good reads
by rantywoman
As the single and childless life gets more attention in the mainstream media, I’ve noticed that a number of blogs I used to enjoy reading on those subjects have gone quiet: The Plankton; Single and Thirtysomething; Sex, Lies and Dating in the City. Some that are still going strong: The NotMom; Living Single; Editrix Abby; Life Without Baby.
Please share in the comments section if you know of some more good ones.
thebitterbabe 
i don’t know of any more good blogs but I think I know why some of them have gone quiet. These blogs start out well and are a source of support to their target audience for some time. After a while they get hijacked by gremlins and the bloggers and their genuine followers cannot hear themselves think over the tirade of nonsense. I’m all for healthy debate but you cannot negotiate with a terrorist.
It could be worse – women like us were burnt at the stake for trumped up witchcraft charges in medieval times. I often wonder if the burning times was a way of eliminating surplus women. When so many men were killed in battle there would have been a lot of surplus women around. The male dominated church was gaining a foothold at the time and their fundamentalist thinking pushed women into the background for centuries afterwards.
It would be a shame for this blog to go the same way as those others. I found out about Suzanne Heintz and her mannequin family here – she is getting very popular and this is partly down to you.
When my numbers go up, it’s usually because I’ve been hijacked… sad!
That applies to most blogs. I think a lot of followers are happy to lurk but may be too shy to post. Even without people posting, you are giving lots of lurkers support.
The hijackers probably spend more time online than others. It figures.
🙂
Very true about people happy to be lurkers, or some people being too shy to post. Sometimes it’s also the case that you find yourself nodding in agreement, but don’t have anything to constructive to add.
I can see how this could be unfortunate for the blog writer, since it’s not clear if the silence is due readers finding the post to be so apt there was nothing left to add, or so irrelevant that they didn’t feel moved to respond.
The hijackers have a different motivation; they are on a mission with all the associated fervour. There is a remarkable similarity between the hijacker crowd and those religious groups that use door-knocking as their recruitment technique. When the people don’t come to you, go to where the people are.
Apart from plankton I don’t read any singles blogs however I read Eve Tushnet, a D.C. intellectual who is gay and celibate for religious reasons (Catholic convert).
She writes frequently about how nature of contemporary culture is to elevate family (particularly marriage) to the exclusion of friendship. It was from Eve I learned that in some earlier centuries friendship was highly prized as the deepest form of love, much more so than family life. I believe she has a book coming out soon that deals with this theme. I highly recommend her blog even for the non-religious – she is wonderful.
And the parent-centricism continues – now Melissa Kite shames men for not wanting to be parents:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2330458/Get-Britain-Fertile-Peter-Lloyd-says-men-blame-women-childless-Melissa-Kite-says-society-is.html
I’ve never read Eve’s blog but I agree concerning the importance of friendships.
I plan to start celebrating friendship anniversaries this year. It just hit me one day that I’ve only known my husband for about 3 years but I’ve easily known some of my closest friends for twice that long! I can only imagine what it must be like to have a friend for 20+ years!
I once read that in order for there to be a close friendship, the participants must spend quality, in-person time with each other. I think one thing that is lessening the intensity of our friendships and social bonds is how mobile our society is. This seems to be particularly true for the college educated. And in the current economic situation it’s becoming increasingly normal to have to move across the country in order to have a decent job. My friends from college are currently scattered all over the country due to jobs and grad school and it amazes to think that those 2-4 years that we spent together is what our current friendships are based on.
There also cultural elements of seeing other people as disposable. AKA “end friendships where the other person brings you down, stay away from negative people, etc.” There’s some truth to that but I think it ignores the fact that most people are average and hence are going to make mistakes, have bad days, not always going to be positive, etc. If you don’t make room for all of that you’re going to throw away a lot of friendships.
Anyway, I could go on and on. Needless to say, friendships are important.
You bring up really good points. Agree especially about the “disposable” nature of relationships in this day and age. In particular expression of negative emotion and affliction of any kind is simply not tolerated.
I have parsed these questions many times with my closest friend (who is married with a large family). She thinks many people are much more wrapped up in materialism now then say 20 years ago and place little value on other people. She also made a similar observation a few months back about many people treating friends as disposable. Speaking for myself, I find it very difficult to make good friends these days. Years ago it seemed easier in that people seemed to have time for , not so much any more. I spend a lot of time online because the conversations here are interesting whereas IRL 95% of discussions consist of people bragging about themselves – their children, their accomplishments etc. – and showing no interest in ideas or in other people.
I just thought of something – maybe the reason people i meet IRL are so self-centered and boring is because all the interesting other-directed people are at home on their PCs lol.
Good point Autumn, when you say people don’t seem to have time. Being time-poor appears to be a common complaint, and it would require that people prioritise who gets their limited attentions. This could easily mean family members come before friends, the favourite friends come before the ones with ‘negative’ aspects etc. There is not much else to do when there isn’t enough time to go around. Spreading yourself so thinly that no one is happy is not really a feasible alternative.
Totally agree with all your points here, especially regarding the disposability of friendships.
Spiritual Friendship is an excellent blog Eve Tushnet’s site pointed me to. It has a specific spin (gay Christians) but there is some superb writing on issues of isolation, grief, marginalization, and friendship in this family-centric culture. I’m not gay but I read it because it is the only blog I know that discusses all these issues. Maybe other readers will also find it relevant to them:
http://spiritualfriendship.org/2014/01/30/celibacy-and-loneliness/
Thanks, sounds like a good one!