All The Single Ladies

Call me a self righteous feminist but society’s concept of single women is fucked. As I was perusing throughout the internet I saw on the sidebar of advertisements a caption that said “Don’t be that girl.” This advertisement was for a dating website, implying that their concept of “that girl” is that of an alone or single female. At the risk of using poor vocabulary and detracting from my point, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? What I’m getting from this advertisement is that the negative connotation of being “that girl” is in this case, directly correlated to not having a man at your side (or another woman if you preference is as so.)
Is it really so socially unacceptable to be single? Call me a neo-feminist but I enjoy being single, independent and public in expressing so. I don’t mind going to restaurants alone to treat myself. I’m perfectly fine with sitting in a romantic park cuddled up with a book. I’m even comfortable with going to see a film on my own. But for some odd reason the general consensus is that by doing that I have earned the stigma of being “that girl.”
Could this social standard be a possible affect of the high divorce rates in our country? The divorce rate, although steadily declining, is at an appalling height. In the year of 2000 there were 2,355,005 marriages… out of these marriages 957,200 successfully obtained a divorce. Could some of these divorces be directly related to women who married because they didn't want to be “that girl?” Let’s take a more personal look at this situation, a less woman focused view. This scenario could be held applicable to either male or female… Think all the way back to the beginning of your “dating career”… You remember, those times when best friends dated best friends and you were all a snug little group of cute couples, or you were even just friends with those couples. Well for all you third wheelers, which most of us have been at one point or another, how many times have you been shoved into a date with a group of friends because they were trying to help you not look like “that girl/guy”? Be honest… It happens. Could this be a potential factor that women take into consideration for marriage? I feel it’s not so farfetched of a theory. The pressure for women in society today to get married and not to be a bachelorette for the duration of their youth is intense. Although this pressure is probably nothing compared to such in the 1950’s and 1960’s, it still does exist. It exists in peer pressure, family pressure and apparently media pressure.
Can we not be complete and happy in the company of solely our friends and family or even ourselves? Have we truly become so insecure that we need that reassurance and that extra love to make ourselves blend into society? Well most of us may be that way, but I certainly am not. I’m more comfortable with myself than I am with others. I do not feel I need physical or emotional arm candy to fit into society. I do not feel the need to hide the fact that I am in fact “that girl.” So you can laugh at me when I’m alone in a restaurant, a movie or a park as you cling on to your significant others arm, but just ask yourself if you’re with that person for the right reasons. Or are you just afraid of being “that girl?”

Open to interpretation

It's like chasing a sunset over a hill... You run up that hill to catch just one glimpse of the rays last burst through the clouds... You race briskly to embrace the final prismatic sliver of life for the day, but it's like the sun is just plain faster. You can't stop it, you can't control it, and thats just plain life.
You try to forget that you let it go, that you let it slip away but it's a memory without a lifespan, it fades only when it's ready to fade.
You can walk the same path, the same hill, but with newly paved roads... but you still know the footsteps that are engraved in the path beneath you. You can crunch upon a season's worth of newly fallen leaves, but still feel the crunch from the year before. You can even put on a different jacket, but the temperature will still remain, and that protection will still not suffice.
What it really comes down to is no matter how many more sunsets you chase, you'll never get over the first one you let slip away until you change your path. The past is inevitable but the path is not. Sometimes a new route is necissary in order to grasp the brighter colors and to capture that sun before it sets. Sometimes you need a new hill to climb to really appreciate the sky ahead of you and to really capture the one that makes it all worth it.