Tokenism

One of the most annoying aspects of being the token ‘single female’ in the office is that your female colleagues feel they are entitled to ask you the most personal and sometimes downright rude questions about your social/personal life.

Think about it single ladies, I'm sure you’ve all had that experience... Tea break on a Monday morning and the inquisition from the ‘smug marrieds’ begins. ‘Were you out over the weekend?’ (The underlying meaning being that you should be out EVERY weekend in the hunt for a man!)

‘Did you meet anyone nice? Was town busy?’ And the crowning glory, ‘Where is the hotspot for meeting someone these days?’ (Because, ‘smug marrieds’ just have to get the dig in that they are now soooo out of touch on this type of thing.

Heaven forbid that you should have a night out with the girls, without any intention of going on the pull.. Oh no dear, what a waste of a night out!

Once the ‘smugs’ are done questioning you about your poor, sad excuse for a weekend, they start to fill you in on their wonderful, fun filled weekend with their little brats and their even more fabulous husbands.

So, while you politely declined their offer to proffer the details of your sad single life, you now have to sit through their banal, inane mutterings about how they brought their little Seamus to the cinema on Saturday morning, but surprise surprise he wasn’t too interested in watching the film, being ONLY 3! Or how little Chloe woke them up at 5am on Sunday morning and insisted on joining Mr & Mrs Smug in bed.

You nod and smile while thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch later and whether you’ll have time to pop into Penneys.

I know the ‘smugs’ feel sorry for me. But, I feel sorry for them, not because they don’t get out much, or because they are incapable of having a conversation without mentioning their kids. No I feel sorry for them because it seems that their tales of domestic bliss are rolled out to somehow prove to the world that yes they really are happy and yes they really are fulfilled.

From my experience, the happiest, most content people are usually the ones who don’t just see you as a ‘single’ and keep their private lives private, because their family/relationships are  precious to them; they don’t need to verbalise it on a daily basis at tea break to their bored colleagues. Keep you token concern for some other ‘token single’ that cares, smugs!