a previous episode

00:00:22: in episode 6 I talked about all the single ladies and how to sort of handle being single what to do maybe to alleviate some of the loneliness and how to

00:00:33: engage more with people or just learn to not engage if that's not what you're feeling and that was a little bit of a different Focus but today I want to talk about how we View,

00:00:45: being single and even more specifically how we view being single and female or female identified.

00:00:54: The other day I was listening to the BBC which I like to do occasionally and they were talking about how people had been infected

00:01:01: not infected how people had been affected via the coronavirus in terms of their employment in terms of their work situation

00:01:09: and they had one caller in lady a one person they had spoken to and

00:01:14: she explained that she had recently retrained to become an accountant that she was 54 and unemployed and single.

00:01:23: And I thought to myself why is she saying it that way like the way she said it was hi I'm so-and-so I'm 54 and I have cancer,

00:01:31: you know that that's how it sounded to me I know that sounds a little drastic but what I'm trying to say is it sounded like she had been.

00:01:38: Infected in this case by a terrible disease like it was something that was really really wrong with her,

00:01:45: in some way and I wondered why would she phrase it that way or why would the tonality of how she's telling her story sounds so.

00:01:56: Dyer and made worse by the fact that Not only was she unemployed.

00:02:02: And you know in her early 50s as a woman but she also was single and after thinking about it for a while I realized.

00:02:11: Yeah of course as women a lot of times what's happened is we've internalized being single.

00:02:18: As a failure of sorts so we're not just unemployed and single we're also a mother and single or I don't know where vegetarian and single but whatever it is this single thing,

00:02:30: is a bullet point item among other negative circumstances that now Define our lives and by doing so even our identities.

00:02:40: Because if you think about it if that had been a man calling into this show would he have said yeah I'm 54 just recently retrained and I'm single is like,

00:02:49: wait what what how does this filter into the conversation that is being had which is around employment

00:02:55: now I understand this lady is a little bit older so maybe stating that she was single meant she didn't have any other financial support from her husband

00:03:05: for example or her partner whoever that is but even if that is the case.

00:03:11: I still maintain that if a man had told the story if a man were being asked about his employment situation during or post covid he would probably not mentioned among these things that he was single.

00:03:24: And it really spoke to my perception that we've successfully.

00:03:30: Come to view single women and I think we as women do this but men also as someone who hadn't quite made it.

00:03:37: Who you know was off the mark a little who didn't quite make one of those life goals and again it's not just

00:03:46: or it's not men maybe necessarily who are making this judgment or viewing it in this way it's also women who see other women as oh dear she's single like she's got some malady we have to fix right and I've

00:04:01: notice this because well I used to be married and I've noticed how married women speak to let's say you're at a dinner party

00:04:09: I noticed how married women speak to single women at the table side.

00:04:14: The person will say oh you know this and this my husband did the other day and what about you you know you just meeting this person and you're finding out that they don't have a partner or whatever and there's this oh,

00:04:27: and maybe you don't say this terrible oh thing but inside you're like oh dear yeah I guess,

00:04:34: so she's single and I can't be easy she's in her 40s or whatever story you start to spin off in your head about this woman but the first thought.

00:04:45: And I would love for you to examine this and let me know if you were as judgmental as I was back then the first thought

00:04:51: is not wow single look at her she's going after her career maybe she has grown up children or projects that she's really really into that is not our first thought the first thought is,

00:05:03: oh she's single doesn't have a partner,

00:05:06: and the interesting thing is again you know if you've listened to any of my previous episodes I sometimes really love to use men or male identified people,

00:05:16: from my past as examples of how I would like to do something differently and one thing I notice is that.

00:05:23: Married men do they look at single men like aw poor guy can't find a partner nah they're looking at this guy thinking.

00:05:31: What is it like maybe because I remember my then husband when he had single friends he didn't think of it as a bad thing,

00:05:40: he also wasn't like oh what is it like but he was not pitying this friend for being single.

00:05:47: And maybe there's more of an idea of how that must be interesting or what do you do for a living maybe they sail around the world or maybe they enjoy mating a lot

00:05:56: outside captivity if you will to speak with Estevez words but just to sort of realize that as women we look at singledom

00:06:04: a little bit differently from how men view it sometimes and another thing I noticed and this is something I have to admit I used to do.

00:06:14: Many years ago before this whole I don't know fifth wave of woke came into my life and I again was called to revise some of my opinions and perceptions but I remember.

00:06:27: When I met a very,

00:06:29: successful woman successful now in terms of business or career or having written books whatever or maybe she was a CEO and accompany the question would immediate be well but does she have kids or if she married and.

