7 Things Single Ladies Don’t Want to Hear

3. You must like being alone. Don’t you care if you ever get married?

I once had a male coworker who regularly pestered me about my singlehood. What made his questioning particularly annoying was the fact that he seemed perturbed that I was not doing more to solve my “problem.” Don’t let me decide to go home instead of to happy hour on a Friday evening; I would get a lecture from him on how I needed to get out if I wanted to meet the love of my life.

Of course one has to leave the house in order to be seen (and I do), but why do people act as if a woman’s singleness is a state of emergency? Sometimes I go out and sometimes I stay in; sometimes men are on my mind and sometimes they’re not. Don’t try to convince me that I need to make finding a husband my life’s mission. I’m not buying it.

4. Don’t you want to have kids some day?

Someone once asked me if I had considered adoption since I was still unmarried with no prospects. I was about 27 at the time. Come on, now. I still had hopes of conceiving the old-fashioned way (and still do). Women know that we have biological clocks. Most of us also realize that they are ticking. Try to be sensitive to such a personal topic, and again, refrain from creating a false sense of urgency in someone else’s life.

5. You don’t need a man.

It’s true that death is not a side effect of being single. But while a woman may not need a man, she is well within her rights to want one. It’s fine to remind her of all the wonderful things in her life that she might be overlooking by focusing solely on what is missing, but don’t downplay her natural desire to share her life with someone.

6. See, that’s why you’re single.

No one has ever said this to me, but I see it often on social media. It is used to illustrate some wrong thing that women do, or some right thing that women refuse to do. It seems to be the trump card used by men and women alike to prove their points in arguments and simultaneously ridicule single women for their inability to ‘get’ or ‘keep’ a man. It reinforces the idea that there is something wrong with a woman who has not been chosen and perpetuates the notion that having a man validates a woman. The comment is often passed off as a joke, but it’s just as tired as I am.

7. Single ladies, [insert advice].

Someone I follow on Twitter recently finished watching a reality show in which a man was taking advantage of a woman. He then proceeded to begin a #TrendingTopic of advice to single ladies. It’s nice that so many people care about women’s feelings and don’t want to see us hurt. We appreciate your concern. However, when the advice is always for single ladies, and there are never any pointers for single men, it makes one wonder if perhaps, again, the problem lies solely with us. I don’t know when single women became the nation’s psychology project, but it has always taken two to tango. Ladies may be more receptive to your advice than men are, but that’s no excuse to beat us over the head with your “help.”

I know what you’re thinking: “you mad, Sheryl?” Not mad, just tired.

If you make the afore-mentioned comments, I’m sure you don’t mean any harm. Like that IHOP waiter, it probably never occurred to you that your remarks might annoy, discourage, or offend. That’s why I’m telling you, so that you don’t catch a single lady on the wrong day and walk away from the interaction thinking, “what’s her problem?”
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So single ladies, how is this list? Do these comments grind your nerves, too? What did I miss? Single men, do any remarks get under your skin, or do you just brush them off?

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