Unmarried and Single Americans Week 2024

​That third week of September is always a fun time for me.  Unmarried and Single Americans Week is the time when Craig lets his Singlehood flag fly to full capacity. 

And fly, it did.  This post will be divided into three parts: the Professional, the Personal, and the Professional/Personal.

Professional
In the past, I’ve themed my first-year writing courses around the theme of Marriage and Singlehood.  Students enjoy it, but the feedback I’ve gotten is they’d like to talk about other topics.  So I listened.  Every week, students read about a different type of discrimination.  So it would be fitting this week they’d learn about singlism.  Since I have a Monday/Wednesday and a Tuesday/Thursday section, I had to give two separate activities.  The Monday/Wednesday section listened to the episode of BBC’s Sideways on which Bella appeared.  Comments that stood out included one that indicated that more people might “go single” after hearing such information.  Another person expressed annoyance at the question, “Why aren’t you married?”  Yep, you and millions of other people.
The Tuesday/Thursday section listened to Joan DelFattore talk about her research in medical bias as it pertains to how it discriminates against single people.  Students had many good questions, including the following:

1. How would you advise an unmarried person like myself to advocate for better treatment?
2. Did your experience with the first oncologist sour you from getting medical treatment?
3. Do medical practitioners have their own biases?

Students wrote journals in which they responded to the podcast (MW) and DelFattore’s talk (TR); they also had read DelFattore’s “Death by Stereotype” and written a Weekly Writing Exercise responding to it.  I spent a good chunk of Tuesday and Wednesday copying and pasting responses, which I might use for a future project in which I write about how I integrate Singles Studies into my teaching.

The big event was the Nonmarriage Roundtable Conference at UVA’s School of Law.  You can see more here.

Personal
I’m a casual football fan.  When I was a child, my uncle Joe had season tickets to see the New York Giants, and he took me and my brother on a couple of occasions.  During family gatherings, if you even uttered a word while he watched a game, there was hell to pay.  Somehow, through this, I became a Giants fan, and for the first time, I headed to Northwest Stadium (formerly known as FedEx Field) to catch the game with a Meetup group called NY Giants Fans in DC.  I traveled down solo, which allowed me to converse with random folks on my own terms.  Some light trash-talking, commenting on Brian Daboll’s horrible judgment as a coach, and responding to condolences on our loss.  This was followed by bringing in a pizza and vegging on the couch.

I'm way less casual about solo Amtrak trips; I just love 'em!  It allows me to read, write, and stare at the window.  In this case, the views consisted of the farmlands and Main Streetesque vibes of the western central part of Virginia.  I wouldn’t want to live there again, but it’s fun to look at.  When I got back to DC, the evening revolved around finishing up that pizza, reuniting with Chester, and more vegging on the couch while I watched two pro-single movies: The Wife and My Bodyguard.

The Professional/Personal
Although this week technically ended on Saturday, Elyakim would be staying in DC for an extra day, so we co-facilitated a workshop on Happy Singlehood at the Cleveland Park Library.  Following that, some of the participants joined us for dinner at Dolan, an Uyghur restaurant just up Connecticut Avenue, where we talked singlehood.

​Conclusion
Most people who know me know I can talk about singlehood, Singles Studies, and singles advocacy for hours.  And I believe it needs advocacy.  For me, I wouldn’t be able to do this work if I had to devote the energy to an escalator-style relationship.  And I’m in a perfect location to do it.  To quote Antionette, #ilovemydcsinglelife.