I refer to myself as single. I think of myself as single. The “D” word? My mind just doesn’t go there. Marriage seems like a past life, a distant and foggy dream. Divorce? It was a long and wretched process. Impossible to forget, but I don’t dwell on it.
Does the distinction matter?
“Single” is the first thing that comes to mind, when someone asks my marital status over a drink, or anywhere else for that matter. It goes something like this.
Guy: No ring. Not married?
Me: No, I’m single.
And we carry on from there. We may talk about professions, kids, where we’re from, where we’ve been. If there’s an attraction, we’ve got the requisite eye contact, the lean-in, mirrored gestures.
“Non-married” is the status I seek, and the scent I give off. To me, that means single. And single may mean challenges, but it also means freedom. And implies being beyond the worst of the post-divorce anger, muddle, and re-emergence.
Doctor’s office
I’m a notorious stickler for words. Their specificity and multiple meanings. Why does categorizing myself as “divorced” get under my skin?
Maybe because I was single for so long. Maybe because I felt single even when I was married. Maybe because it feels “fuller” to me, or just more natural.
I will say that seeing marital status on a form irritates me; the only time I don’t fuss is at a doctor’s office. Perhaps it’s a factor in stress level. Or maybe the reason for it is financial, a red flag that filling out insurance paperwork may involve multiple providers. So I tick off “Divorced,” even if it ticks me off.
Your status?
- When you introduce yourself – do you say you’re single or divorced? Has that changed over time?
- Distinctions like “living together” or “engaged” – do you make them, and if so, why?
- I even find “girlfriend / boyfriend” a strange way to define my relationships. (I loved the line in the Sex and the City movie where “Big” says “Aren’t I a little old to be introduced as your boyfriend?” Carrie replies: “OK, you’re my man friend.”) Your thoughts on this one?
- Are these relationship statuses something you think about, or just mention naturally, in context?
Yeah, I say single mom because I don’t want people to think that I’m single and have all the time in the world.
And I agree on the boyfriend/girlfriend debate. It just sounds weird as a nearly 40 year old woman. I call Rascal “my man” and he calls me “my girl”.
I also don’t think about these things unless I’m talking to others and feel I have to define something. Otherwise, I just take it as it comes.
I stay away from saying I’m divorced. It does carry a stigma with many. You’d think with the divorce rate so high, that wouldn’t be the case.
I just say I’m single and have kids, and let whoever I’m telling do the math.
I think it all depends on your age, gender, and objectives! I found, when I was recently divorced, that women needed to know I’d been married. Given my age (well over 40 at the time), I’d have a horrible black mark in most women’s eyes had I never been married (commitment-phobic). Also, I wonder if you have children? When you’re divorced with kids, you view yourself, I suspect, differently than without? I found that I, too, began making negative judgments about women that had never been married over a “certain age.” I realized that the stereotype of the stuck-in-his-ways man was just as true and, in some ways, even worse with never married women (they were married to their work more than any guy I ever knew).
I wrote a column about Internet Dating called, Internet Dating 101 and How I Met My Wife which lists several rules, among them being careful of the never married man or woman. Check it out on my web site if you want at http://www.brucesallan.com.
Great column and good writing!
I’m very much into saying that I’m single or single with kids, depending on the need.
Saying your single with kids has less of a shock effect than saying divorced.
I call myself single in many instances, but my bigger dilemma is due to the um, “pending” nature of my divorce. It seems so tentative, so unstable, so undefined to say “I’m separated,” yet I don’t really like to lie and say “divorced.” I usually end up saying “I’m getting divorced,” although in a lot of situations that might just be TMI. And what to say on online dating site profiles is another matter entirely…
ps thanks for the tweet–you rock!