00:06:43: I remember if she didn't happen to have kids or if she wasn't married then my admiration for her it decreased a little bit,

00:06:52: and I'm so embarrassed to State this now but I'm kind of hoping somebody else is going to come forward and say she does that same shitty thing

00:06:58: where you hear about this woman who is incredibly successful who seems to have it all in terms of her work or her creativity and how she materializes these things

00:07:09: and then you hear she doesn't have kids or she's single she's been single for a really long time oh Hora right and you're like ah I guess well I guess everything has a price.

00:07:19: What a horrible thing to say or think right like how is that a price you know maybe it is maybe she doesn't feel she made the wrong choices but there's every chance and so much likelihood,

00:07:32: that she doesn't feel that way that that's was a proactive.

00:07:35: Toys to not have children or to not be with a partner because maybe she feels that would have held her back and she wouldn't have become who she really was meant to be and I thought that was so interesting is that I have to.

00:07:47: We have to maybe revised how we look upon single women single successful women.

00:07:55: Women who haven't had a great career who are single but just love to read or whatever it is go out into the theater travel around the world and to really look at how we view each other never mind how men view it but how do we.

00:08:10: View each other one aspect of being single.

00:08:14: One aspect that none of us has a whole lot of fun with and I'm actually writing a book right now about breaking up and how to do it and how to cope and what it's all about

00:08:24: because I'm such a vet when it comes to breaking up but I write a very long chapter about loneliness and I have read I don't know how many books and.

00:08:35: Really dug deep into this topic about being lonely.

00:08:39: And again I was forced to revise how I even look at loneliness.

00:08:46: When is lonely really truly a lonely situation and then I realized something and that is lonely is.

00:08:55: Easy Shirley but lonely doesn't last you don't always if you continue to be single for a significant amount of time and that can mean whatever to whomever.

00:09:06: But there comes a point where you don't feel lonely anymore well you don't feel alone because you feel all.

00:09:16: Is good this way I'm looking forward to coming home making myself a lovely meal and yes the flower is buying thing where we buy our own flowers whatever it is but to actually enjoy.

00:09:28: That I don't have to entertain or listen to or make room for someone else's evening cuz it's Monday night and I'm tired.

00:09:36: So lonely is not easy but it doesn't last you know which kind of loneliness does last.

00:09:43: Is when you're lonely in a relationship and I know many of you who can probably speak to this lonely in a relationship can last a whole lot longer.

00:09:53: And can be a whole lot more intense depending on where you are in a relationship and just how unhappy you might have become but the funny thing is when you're single and lonely.

00:10:03: People pity you but if you're in a relationship and lonely they don't they like I yeah okay it's kind of like when you tell people are we're going through a bit of a dry spell not having all the sex and whatever I yeah that happens yeah but that's.

00:10:16: Weird why is being single and feeling lonely worse than being lonely in a relationship.

00:10:25: It's horrible to realize you've married someone who no longer means all that much to you.

00:10:32: Or if you think this is worse whom you don't mean that much to anymore or maybe they've started to.

00:10:38: Have a little bit on the side maybe you've had your little bit on the side.

00:10:42: What is that like and why is that not worse than being alone without a partner in single just something to think about.

00:10:51: One thing I noticed when I had recently become single was that it.

00:10:57: Changed my circle of friends around and again in the book they'll be a lot more about this and I've talked about this in past episodes of the podcast.

00:11:06: But I noticed that my status had changed where being single felt like a diagnosis.

00:11:14: That's when I said I had now become single I might as well have said I've I've contracted a terrible disease possibly a fatal one and it was interesting because the men.

00:11:25: I saw you as available suddenly right like the menu met around you that oh okay I guess she's back on the market or whatever it is and I think for them it's more it wasn't

00:11:34: heteronormative context now for them it might have been more of a sport or maybe didn't mean anything to them at all but there wasn't this whole you know Spiel around him

00:11:43: but the wives would suddenly get nervous around me when I met them with their husbands and I mean I'm not friends with these guys anymore just

00:11:51: it became too complicated or they just stopped calling or I stopped calling but I thought it was interesting that suddenly I had moved from something comfortable let's say a night out with two couples to someone who might be a Potential Threat.

00:12:04: To your marriage that felt lonely that felt like I was being segregated not the fact that I was single.

00:12:13: But the fact that I had been or had become a Potential Threat and not only that but I had become somebody who was to be pitied.

00:12:23: Because she now didn't have this person on her side anymore and it was even worse in some cases if they knew the circumstances Around The Break-Up which could have a very humiliating.

