Vogue Says Having A Boyfriend Is Now 'Embarrassing'
Africa images | Canva This morning, I read the viral British Vogue article, “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” And because Chrome recently disabled my favorite adblocker extension, I read said article as ads for engagement rings littered the text. The irony is not lost on me.
My life is a paradox: On one hand, I’m a feminist and journalist who spent years healing from a trauma-induced dissociative disorder (which men ultimately caused), so I regularly encourage my readers to de-center men from their lives.
On the other hand, I am also in the happiest, most fulfilling relationship of my life. Yes, with a man.
Vogue says having a boyfriend is now embarrassing
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If you haven’t yet read the Vogue article, journalist and social media influencer Chanté Joseph writes about how, for the first time ever, single women are perceived as cooler than women in relationships. Throughout history, women waited for marriage the way a traveler waits in an airport terminal, anxiously counting down the seconds to their flight so they don’t miss it. (In this analogy, missing your flight resulted in social shame and labels like “spinster” and “old maid.” Occasionally, we were burned at the stake.)
But because modern women no longer need husbands to achieve status, they’re reclaiming and romanticizing their singlehood, using it as an opportunity to do, say, and be whatever they want. These interesting, independent, self-realized women are currently the queens of social media.
However, Joseph noticed a trend: When these same interesting, independent, self-realized women got into relationships, their posts suddenly became “Boyfriend Land: a world where women’s online identities centered around the lives of their partners, a situation rarely seen reversed.”
And that’s when she, along with hundreds if not thousands of other fans, would hit the mute button. Whereas countless influencers in the 2010s rose to fame by creating couple content, today’s women often lose followers when they hard-launch a new relationship on their socials.
Why is being in a relationship suddenly lame and embarrassing?
“Boyfriends are out of style. They won’t come back in until they start acting right,” wrote one commenter, according to Joseph. Another said, “Even though I am a romantic, I still feel like men will embarrass you even 12 years in, so claiming them feels so lame.”
As Joseph explains in her article, it’s not the act of being in a relationship that’s lame. It’s the act of making your relationship your entire personality; something many women do, and something most men would never dream of doing.
In my opinion, it’s not our fault. Since we were literal toddlers, we’ve been conditioned — nay, brainwashed — to value romantic love above all else. Moral servitude was a close second.
While my brother watched movies about becoming a superhero or saving the universe from Sith Lords, I watched Disney princess movies. Every single one built up to a wedding … and then the credits rolled.
The end. You did it. You were chosen by a man. Womanly purpose fulfilled.
On Christmas morning, my brother found action figures, architecture sets, and science experiments under the tree. (“You can be anything!”) I found babydolls, a play kitchen, and a toy vacuum. (“Look how fun it is to do chores for other people!”)
Despite similar upbringings, many women have realized — on a logical level, anyway — that romantic relationships aren’t the be-all-end-all of personal fulfillment, weddings don’t bring about a happily ever after, and cleaning isn’t fun. Yet subconsciously, the pattern is much harder to break.
Why women lose themselves in relationships
As soon as they start dating someone, most women subconsciously take on the role of the selfless caretaker, putting their own hobbies, desires, and self-development on the back burner. That goes double for women with children.
Don’t believe me? Let’s check the stats.
Even in households where both partners earn the same amount of money, women still do the majority of cooking, cleaning, childcare, and invisible labor. Wives are four times more likely than single women to feel guilty about taking time for hobbies and self-care, and 69% of married women say they have less than 10 minutes a day to themselves.
Husbands, on the other hand, enjoy more leisure time after they’re married. They’re also healthier, wealthier, and more emotionally fulfilled than bachelors.
Why? Because women are conditioned to view other people’s discomfort as their fault (and therefore their responsibility to fix), while men are conditioned to treat their wives like servants whom they bought with a few chickens, maybe a cow.
But in modern America, women are no longer a tradable commodity. We’re making our own money, buying our own homes, earning our own degrees, and establishing our own careers. Financially and socially, we don’t need heterosexual marriage anymore. In fact…
Statistically, marriage is a liability for women
It’s an emotional liability (granted men are almost twice as likely to cheat), a financial liability (granted only single women without kids make as much money as men), a physical liability (granted 60% of murdered women are murdered by their husbands), and a political liability (granted Republicans just tried to revoke married women’s right to vote).
