A Word on Singles' Advice Forums

Confession:  I am a singles advice forum addict.

            I’ve been in recovery for the last six months or so, ever since I was banned from my favorite site.  The banning was abrupt and, I wholeheartedly believe, completely unfair.  I probably could have appealed it, but whatever.  It was a time suck that added absolutely nothing positive to my life.  

            The majority of the regulars were miserable and insufferable.  The site was plagued by trolls, and I was one of their favorite targets.  The moderators steadfastly refused to do anything about that, but popped up out of nowhere to permanently ban me because I scolded a woman who wanted to know the best way to go about abandoning her elderly, cancer stricken mum who relied on her for support.

            Oh well.  I got over it.

            This last site was only one in a series.  Before I became a regular there, I haunted the Singles and Dating section of Yahoo answers.  And long before that, even, I was a regular on a site based off the old Loveline show on MTV.  That was back in the mid-nineties, when the internet was in its infancy.  

            I have never been able to adequately explain, even to friends who know me well, what it is about those sites that entices me to waste hours comforting the lovelorn, or to actually start engaging with people in the forum on a daily basis. So much that I recognize their handles and they’ve become people to me instead of names.

           Some people develop a gaming addiction.  I developed an advice-giving addiction.

   

           This was made all the more amusing by the fact that, given my relationship history, I was the absolutely last person on earth who should be giving anyone advice.  I mean, if you want advice on what not to do, boy, have you come to the right place!

             Which is precisely why, with the voice of experience, I tell you to avoid those sites like the plague.

            Towards the end of my tenure, I began to hate the very advice I was dishing out. I started to hate my fellow regulars, handing out the same advice.  Most of us were dinosaurs.  Our bible was The Rules, only the rules had changed, and we were up shit creek without a paddle.

            Most of the posters told the same sorry tale:

1. Girl meets boy
2. Boy is crazy about girl
3. Girl’s not so crazy about boy
4. Boy wins over girl
5. Girl is now crazy about boy
6. Boy loses interest in girl

Or this:

1. Girl meets boy online
2. They fall in love
3. They meet each other’s family
4. Boy goes on business trip or vacation
5. Girl never hears from boy again

The advice given was always the same:

1. Stop being a slut

            The women’s movement was only a rumor on these sites.  The misogyny was breathtaking.  Heartbroken women seeking comfort and solace were scolded and given a list of things they did wrong.  Liking a man and letting him know you felt that way, even if you were dating, was viewed as a desperate turn-off.  Women were admonished that men were hunters and women were prey.  We were supposed to play hard to get and let them chase us.  What was less clear was when the chase should end.  

            The message was that your sole purpose in life should be to snag a man, through whatever means necessary.  We were instructed to forsake our own identity and mold ourselves into the ideal woman.  There were rules.  Never text a man first.  Always be the one to end texting.  Don’t text back right away.  Let a man have his space.  Don’t have sex until he proved himself worthy of it, which was directly in proportion to how much money he spent on you.

            In a manner reminiscent of Bridget Jones’ Diary, women were instructed to stay busy and cultivate hobbies and become their best self to find a man.  

            It would be hilarious, if not so utterly toxic.

            In retrospect, no wonder I was banned from the site.  Even before the incident that got me thrown off, I was a renegade.  I got angry when women were told they were wrong to have sex, or that they were desperate and pathetic because they were sad about being dumped.    I also chafed at the idea that women were supposed to be passive creatures, waiting to be chosen.

            “You’re a prize he needs to earn!” was a popular one-liner on the site.

            Get that, ladies?  You’re not a living, breathing, human being with desires and needs of your own; you’re a piece of property waiting for purchase.  Like a stuffed dog filled with sand hanging over the pitch til you win tent at the county fair.

            These same women talked breathlessly of how women needed to be treated like princesses and courted.  

Historically, princesses were traded back and forth between countries like bargaining chips.  They had no say in their own destiny; other people decided whom they would marry and where they would live.  And as for courting, usually women being courted were already married to much older men.  The knights doing the courting were also married to women waiting back at home on their estates.  Courting was an elaborate meaningless game meant to pass the time.  It wasn’t anything serious.  Playing games was never supposed to be the way you chose your partner.

            It is simply mind blowing how disempowering all the advice for women is out there.  “Let the man lead,” “see yourself as a prize to be earned,” “you need to let him chase you,” “men view women who sleep with them too easily as low value.”

            Value.  Like a woman is chattel.

            The onus above all is that, if you don’t follow the advice, if you try to make your own choices and choose your own destiny or try to be an equal in the relationship game, you will *gasp* end up alone.  As if that was the worst punishment to be meted out by society...solitude.

            I can think of worse things.  Being murdered by an unsuitable partner.  A lifetime of degradation and abuse, or being shackled to someone you dislike.  Having your spouse cheat on you or leave for a younger partner.  Many women have lived worse, because that’s what happens to women when you take away all of their power. They become little more than slaves.  We need to flip the script and stop encouraging passivity in women.

            Yes, there is much worse than being alone, but these sites want you to believe otherwise.  They want to sell you the idea that trading a life of peaceful, fulfilling solitude for a life where your authentic self is repressed and erased is a decent trade-off.

            Funny that no one asks the same of men. There are very few advice forums for men, and you never see someone advising a man to keep his legs shut if he wants to get married or pretend to be someone he isn’t. Men can choose their destiny, and they can choose whether they want a family or to go it solo.  And no one criticizes their choice.  There is no shame in being a lifelong bachelor.  There is shame in being an old maid.

            After the rise of the #metoo movement, I checked out the forum (I can read it, I just can’t post) to see if anything had changed.  Nope, it was business as usual.  The questions were the same, and the answers hadn’t changed.  All the same regulars were there, including the trolls. (Seriously, what the hell?  WHATEVER).  

            My point?  Times are changing rapidly, and singles forums need to come out of the fifties.  Ladies, if we want equality, we need to stop living our lives as if living it alone is no life.  We need to always choose ourselves and having our own identity over pretending to be someone else to trick a man into loving us.  We need to believe that we are worthy of love just the way we are, and the right man will embrace that.  Let’s stop living in the fifties.