00:12:34: Feel or are to them and so too.

00:12:37: Be in the situation where not only do you seem to have now contracted a fatal disease in some people's eyes your also inviting pity for who you have become and I thought that was pretty sucky and.

00:12:51: I know that I've done that too when I was in a partnership and maybe this had happened to another woman so I'm not taking myself out of this equation but I just,

00:13:00: wanted to look at this and to see if we can't become more aware now that we are in relationships again or now that we're still in a relationship and we meet someone like this and to be honest sometimes.

00:13:13: I thought that people looked at a single woman,

00:13:17: and maybe at this point is a time where I should say single in my 40s because single in your 20s is a whole different ball game again there's other episodes about that I wrote more about it in the book but in my 40s.

00:13:31: I couldn't help but notice that people seem to look at my single status.

00:13:37: As if I were like a captive or a prisoner or and worse like a victim of circumstance

00:13:43: and after a while of being single I realized hold on I'm not a prisoner of this status you know what the real hostage situation is you want to talk lack of freedom and like being a captive,

00:13:56: and I want to say a real hostage as someone who's in a relationship that isn't working,

00:14:03: that's a hostage situation you got your kids you got the real estate whatever it is that's keeping you with this person.

00:14:09: That's a hostage situation being single is not I have never.

00:14:15: Felt Freer or more in touch with who I am than when I was single.

00:14:21: So maybe I'm not single now but you never know at some point in our lives were going to either become single again or are we were single and we remember it.

00:14:31: That is not the prisoner situation the bad relationship is many years ago.

00:14:37: A couple of years ago Tinder had this campaign I think they did it for New Year's how suitable New Year's the holidays and I think the campaign was called single not sorry of course it was a hashtag single not sorry,

00:14:50: and what they essentially did and I liked part of it but not all of it they reinvented single as a Haven for

00:15:00: an experimental stage in your life like you can go on a lot of dates you're single but you're not sorry that you are because you have all these dates and even though it's still

00:15:09: had some feeling of what if you were single and didn't have dates then that's really sad because you're probably home alone.

00:15:16: Re watching Harry Potter or some other romantic comedy ah Bridget Jones maybe and there was a little bit of that but I like the whole idea of Reinventing how we view single because essentially.

00:15:30: It's just a mantra that we have this whole idea of single being a horrible state to be in.

00:15:37: I don't remember the statistic I wish now I had looked it up for the episode but I know there's a staggering number,

00:15:44: of singles in cities worldwide I think single might be one of the if not the second or third most common.

00:15:53: Family or are living models if you will is the single so isn't it time to like drag single out of this Dusty Corner spinster you didn't quite make it.

00:16:04: Situation and into where we are the 21st century and still at what is hopefully the tail end of a pandemic we're single no longer has to be,

00:16:15: a bad thing or a diagnosis something that you could contract if you hang out with this single person a lot.

00:16:22: And I remember reading this book I think I've mentioned her before I definitely mention her in my book now Olivia Lang it's the lonely City now pop the book into the show notes for you where she mentions that this,

00:16:35: feeling of loneliness as a single could sometimes elicit in the other.

00:16:41: The impulse to move even further away from you so that even though you might have been in need of some good company doesn't even have to be sex or physical and anyway but just company but in that moment this,

00:16:52: maybe potential partner maybe just went pulls back

00:16:55: because who you have become as suddenly as scary as if you had a contagious disease.

00:17:02: And I liked how she put that she put it much more eloquently than how I paraphrase it here but to really understand that.

00:17:09: It's not I mean I feel even weird that I have to say in 2021 single is not a bad thing but it.

00:17:17: Came to me in so many ways and even now on my social media feeds in my own life that I felt okay even in 2021 we have to make it a point especially when we're not single.

00:17:29: For those of us who aren't but then also when we are single to understand that this is not.

00:17:36: By its nature a negative way to live a bad way to live and to understand that being single,

00:17:45: is just another life-form not an alien life-form but just one that's absolutely part of the mainstream and in numbers may be even more than long-term monogamous relationships

00:17:57: and to give single the rap that it deserves which is there's a lot of magic and a lot of authenticity in living that kind of life.

00:18:08: So in the hopes that you're living the relationship status that you love either being single

00:18:13: or in a relationship I would love to hear from you and see what were your experiences with this is that a very strong thing to say that single felt like a diagnosis in between you can write to me at my email address it's bitch breathe at gmail.com

00:18:29: the I am bitch is a number one or we have a Facebook group called bitch breathe I'm happy to read your comments there and looking forward to

00:18:39: reading you and speaking with you again next time.

00:18:42: Music.