Eight relationship tropes and trends that give me the ick
I don't want to be a bridezilla, or do a gender reveal. And please don't call me your 'other half'
During my near-decade as a single person, I was outwardly looking for love ‒ but deep down, I secretly felt a little too cool for it. (Needing another human to keep you warm at night? Groundbreaking.) No, I was different: I lived on a diet of zero-compromise, all-about-me fun. Solo travel, watching only the kind of movies I love, spending my money frivolously, on drinks, dinners and dresses, leaving the country on a moment’s notice. I had no dependants and no one to disappoint.
Once you’ve been part of a tribe of supremely independent, self-sufficient, sociable and confident single people ‒ especially in a big city like London or New York ‒ for a certain amount of time, reverting to type and becoming part of a couple not only seems somewhat undesirable, but deeply unchic. Especially for writers: what will I write about now? Enduring laundry with bits of tissue in it? (Well, as it turns out, yes.)
In the first few years of commitment, it takes time getting used to combining your life with someone else’s. But in over two years I’ve never got used to the many relationship icks that couple culture has thrust upon me. My partner tries his hardest to allow me to remain chic and sociable, detached from the classic “her indoors” trope. But society, and social media, have other ideas.
“My other half”
Yikes. What is it about this one? I am not a half of anything. Imagine seeing that as a compliment. It feeds into this idea that we simply cannot (or do not) exist without a romantic partner, which is both inaccurate and rather unhelpful in the event of abandonment, bereavement or a zombie apocalypse. In my opinion, you can love someone with every atom of your being, think everything they do is gorgeous and fascinating, and desire to live with them until you die ‒ but still remain an entire person. I’m a whole me, he’s a whole him. No further questions.
The milestone pressure
The minute you’re in a relationship, you’re granted about four minutes of “Oh how nice! He looks lovely” before people start badgering you about how you’re going to formalise things. When are you moving in? Are you engaged? You’re going on holiday ‒ he must be about to propose! Get your nails done! Just got back from holiday ‒ still not engaged? Well, when’s the wedding? Still not set a date? What about babies? Don’t leave it too long. Are you pregnant yet? Don’t you want to get married before you have kids? Just got over the first birth? How many are you having? Don’t leave it too long! Etc, etc, presumably until we crumble into dust. Is there a small reprieve for mothers in the years after you’ve had what is clearly your last child? I’d love to know so I can schedule a giant nap.
Congratulations, it’s a… minion of the underworld!
Gender reveals
I cannot believe that, in the year of our lord 2023, we are still watching people pop balloons or slice cakes to see if they’re getting “a blue” or “a pink”. Firstly it really would be radical if you were expecting a blue baby (sign me up for that reveal!) but making the 50-50 chance of a boy or girl a spectacle of cheers or, heaven preserve us, disappointment, makes me want to start a whole new planet where there is no gender and we’re allowed to wear and enjoy what we like. FWIW, I subscribe to the RuPaul school of gender theory: We’re all born naked and the rest is drag (at least until primary school gets you with the soldiers and princesses). Granted, a lot of these things are coming at me from Instagram, not real people I know, so maybe I should just get off of that? If only I wasn’t so captivated by ASMR videos of people chopping onions.
The tradwife trend
TikTok contains many evils, but this has to be the most unsettling. Now, I must preface this by saying I have absolutely nothing against stay-at-home mums: I think making home and parenting your main role is a noble thing to do, if you want to do it andnobody’sforcingyoublinktwiceifyouneedhelp. No, the ick for me is the fetishization of staying at home and frolicking with watering cans. Search #tradwife on social media ‒ actually don’t, just don’t ‒ and you’ll go down quite the rabbit hole of Victorian frocks and bread kneading. Now, you may be thinking “How do these women’s choices affect you, a person who has no desire to knead bread while wearing a bustle?” But it does feel representative of a wider ping back from the “having it all” career-girl era of our mothers to a whisper of “Stay home ‒ you’re tired of all that horrid responsibility!” I’ve felt the pull of it ever since Mrs Hinch (a blonde trying to make cleaning your toilet an entire lifestyle) became popular circa 2018. We’re supposed to be horny for baking and dusting again, and I’m just not. When do we get our “latte papa” era? (Where men stay home with babies in slings and women go back to jobs they love.) Still waiting for that hashtag on social media.
