married friends and their assumptions
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| Fri, 02-15-2008 - 9:58pm |
Why do married people just go around assuming that single women have nothing to do with their free time except sitting around waiting for Mr. Right?
A married friend of mine made plans with me to meet for lunch on Monday and just called to cancel. The she asks me if we could meet on Saturday instead. When I tell her I'm busy, she's says, "oh, gee, I figured you were free so I changed my Monday plans around thinking it would be easy for us to reschedule." She's done this before. A few weeks ago she calls me at 9:30 on a friday night asking me to come all the way into the city (over half an hour by train for me) because she wants to go out and her husband is away visiting his parents. I told her it was too short notice. And what does she say in response, "I thought you might not have anything to do and would want to go out."
I wanted to go off on her but she's a good friend oveall and I didn't want to be nasty to her. It's really annoying how she thinks I'll drop everything to see her and that her time is more precious or something.
On another note, she even said to me to the degree of she wishes I'd get married so we'd like "have more in common and more to talk about," or something like that.
I think lately some married friends have just been bugging me overall with how they treat me as a single person. I've noticed these past two months that another married friend has stopped talking to me, and from what she has told me before, I think it's because her husband doesn't like her hanging out with her single friends anymore because he thinks all she's going to do is get drunk and pick up men with them.
Things like this just make me want to spend more and more time with my single friends and start forgetting about the married ones...

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Your friend sounds like she's self-centered and it has nothing to do with whether you're single or not.
Yeah, some people are just rude, whether you're single or not, but for her to assume you "have nothing better to do because you're single" is pretty insulting. I'm sure she has no idea how insulting she's being.
I'm more of a plan-ahead type person, so I hate it when people cancel on me. I know things do come up, I understand that, but there is a limit. And it's OK to call at the last minute. If I'm free, sure, why not? And I can do without the patronizing comments.
A book that really addresses this married/single issue is "Singled Out." She writes very passionately about how singles are "stigmatized." Her observations are mostly right on, but be warned: she's quite angry and strident. But validating.
I'm not too sure a confrontation with your friend would be that helpful. Perhaps one day she'll take the hint that you indeed have a life apart from waiting for men.
I only have one thing to add here, everyone else said everything that needed to be said.
I personally get annoyed when the assumption is that single people spend their time partying and picking up men.
At the risk of seeming "goody goody" (which I am not), my life is much deeper than that.
>>>A book that really addresses this married/single issue is "Singled Out." She writes very passionately about how singles are "stigmatized." Her observations are mostly right on, but be warned: she's quite angry and strident. But validating.
I chose the angry icon not because of you but what this man did.
I do not understand cutting people out just because they don't share your marital status.
You are totally right about the book: it NEVER got around to "how singles live happily ever after." It made me wonder why they put that subtitle on the cover.
The book did, however, seem maticulously researched. She really debunked a lot of assumptions people have based on "statistics."
Cursed_Romantic
Cursed_Romantic
Smile,
Deirdre
Cursed_Romantic
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