Friday, June 6, 2008

Over 30 and Single? Well, Then You're Probably Not Happy


Dr. Pam Spurr is apparently a shitty therapist, because there's no other way to explain her Daily Mail column "Forget This Tosh About 'Freemales' - Single Women Who Say They Are Happy Are Lying." The title alone makes me want to shake her, but reading it, oh dear God, reading it made me realize that she also needs to lose her license to treat her patients and be shaken by the shoulders until the stupid falls out. Why is it that some people — usually women — think that the only path to personal fulfillment is at the end of an aisle?

Anyway, so the "evidence" cited by Dr. Pam that all single women of a certain age (pretty much mine) are unhappy is that they come into her office and tell her they are. They're denying biology! They're denying thousands of years of civilization and 30+ years of socialization that couplehood is the only way to go! And, less obviously to the Not Good Doctor, they're sitting in the chair of a judgmental and uninsightful therapist whose goal is to help them get coupled with someone so they can be happy. MY personal favorite quote is, "What's really going on behind that confident demeanour [of a single woman that declares herself to be happy]and fulfilled exterior is crushing loneliness and desperation.Single women become adept at playing the isn't-life-grand game.They have to do it around men so they don't appear desperate."

One thing that Pam misses is that by relying on her patients — who are seeing a therapist because they are unhappy, great self-selection in your unbiased sample, Pam — she's talking to women who are actually unhappy about it, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are.

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