(no subject)

[firecat]

This article is about people who don't have any romantic partner(s) and people who live by themselves, and discusses the difficulties of both states, both financial and emotional. It conflates the states in confusing ways at times (and by doing so, seems to exhibit the same kind of cultural biases it criticizes), but there's a lot of stuff to think about.

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/22788620/single-living-alone-cost

I'm recently living by myself because I'm recently widowed. I'm polyamorous so I still have romantic partners. I also participate to some degree in what the article calls "small systems of care for one another that go beyond one other individual."

Comments

[fauxklore]

They did specifically include people who have romantic partners they don't live with.

What they left out is the frequent assumption in the corporate world that single people will puck up the slack for those dealing with family obligations.

[firecat]

Oh yeah! Ugh!

[silveradept]

I think what they were trying to go for was that married people are the privileged and enshrined in most aspects of US society, despite how few people are getting married these days, but I think the article also missed out on the influence that entities that want a very specific kind of marriage to be everyone's endgame have over the lack of movement toward single living being affordable and possible.

[firecat]

entities that want a very specific kind of marriage to be everyone's endgame

Yeah. Well said.

[silveradept]

I suspect calling them out would lead to them noticing and then brigading until there were apologies, firings, or obvious demonstrations of fealty to their way of thinking.

[firecat]

All detailed at length on Twitter, no doubt. *shudder*