Joint emails and social media accounts
Trust is a huge part of relationships. It’s something I’m working on daily. But I cannot imagine a reality in which I’d ever suggest my partner and I having a joint online anything, beyond perhaps a bank account. The email portion of this used to be confined to boomers who didn’t have the digital nous to manage two inboxes (bobandcarolesmith@hotmail.com) but these days, I am seeing it with the odd under-50. One person from my high school had a joint Facebook account with her husband right from our early 20s onward and ‒ yeesh. The suggestion is that you have no separate histories, friends, interests… anyone who needs to contact you is contacting you both: TheRobinsons, one indistinct blob of domestic bliss. Let your partner have some privacy and space, FFS. We’re watching a TV show at the moment called Wilderness wherein the couple have each other’s phone and laptop passwords, and that just seems… deranged to me? Maybe it’s judgmental but this sort of thing just smacks of having to hand over your phone and house keys the minute you walk in the door. It’s something sinister masquerading as transparency.
The bridezilla curse
We all say we’re not going to become one, but I fear that years of spending thousands on other people’s weddings and cooing over innumerable white-dress photos are the nuclear spider-bite that poisons us slowly until, years later, we are the one throwing a strop over peonies the wrong shade of blush. Same with hen parties, which take on more of a tense, transactional vibe with every year that passes: I travelled cross-country to drink through a penis straw with your work friends, you can do this Bollywood dance workshop for me. I just want to know if there’s a way to declare your love and look fit in white dress without leaving everyone around you into debt or in heart palpitations over an up-do that won’t overshadow the bride.
The ‘old ball and chain’
Pop culture would have us believe “wife guys” are the new beleaguered husbands, but actually I still see a lot of performative eye-rolling about girlfriends and wives being the old ball and chain, the prison guard, the schoolmarm. (One acquaintance of my boyfriends used to refer to his partner as “the handbrake”.) Even if it seems like forced banter, straight men are simply not supposed to find having a partner life-enhancing or joyful: nope, us ladies are here to end the fun, make you leave the party a little earlier and behave yourselves in general. Caitlin Moran did a very funny bit about Peppa Pig’s Mummy Pig being the archetypal misery-guts wife, always shutting down the fun and making everyone cease their cheery noise. Can we just bin this stereotype once and for all? I’d love to see some men my age talking about how much they’re looking forward to going home for a herbal tea and a post-match gossip with their partner. (We definitely know when that’s your favourite part of the night.)
The commitment bonus
There’s a genuinely mad phenomenon (certainly in British society, dare I say the Western World?) in which young women are more gifted, helped, supported and rewarded for committing to a monogamous relationship than for literally anything else they could do. Even they’re single because they’re an actual NASA astronaut with a PhD who’s won awards for their humanitarian work, written three books and invented a life-enhancing gadget. Trust me, Ms Philanthropic Astronaut is not seeing half of the cards, presents, praise, cheques and physical visits of someone who did the real work: marrying the boy next door and getting pregnant before they hit 28. What drives me potty about this is that the people I see settling down later are often making better, more solid and informed decisions about who to share their life with, not to mention being more financially secure and able to support any kids. And it should go without saying that those who don’t do relationships or kids at all are just as worthy of our time and attention. But it’s the way of the world: if you don’t crack on with it, no commitment bonus for you. As someone doing things later, by the time someone’s offering you a free toaster, you’re on your seventh adult residence and, frankly, don’t really need it. But boy, could you have done with it in that first place you rented on your own.
Okay, there’s quite a lot about commitment culture that leaves me cold. But the fact that I’m willing to endure it says a lot about the man I’m with. I’m trying to approach this stuff as I do our oppressive diet culture: if someone starts forcing any of it down my throat, I try to politely say, “I’m really trying to move away from all that stereotypical stuff, but thank you.” He’s not my other half. No, we don’t know if we’ll get married. Yes I do still plan to have hobbies.