"As a non-partnered person I also feel some pressure when hanging out with half of a coupled couple. I sometimes sense suspicion of my intentions. It seems non-partnered people are read as a roving threat to relationships ... As I age, I am curious about that moment when singlehood switches in peoples’ minds from the willfulness of youthful independence to tragic pathological existence. I think that timeline is too short maybe even non-existent for straight women ... Co-dependent love is constantly represented as the ideal. “I can’t sleep/think/ live/function without you, romantic partner” leads to the inevitable crash of despair when things don’t work out because you’ve set up someone else to meet the impossible expectation of completing you...
"I want to live in a world where there isn’t a hierarchy of relationships, where romantic love isn’t assumed to be more important than other kinds, where folks can center any relationships they want whether it be their relationship to their spiritual practice, kids, lovers, friends, etc. and not have some notion that it’s more or less important because of who or what’s in focus. I want to feel like I can develop intimacy with people whether we are sleeping together or not that I will be cared for whether I am romantically involved with someone or not. I want a community that takes interdependency seriously that doesn’t assume that it’s only a familial or romantic relationship responsibility to be there for each other." ~Crunkashell
YES!!!! Amen! I might go post this on my refrigerator - actually not maybe, I'm printing it out right now!
I need a world where I can STAND in love, not fall out of my wits in it. And that's no fear of losing control. Rather, I want a love I can be grounded by and in, love with fortitude that acts as a mooring - not something that sets me adrift. I need a place where the many different shades of how I love who I love when I love (and yes, I love hard) are accepted (& expected!) by society, my network and indeed, the people themselves (being affectionate does not always = being in love, but just because I'm not "in" love doesn't mean that how I do care/appreciate/love (you) is insignificant or any less essential to my fulness of being).
I want a model of relationships, of love - and the significance of each in my life - that is bigger, wider, greater than our bounded notions of singleness, friendship or coupledom. I want, I need, a world that can hold an understanding of love, and the relationships in which we share it, that no longer needs to classify, delimit and categorize the myriad expressions of love of which we're capable. I guess what I am saying is that I need the freedom to have and sculpt relationships that are as expansive ... well, that are as expansive as I am... and I am vast. And the models we have now, they simply are not enough.
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