How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't

by Lane Moore

We’ve all been taught to lose our fucking shit if a boy, any boy, has chosen us. “WE HAVE BEEN CHOSEN!!! And now, we must do whatever he wants because it is so special that he has chosen us!!!” It’s truly upsetting how persistently that message is communicated to us and how we accept it blindly, on a molecular level. Not attracted to this guy at all? BUT HE CHOSE YOU! Don’t think he’s funny or kind? STOP BEING SO PICKY, HE CHOSE YOU! Wish he treated you differently? OMG, NO ONE’S PERFECT, AND HE CHOSE YOU! YOU KNOW, ONE DAY BOYS WILL STOP CHOOSING YOU ALTOGETHER IF YOU DON’T CONSTANTLY DATE EVERY GUY WHO CHOOSES YOU AND THEN YOU’LL DIE ALONE, SO FUCKING LET HIM CHOOSE YOU!!! YOU ARE A TEDDY BEAR PULLED OUT OF A SHITTY ARCADE MACHINE AND HE PAID SEVENTY-FIVE CENTS. HE’S YOURS NOW. But with men, in the broadest sense, they get to choose who they do or don’t want, like a king deciding which of the seven types of lamb placed before him is suitable for dinner. Mostly because no one cares when men get married, and if they wait until they’re forty or fifty or sixty we all assume it’s because they haven’t found anyone good enough for the high standards we allow them to have for themselves. And then we sneer when women do the same.