This was a great article, I’m looking forward to reading the rest of what you have written.

I am old enough to remember, in my late teens and early twenties, the dreary question of did I have a girlfriend / was I married? Nobody dares do that any longer; the encroaching aggressions are micro-shrunk like ZLib Compression, but they’re still there.

My reasons for being single for my whole life are in roughly proximate order: Early family life / childhood experiences (scarring, traumatising and not really a very nice way to spend your days); constant negative reinforcement of negativity, lack of prospects, lack worth and so on; habit based on the fact of my age and that now, adapting and cooperating and working collaboratively with a partner would be like learning a new language; character / personality flaws engendered through my early formative years.

Something of note however - the reporter of that maagzine journalism article probably not give away their own marital / single dom status all this? Perhaps all is not milk and honey in the land of the conjugally besotted?

It is this sort of toxic propaganda that makes natural born singles into resentful, antagonistic and potentially harmful counter-agents.

The only kind of micro-aggressions consist of co-workers reminding me of their partnered-up status, as though it really is a genuine status-marker, rather than just a fortuitous confluence of life chances?