Profs and Pints Reflections

You know how when you walk away from an argument, you think “Damn, I should have said that!?”  Well, I felt that way after a much more positive interaction: the talk I gave on Singles Studies at a recent Profs and Pints event.
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I’ve given versions of this talk to an audience of educated laypeople.  A mark of a good teacher is to always be revising your lessons.  I switched up a few slides and eliminated the pre-writing exercise I’ve done (“When you hear the word ‘single,’ what comes to mind?”).  And I think the lecture portion went well.  However, the Q&A part is always a challenge.  I never know what kinds of questions I’m going to get, and there are times I’m not quite sure how to respond, other than the “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you.”  And I think I handled the questions well, as per the head nods and enthusiastic applause after the talk concluded.  But on the Metro ride home, I pondered some of the questions I received and thought about ways I could have responded.  Since I don’t have a time machine, I can’t go back, and I don’t have any of the participants’ information, but my hope is that my talk interested them enough to check out this blog post, which contains some revised answers to the questions/comments I received, which I’ve paraphrased as best I can:

“Have you thought the distinction between selfless and selfish and how it can apply to singles and coupled people?”
I cited my favorite Bible quote: Now to the unmarried  and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do (1 Corinthians 7).  He was talking about the single serving God; I see it as serving the public.  I talked about how I’m doing service through my advocacy for singles through organizations like Singles Equality, the Meetup group I started (Childfree Singles of the DMV), and how I can be of service to my family back in NY and various friends.

I was working on my book project this morning, and I wrote about figures in film who forwent the traditional family life to be of service to the public (George McKenna, Erin Gruwell, Bryan Stevenson).  I then thought of two other real-life figures, Louis Kokonis and Dale Schroeder.  Kokonis has been a high school math teacher in Alexandria, Virginia for the last sixty-three years.  He’s never married or had children, which has enabled him to be of service to other people’s children. 

Dale Schroeder was a carpenter, much like Jesus, who also didn’t “attain” the traditional family life. He started a scholarship that enabled kids from low-income backgrounds to go to college.  I suspect that if he’d had his own kids, he wouldn’t have had the funds to donate.

I want to hear more stories about people like this; it can dispel the “singles are selfish” stereotype.

“Is there any research on aromantics and asexuals?”
None came to me at that time, but I did talk about how a lot of aces who want to partner feel that internalized singlism even more because when they try to date, they face challenges because sex is an expected part of that world.  When I logged on LinkedIn later that night, I saw a post about the newly released Towards Intersectional Feminist Singlehood Studies, a special edition of the Amsterdam-based Tijdschrift Voor Genderstudies, and I suddenly remembered there was an article about aces.  The title is “Asexual Grief and Compulsory Sexuality,” and it was written by an Australian scholar named Kathi Ammann.  To the person who asked that question, I hope you see it.

“Can you talk about people dating AI bots?”
I have very mixed feelings on this one; while I do use ChatGPT for advice on matters, I don’t believe it to be any kind of replacement for human interaction, whether it be romantic, platonic, or otherwise.  That’s all I said.  But there is also a ton of research about the benefits of having friends.  And it dovetails with the finding that married people become more insular while singles tend to develop their networks of friends. 

Another participant shared that a close friend stopped calling him once he got married and had a kid, and he expressed concern for his friend that he could be losing access to a world outside of his circle.  His point is valid.  After a divorce or passing of a spouse, women have a much easier time adjusting to singlehood than men do.  They’re encouraged to form friendships and be vulnerable.  Men aren’t it’s not “masculine.”  So, they suffer in silence, without friends.  So they’re more likely to turn to AI for companionship.  While it can be a sounding board, an AI bot can’t drive you to an appointment (as friends of mine have done), and it definitely can’t sit on you after you’ve had a stressful day (this one applies to my cat/son Chester).  It definitely can’t drive an hour just to see your performance and give you encouraging smiles during the presentation, like my friend Alicia did.

Closing Thoughts
If I give this talk again, I’ll likely ask for a Wi-fi password so that I can show additional sources to people.  The Singles Studies talk scratches the surface, but I can throw all kinds of sources to folks.  And I’ll also opt to write down information on a Word document, projected to the audience, so people can take notes.

At any rate, my hope is that the single members of the audience walked away with one thing they can use to own their singlehood and advocate for themselves.  And if there were any coupled members, they can think about how they’re treating their single friends and family members.  And if they become single, by choice or by circumstance, they’ll be able to advocate for, or at least, accept their status.