A single woman out on a private cloud

Photo courtesy of Hotel Chatter

This afternoon, my dear friend Eddie sent me the link to this article called The New Girl Order by Kay S. Hymowitz with the message, "Read this article. It's about you." Upon reading it, I discovered that not only is it about me, it's also about so many women that I know. It describes single women who are happy and independent in the world today.

"Conceived and raised in the United States, Carrie [Bradshaw] may still see New York as a spiritual home. But today you can find her in cities across Europe, Asia, and North America. Seek out the trendy shoe stores in Shanghai, Berlin, Singapore, Seoul, and Dublin, and you’ll see crowds of single young females (SYFs) in their twenties and thirties, who spend their hours working their abs and their careers, sipping cocktails, dancing at clubs, and (yawn) talking about relationships. Sex and the City has gone global; the SYF world is now flat."

The article looks at how the globalization of this "single young female" reflects a series of demographic and economic shifts that are pointing many of us toward this so-called "New Girl Order." The trends of delayed marriage, expanded higher education, labour force participation and urbanization, combined with global media and a little disposable income mean that we can say goodbye to many of the limitations that were put on previous generations of women. I think that the main thing is that we have a choice. At 26 years old, if I had found the great love of my life and felt ready to settle down with him, I would have no reservations about doing so. For me,
it's not a case of forgoing marriage in favour of endless girls' nights out and spending all of my hard earned dollars on myself. It's about there being an alternative. I have happily married friends with enviable lives and they still have no shortage of quality girl time. However, I should also be feeling good about what I have and celebrate being young, and happy. Right now, I am focusing on building my career, cultivating friendships and living the life that I have dreamed of living. Most importantly, I am trying to figure out just who I am and what I want out of life. Characters like Carrie Bradshaw remind me that I'm not a loser to be single at 26. There is no longer such a stigma attached to being single after a certain age. The terms "spinster"and ''old maid" are not thrown around as much as they may have been at one time. I can still have a rich, full life even though I haven't found my soul mate yet.

"The lifestyle also means whole new realms of leisure and consumption, often enjoyed with a group of close girlfriends: trendy cafés and bars serving sweetish coffee concoctions and cocktails; fancy boutiques, malls, and emporiums hawking cosmetics, handbags, shoes, and $100-plus buttock-hugging jeans; gyms for toning and male-watching; ski resorts and
beach hotels; and, everywhere, the frustrating hunt for a boyfriend and, though it’s an ever more vexing subject, a husband."

Consumption is not so important to me. Yes, I like nice things but the quality of things that I do in my life are much more important to me than the things that I have.

Speaking for myself, I hope to settle down at some point. I hope to find the man of my dreams who will be my partner in crime, my best friend and the love of my life. At this moment, I am focused on loving my life and learning to love myself, as I am.