What do you think of when you think of when you think of a single woman? Probably one of the two stereotypes, cut to a scene of: Example A – the woman at home with her cats, usually in her pajamas eating ice cream on a Saturday night or Example B – the all night party girl, at a loud dance club decked out in skanky clothes trying to find the man of the evening to go home with
Maybe it is the fact that my 30th birthday is this year or maybe it is a loss of another friend but I felt the need to speak up. I miss having lots of friends, especially male friends.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the women in my life but there is something about hanging out with the boys that is so comfortable for me. Maybe it’s because as a child most of my playmates were boys. Maybe it’s being raised by a mother that didn’t believe in defined gender roles, never saying what we could or couldn’t do because we were a boy or a girl. My first doll was a He-Man, long before I played with Barbie. And when I finally did play with Barbie it was my mother’s 50’s style Barbie, not the big boob blond that we know today. I love that the lines were never drawn out with a big fat permanent marker, but were perfectly blurred like water colors allowing us to move about to either side.
I was talking to my mother after I was told by another male friend that we couldn’t hang out because of his new girlfriend. I can’t begin to tell you how many male friends that I have lost to this issue. My mother pointed out that maybe if I was in a relationship, it would be different, but since I am a single girl I could be perceived as threatening. So with that, I would like to put the following out there.
• I don’t believe in cheating, I never have and never will
• I won’t make you a cheater, I don’t like drama in my life
• If I develop feelings for you, I will walk away as crossing that line isn’t appropriate
• If you develop feelings for me while in a relationship, you give me no choice but to shut the door on our friendship
• The last two won’t ever happen because the friendship is defined from the beginning through open communication. To all the girlfriends out there, if I wanted him or he wanted me, then you wouldn’t be in the picture in the first place. We probably experienced enough of each others idiosyncrasies that we knew that we couldn’t make it on a full time basis – by all means ladies, he is all yours!
Maybe one day we could all feel secure and trust each other enough to allow our partners to be friends with the opposite sex or comfortable to be friends with the opposite sex and not thinking there is an alternative motive hiding underneath the surface. I am different, I know my place and I wish that my friends had enough balls to stand their ground [pun intended] and say I am their friend. But that hasn’t been the case; the new girl always wins which saddens me to find out our friendship wasn’t a strong as I thought it was.
On a similar note of friendship, for years I have used the quote “You laugh at me because I am different, I laugh at you because you’re all the same” but as much as I enjoy my independence, it still leaves me with the feeling of wanting to fit in. The last few weeks while looking for blog design ideas I also have been searching for bloggers to follow that I can identify with. There are the “I am a single woman, hear me roar” blogs that I found enjoyable, but then it started to drift towards the extreme level of “I am single and there is nothing wrong with me staying that way my entire life”. So I went off into the internet world to find others but all I could find were 20-something year olds [verbatim from their about me section] with the following three elements: recently married or soon to be, who loved fashion and/or beauty products and has the token tiny dog or new born baby. Don’t get me wrong, I like those things too but I am basically the complete opposite from these beautiful ladies. In fact, 14 years ago I thought I would have had their life but instead I have been guided down a different path filled with many life changing lessons.
Since I started blogging the one thing that I noticed from the beginning is I don’t have one defined genre, I am just kind of in the middle. I am not a fitness guru, a fashion critic, or a dating or sex goddess. I am just me. The way I am usually defined by others is caring. I care deeply about those in my life, so much so that I am willing to stop what I am doing at the drop of a hat to help them out or make them happy. I consider it both a blessing and a curse but it is me. Maybe someday I can find a blogging community that does the same?
I won’t blog about my marriage, as I don’t have one. I won’t blog about fashion as my closet consists of mostly cotton clothes. I won’t blog about cooking because it is never exciting cooking for one. I won’t blog about the cute thing that my pet did because my two cats are just that – cats, nowhere near a substitute for a child. And I won’t blog about being single, as it doesn’t define me. Blogging is a form of therapy for me, a way of reaching out to the world asking for a little acceptance, not because I conformed to the model that society has made but because I stand out amongst the herd. Once day I might become one of you: one of the married, the fitness freak, mother with mishaps, the cooking guru, or even a crafty Cathy. I am a woman in the middle. One day I might become one of you but until I can be called a wife or a mother, don’t define me as another single woman. Instead – I hope that you can call me a friend.
erin says
I heart you Kristen Kady. You are my friend, even though we’re hundreds of miles apart. I miss hanging out with you!!!!!!