A woman can be single and happy, but society would have us think otherwise

If you, like me, spend (too much) time on social media streets, there are a few patterns that become all too familiar. Like if a woman declares she is single by choice, and happy with her choice, there will be people giving her a thesis paper on why that is impossible. If she is young, she will be told to shut up until she matures. If she is old, she will be called angry and bitter.

There is no winning. The good thing though is that enough women who have chosen that path have developed selective deafness, and they continue doing their thing. In a discussion on the institution of marriage, we predicted that the millennials will be the generation that annihilates it.

Why? Because it is the fearless generation that refuses to be boxed in, or not afraid of the scare stories that got the previous generations stuck in unhappy marriages.

They are not afraid of changing partners and they are not ashamed of body-counts. They are embracing singlehood because committing to one partner is too much like hard work, and they are not bothered with hurting their parents’ feelings by not giving them in-laws, and grandchildren. It is a me-me generation, and it is a scary one.

Their cause is being given weight by the older generations that were weighed down by societal expectations, now weighed down by regrets. And they are big names. Take Whoopi Goldberg, three times divorced, single for 19 years. Her last divorce was in 1995, and she learned her lesson.

Whoopi, in a recent interview, explained why she is still single–she is selfish, and she does not want anyone sharing her house. That is what I call self-awareness. Whoopi doubts she was ever in love with any of her three husbands. If anything, she says she got married due to societal expectations. It’s the beast that trolls every woman, whether she wants to get married or not. There are unhappy people accusing her of glorifying singlehood.

Whoopi does not make it better for herself for admitting that at 68, with a daughter, grandchildren and one grandchild, she prefers one-night stands. She does not mind as long as the men do not spend the night, learning that Whoopi prefers to have a roll in the sack in her own house, not in some hotel, not in a man’s house. Talk about focusing on comfort.

Three things here–Whoopi does not need a man; Whoopi still has sex in her advanced age; Whoopi is proudly selfish. And there are people trying to argue, as if they know her, that there is no way she could be happy. What caught my eye is the loudest protests are coming from the West, the land of freedom of choice.

I suppose freedom of choice only extends to where a woman claims she does not need a man. The West, it would appear, is having similar problems to us. How can a human being be happy being on their own? I say it is possible for a human to be happy alone, because we are all sorts. The only reason it never used to happen is because we were in the stone-age, even though that was a few years ago.

Like, a man is a woman’s oxygen and she could not function fully without a man to inject (literally) his testosterone into her. How things have changed. How a section of the world has refused to accept the changes.

When our mothers and grandmothers were growing up, they needed to get married for the man was the breadwinner. Nobody frowned upon polygamy as it ensured that every woman had a man to call husband.

Now, women are breadwinners. If that was the only reason for marriage, then is it any wonder that women like Whoopi are popping up everywhere? Why share your space if you do not have to, especially if you are one of those people who, once in a while, like to leave the house untidy, dishes and body unwashed?