the wise
by rantywoman
But in a world that treats a forty-one-year-old single woman like a teenager who didn’t get asked to the prom, I think it’s extremely important to recognize the unique wisdom of a solitary life– a wisdom that develops slowly over many years, that is fundamentally different from that of, say, the person who was between boyfriends for a year when she was twenty-six.
When you’re experiencing that year-in, year-out challenge of being on your own, it’s easy to ask the question “What does everyone else know that I don’t?” I suggest you flip that around.
— Sara Eckel, It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single, pp. 150-151
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“…like a teenager who didn’t get asked to the prom.” Indeed! Excellent book.
Yes, I found it to be quite excellent.
Like every other human being on the planet, childless women cannot be categorized. I contrast two women I know who are single and childless in their 40s in NYC. One is a pleasure to be around – caring, smart, creative, wise – but, disabled from birth, she doesn’t meet society’s standards for physical attractiveness and has only had one relationship in her life. The other is a stereotypical narcissist, estranged from her own family members, but very attractive to men. She embodies the stereotype of the single, childless woman, selfish and entitled to the point where she discarded her husband without a second glance before age 30. But she’s just one of so many.
There are so many circumstances to people’s lives, and we can never know unless we’ve lived them.