Let single people celebrate their life achievements too

Why is it always about weddings and babies in our society?

Have you ever noticed that single people aren’t really allowed (or expected) to celebrate themselves the way married people are? 

I hadn’t thought about this until a few weeks ago when I noticed an interesting new development in my friend group. In the last six months, more of my friends were dating and coupled up than not. And quickly, like it’s the norm, all the parties and celebrations we held within the group now included invites for all the boyfriends and partners. 

While that’s brilliant because there are more people to celebrate with you, I couldn’t help but recall an article that said single people end up spending way more celebrating the life events of couples or married people. 

The financial hit of celebrating as a single person

Single people get one invite to a (birthday) party. People don’t usually say bring a friend or a guest of your choice to hang out with. But couples come in a package deal, and they always will. 

More often than not, unless the friend group is truly seamless, the single person would get invited back to one birthday party (whoever they’re closer to in the couple). But for their birthdays, they invite both people. Don’t the costs add up for a single person? 

“Over the course of a lifetime, single people, on the average, spend thousands of dollars on the weddings of other people — maybe even tens of thousands. These financial transfers grow out of kindness and customs, but they contribute to wealth inequality between people who marry and people who don’t.”

And you know what, I thought back to when some of my friends got married or when they celebrated strictly couple-y events, and it’s true! 

From weddings to pre-wedding events to housewarming parties for those coupled up, there’s no dearth of celebrations for those who’ve found someone to share their life with. Single people, on the other hand, get birthdays. That’s it. 

This isn’t even counting the new wave of events when someone (usually a couple) has a kid. Baby showers, birthday gifts for the new human, and whatnot all add more strain on single people’s wallets.

Events aside, even though we pride ourselves on being a 21C society, we’ve made it so that things are easier to do as a couple than it is if you’re single. Oh, and if you’re a single woman, you can amplify those difficulty levels even more in this patriarchal world. For example, in the US, there are more than a thousand laws that benefit married people alone. 

From cheaper interest rates on mortgages to halving living expenses, couples have it easier when it comes to finances. A two-decade-old study even says that the net worth of married individuals increases by a whopping 77% when they get hitched and drops by 77% if and when they divorce. 

“Additionally, their combined wealth increases on average by 16% for each year of marriage.”

Emotional damage: singles vs. couples

Now, don’t go around thinking that single people hate celebrating their married friends and their lives — because they don’t. Humans are wired to live with others, socialize in groups, and celebrate things. I’m just here to question why we don’t celebrate single people and their achievements as much. 

“We don’t have any new greeting cards specific to milestones in a single adult’s life.” — Hallmark. 

Because over and above the financial hit, single people also take an emotional hit every time they celebrate a couple’s events. Where’s their celebration for doing similar things but accomplishing them alone? 

“What is my wedding? What is my bridal shower? Can I send out formal invitations complete with a registry when I move into my new apartment? Can I expect people to fly in for that? It might sound preposterous, but to me it’s no more ridiculous than asking people to spend at least £1k to fly and stay somewhere to celebrate something that statistically has a 50/50 shot.”

I’ve seen people allow themselves to be mistreated, put in tons and tons of effort that goes unacknowledged, and so much more just because someone on the other side is getting married. I’ve been guilty of doing that myself — I thought broaching an uncomfortable topic wouldn’t be timely because that person was getting married, and weddings are stressful, you know? 

Well, now that friendship is practically non-existent because society conditioned me to put a married couple’s thoughts and feelings (wrong as they were) over my friends’ and my feelings — all because we weren’t the ones getting married. 

In Western cultures, graduation is a big thing to celebrate, but that’s not often the case in Indian friend circles. In collectivistic cultures like mine, we tend to celebrate people getting together (you’ve definitely heard of days-long Indian weddings, right?). 

And so, if you choose to be single or are single for any reason at a particular marriageable age, you don’t have any fun events to be the center of attention and celebrate yourself. You can throw yourself one of those grand parties for sure, but unlike a wedding, people won’t go out of their way to attend it and make you feel special. 

Tori Dunlap — Money Expert @herfirst100K

As a woman, the only life events society celebrates are when I become engaged, married, or pregnant. What about traveling solo, getting a Masters, paying off debt, buying a home, writing a book, founding a company, getting sober? I want these celebrated too.

I like Tori Dunlap’s tweet because it makes you realize there are so many more things to be celebrated than just weddings and babies. 

• Higher education success

• New job/promotions

• Starting a new business (we can celebrate it at the start also, no need to wait to make sure it’s a success — don’t we celebrate marriages blind to their tenure too?)

• Writing a book or ticking off a significant thing on your life list.

• Any achievement you think warrants a grand celebration. 

In writing this, I hope we all come to realize how much the single folks in our circles sacrifice and do for us and how we might be able to share in their joys and sorrows in the same manner, if not better. 

After all, you never know when you might be on the other side, watching your coupled-up friends and family celebrate themselves with nary a care about you. 

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P.S. Many of you resonated with last week’s issue about adult loneliness and new friendships. I just wanted to say thanks for reading, and I hope we all find our people or (platonic) person soon. Until then, hang in there. 

Fun things to check out this week 💌

• Someone helpfully collected all the Netflix codes, so whether you’re craving a satanic story (6998) or dramas based on books (4961), you’ll find them.

• Mimetic desire in 500 words. I love it when someone explains complex ideas in a simple way.

• Obsessed with this site that shows you the first page of a book, and if you’re interested, you can click to find out the title and the author. 

• “I regret to inform you that my wedding to Captain Von Trapp has been cancelled.” A letter from Baroness Elsa Schraeder from The Sound of Music.

• Another great Instagram account to follow:

effinbirds

A post shared by Effin' Birds (@effinbirds)

This is so cute and wholesome. 😊

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to hit like and share this issue if you enjoyed it. 🖤