“Are you single?” she asked me.
“One is rarely ‘single’ or ‘taken’,” I answered, “Those are two very extreme conditions, and most people are floating somewhere in-between. It’s silly we have to use just one of two extreme words to describe our ‘relationship status’.”
“Well I am,” she protested, “I’m taken.”
“You’re dating someone, and you like him, but you’re not taken.”
“Yes I am!”
“You’re telling me some hot, decently nice guy who’s about 23 years old with six pack abs suggests the two of you hang out some time, you’re going to say no to that guy?”
“Well…yeah, okay, you’re right.”
Inaccurate DefinitionsÂ
One of the biggest problems in man-woman relations is the ridiculous and obsolete concept of ‘single’ or ‘taken’.
People think (incorrectly) that they’re single or taken. They’re either off the market or on the market.
You’ve heard it a thousand times. I’m now having sex with someone I met three weeks ago, so I’m “taken”. I’m “off the market”. Or, I don’t have a serious girlfriend, so I’m “single”.
What about me? I’m dating and/or having sex with three women at any given point in time. Am I single? Am I taken? It would be silly to apply either word to me.
Well shit, Blackdragon. You’re not exactly normal.
Okay, fine. Let’s talk about normal people. I know many of them. For example, I know a lot of people who are married. Are they taken? Most people would say yes.
I also know that a lot of these same people are cheating on their spouses, regularly. In most cases, these people actually have feelings for the people they’re having sex with on the side. Are they still ‘taken’? Really?
I know a huge number of women who, as soon as they have sex with a new guy about two or three times, suddenly consider themselves ‘taken’. Are they? Are they in a real, committed relationship at that point? Really?
I know a lot of people, men and women both, who ‘broke up’ with an ex, but are still seeing that ex, still having sex with that ex, and usually still have feelings for that ex. These people walk around bragging that they’re ‘single’. Are they? Really? Do you think a person going out on a first date with them would also consider them ‘single’? You and I both know the answer.
I even know a few people who are living with an ex (they’re an ‘ex’ because they ‘broke up’ at some point), and they still walk around calling themselves ‘single’. Are they? Really?
Are you seeing how stupid this is yet? This isn’t even a discussion about monogamy vs. nonmonogamy. This is about what normal, real people do in the real world and the inaccurate societal labels they attach to their behaviors in order to sound acceptable.
‘Taken’ means you’re taken. You’ve made very solid exclusivity commitments to one person and you’re actually keeping those commitments. But that represents a very small percentage of the population under the age of 50. (Remember, 49% of adults aren’t even married.)
Taken doesn’t mean you’ve just started seeing someone (how can you be taken if you’ve never had that discussion?), nor does it mean you have a BF/GF/spouse whom you’re happily cheating on (how can you be taken if you’re having sex with multiple people?).
‘Single’ means you’re single. There is no one else in your life you have any romanticish feelings for whatsoever. Either you’re not having sex with anyone, or you’re only having sex with people who are pure friends with benefits and that’s it.
Because of the Societal Programming poisoning your brain, it’s possible you’re going to disagree with what I just said. You’re going to try to explain to me that the wife who is cheating on her husband is indeed ‘taken’. The logic of a woman regularly letting a second man put his penis inside her doesn’t affect the word ‘taken’ for you.
Or, you may try to explain to me that the guy who is still living with his ex-girlfriend is ‘single’. The fact they have engaged in some kind of meaningless verbal-only ritual called ‘breaking up’ suddenly makes the word ‘single’ a valid word to describe that man in your eyes.
This is similar to the men I occasionally get on here and the forums who will flat-out and with a straight face tell me in no uncertain terms that they are “monogamous” even though they are regularly cheating on their wife or girlfriend. Like them, you have twisted both the definition and the spirit of certain words in order to mash particular scenarios into socially acceptable norms. You’re full of shit, but at least it sounds good, and other normal people nod their heads in approval (even though many of them know you’re full of shit too.)
Contrast this to me, who describes relationships exactly as they really are, and piss a lot of people off by doing it.
The reality is that the vast majority of people out there exist in one of the many grey levels between ‘single’ and ‘taken’. They are not absolutely, 100% committed and monogamous, nor are they completely without anyone they’re having sex with they have feelings for. Because of this, using the words single or taken causes all kinds of confusion, chaos, and hurt feelings that society has just come to accept as a normal part of dating, relationships, and male-female interplay.
Hopefully you don’t want to be in this confused, chaotic category along with everyone else. This means you must do two things:
1. Never identify yourself as ‘single’ or ‘taken’ unless it’s absolutely and objectively true. (And if you’re a normal, healthy, fun human being with a healthy sex drive, it rarely will be.)
2. Whenever a woman you’re dealing with identifies herself as ‘single’ or ‘taken’, in both cases she’s probably not being truthful and/or accurate. She’s just trying to sound societally acceptable. She’s declaring something that will neatly fit into her Facebook relationship status, not something that accurately describes what she’s doing. So don’t take those words at face value. Instead, ask her some questions and get to the bottom of things. Find out her real status. Then proceed from there.
(As a side note, when I first started dating younger women (as in under age 24) many years ago, I was very surprised to see how little the world ‘boyfriend’ meant to these women. It’s a word they toss around with no meaning whatsoever. Yes, it can mean the guy they’ve been with for two years, but it can just as often mean the guy they just met and started dating two weeks ago. I’m serious.)
You do yourself a grave disservice when you cackle with an evil glee when a woman tells you she’s ‘single’ (because she’s not) or when you get depressed and discouraged when she says she’s ‘taken’ (because she’s not).