Now, I guess it’s also a social liability, since posting about your relationship apparently gives your followers the ick. But Joseph is right: It’s uncomfortable when a strong, capable woman gives her power away to a man, shrinking from a main character into a sidekick.
I can’t help but think of Taylor Swift’s new album, The Life of a Showgirl. It received ample backlash for obsessing over her fiancé’s 'magic wand,' tearing down other famous women, and subtly glorifying tradwife culture — especially when her fans have come to expect feminist themes from the world’s most successful single cat lady.
So what do we do? Do we stop falling in love? Stop dating? Stop being intimate? Stop getting married? Move to a women-only commune and live in peaceful, matriarchal bliss?
Some women have chosen to do that. It’s called the 4B movement, and it’s become increasingly more popular as misogynistic influencers, conservative politicians, and incel communities convince men that they’re entitled to women’s time, care, and bodies.
Most women, however, have found a middle ground between “the awesome single influencer” and “the doting, selfless wife.” They’re simply de-centering their relationships with men.
How women are successfully de-centering men
According to Joseph’s Vogue article, most of the biggest haters of “Boyfriend Land” are in relationships themselves. They just aren’t posting about it.
When they do post about it, they award their boyfriends or husbands some anonymity. Joseph wrote:
“Straight women are opting for subtler signs — a hand on a steering wheel, clinking glasses at dinner, or the back of someone’s head. On the more confusing end, you have faces blurred out of wedding pictures, or entire professionally edited videos with the fiancé conveniently cropped out of all shots.”
These posts say, “Sure, I have someone special in my life, but he’s not my entire life.” It’s how men have viewed their relationships for centuries.
It also offers protection … for both parties. Maybe the boyfriend/husband is a private person who doesn’t want his personal business plastered all over the internet. Maybe the woman doesn’t want to owe her followers a tear-streaked public announcement if they break up.
For these women, the fact that they’re in relationships is the most boring thing about them. Among an older demographic on TikTok, a similar trend has emerged. As a social experiment, women have started de-centering their husbands, 10, 20, and 30 years into their marriages.
After decades of anticipating their husbands’ needs, tiptoeing around their emotional states, making their meals, memorizing their take-out orders, doing their laundry, managing their social calendars, and cleaning up after them, these wives just… stop.
Instead, they start matching effort. Prioritizing their own well-being. Considering only themselves, the same way their husbands always have.
In some cases, marriages fall apart. In others, men notice how busy, hungry, unsupported, unregulated, lonely, disorganized, and overlooked they feel without their wives’ constant caretaking. Sometimes, after realizing that this is how his wife has felt throughout their entire relationship, he starts reciprocating.
Personally, I’m not embarrassed by having a boyfriend
I write about him because he signifies how far I’ve come. I am no longer the dissociated girl who couldn’t feel love, sabotaged every relationship, numbed herself to vulnerability, and only ever pictured a future alone.
I now believe I am worthy of safety, serenity, and softness, and my whole life reflects that: the women I’ve befriended, the home I bought, the business I built, the memoir I wrote, and yes, the man I chose to share it with. I worked my butt off to get here, and I’m proud of myself for it — all of it — hence the engagement ring ads between the paragraphs of Joseph’s article.
At the same time, while he’s part of my story, he’s not my whole story. I am no one’s sidekick, and he has never once made me feel like one. He matches my effort. Supports my dreams. Throws my laundry in with his. Knows my take-out orders. I want to encourage other women to stop settling for lame boyfriends and start demanding capable partners (that is, if they want them).
Yeah, Joseph technically called me embarrassing, but her article is important — not just for single women, but also for women in relationships. It’s a necessary reminder that while they often look similar, love and servitude are two very different things. One is the fabric of the universe, and the other is the backbone of the patriarchy.
Maria Cassano is a writer, editor, and journalist whose work has appeared on NBC, Bustle, CNN, The Daily Beast, Food & Wine, and Allure, among others.
