Shame Busting, Part I

Oh, you’re single and not pursuing in relationships?  Congratulations, you’re a loser.

If you haven’t been shamed for being a bachelor yet, just wait.  It will happen.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen.  And the longer you live this way, the more of it you will encounter. 

We can shrug off most of it, but let’s not underestimate the enemy. Shame kills people every day, and many of those it doesn’t kill it leaves battered and broken.

I’ve had personal and professional experience with this.  I’ve weathered plenty of shaming.  I still get it on a regular basis.  Fun!  I’d like to pass on some of what I’ve learned, in the hopes that it will help you.    

I’ll begin by listing the common shaming messages bachelors get, then offer some general suggestions for dealing with them. 

Hall of Shame

Here are some of the most common shaming messages routinely lobbed at bachelors.  I’ll phrase them directly, although you won’t usually hear them in this bald, raw form, unless you’re on the internet.  Most people are too polite to say it directly, so they pretty it up.  But these are the underlying messages.   

• You’re not in a relationship?  That means you’re a loser.  You’re defective as a human being and a man.          
• You’re a quitter.  Men compete for women, and you’re bailing out because you can’t handle the competition.  You’re a failure.
• You’re not a real man.  You aren’t masculine.  You’re a girly man.        
• You are selfish and self-centered. 
• You are a bad man.  A good man pursues women, finds The One, and then devotes his life to caring for her and the children.  
• You’re a bachelor?  Keep your distance.  I’ll bet you’re horny as hell.  You’re probably some kind of pervert. 
• Are you gay?  I’ll bet you’re gay. 
• I feel sorry for you.  I’ll pray for you.   
• You must lack confidence with women. 
• You don’t like women.  You’re angry at women. 
• You hate women.  You’re a misogynist. 
• Don’t worry, you’ll find someone.
• Someone hurt you.  How sad.  You are damaged and broken.   
• You chose wrong.  You picked the wrong women.  Your fault. 
• You’re afraid of relationships.  You’re afraid of vulnerability, or intimacy, or commitment.   
• Man up!  You are an immature man-baby who refuses to grow up and carry his social responsibilities. 
• You’ll die alone.  How sad and lonely for you.    

I probably missed a few, but those are the main ones I see.  I’ve gotten most of them myself, at one time or another. 

I’ll cover some of them individually later, but for now, I want to offer general suggestions that apply across the board.  I’ll cover the simple strategies in this article, then the more complex ones in Part II. 

Simple Strategies

Here are some simple, basic strategies for dealing with single shaming. 

Catch It

Recognize and label what’s happening.  “Oh, she is trying to shame me.”  Doing that takes some of the wind out of it.  It clarifies what is happening, and that clarity gives you a measure of control.  If you don’t recognize what’s happening, you can’t possibly respond effectively. 

You’d think people would know when they’re being shamed, but sometimes they don’t.  Messages can be convoluted sometimes (intentionally).  The shaming can be concealed under layers of “concern” or “compassion.”  It can be a little barb that you barely notice, then later it begins to gnaw at you.  It can take a while sometimes, before you realize you’ve been slimed. 

Recognizing it is the first step.          

---

Don’t Get Defensive

Don’t defend or explain yourself.  When you do that, you just make yourself look weak.  Defensiveness announces to everyone that the shaming has struck a nerve and therefore has an element of truth.  Defending and explaining yourself convinces no one, because your words of denial are betrayed by the defensiveness itself.  If there is no truth to it, why are you so defensive? 

Defensiveness also invites further attack.  That’s just how it works. 

I’m not saying don’t factually correct someone.  I’m just saying don’t get defensive.  It doesn’t help; it just makes things worse.   

---

Expect It

Surprise amplifies pain, so one way to lessen shame’s impact is to expect it, to anticipate it.  Then, when it occurs, you can say to yourself, “Ok, there’s the shaming I was expecting. Right on schedule.”   

This can be sort of satisfying, in a weird way.  You can bask in glow of being right.  For instance, in my last blog post, I said some things I knew would elicit some shaming.  Sure enough, I got them – one from a man, one from a woman.  I knew it was coming, so I wasn’t taken aback.  The Nostradamus of Shame! 

Actually, though, I was surprised.  I got less shaming than I thought I would.  So the surprise was a pleasant one. 

Anyhow, don’t be surprised when someone drops a turd in your punchbowl.  That’s just how people are sometimes.  The go-to response for many people, especially on social media, is derogatory name-calling and demonization whenever someone takes a position they disapprove of. 

So, expect it.   Not from everyone, of course, but from some.  Forewarned is forearmed. 

---

Consider the Source

I heard this one as a kid: “consider the source.”  This is an oldie but goodie. 

When you get shamed, ask yourself: 

1. Is this somebody who knows me well?  Heck, do they even know me at all?  
2. Is this someone whose opinion I respect?  Do they seem well-informed and wise? 

Chances are, the answer to both questions will be no. 

Why upset yourself over the opinion of someone who doesn’t know you and whose opinion you don’t respect? 

---

Catapult the BS

The simplest way to shrug off shame is to know that it is false.  For instance, if someone tells me that I’m a bachelor because I’m butthurt, or that I dislike women, or that I’m a weirdo, I know they’re wrong.  Well, the first two are wrong.  The third guy has a point. 

It’s easy to dismiss the first two, because I know myself, and both those statements are completely false.  I am not at all hurt, and I like most women.    

If you know that the shaming is off-base, it will have no effect on you. 

---

Don’t Give it Undue Attention

Don’t spend too much time thinking about it.  Try not to ruminate about it.  When you give attention to something, you are according it importance.  If you spend a lot of time thinking about someone’s shaming attack, you are turning something trivial into something important. 

Let it go and move on.  There’s that old Chinese saying, “You can’t stop the birds of the air from flying over your head, but you can stop them from making a nest in it.” Shaming attacks are usually petty, stupid things. Don’t give them more attention than they deserve.

---

Find the Humor

Humor is a great way to transcend shame.  You can do this in a variety of ways – poking fun at the shamer, parodying their ideas, by humorously exaggerating the criticism, or just simply by chuckling and rolling your eyes.

It has to be genuine, light-hearted humor, though, not angry, bitter sarcasm.  The latter is just defensiveness.  

If you can find the humor in the situation, you know you’ve beaten shame. 

---

Accept What You Cannot Control

Two thousand years ago, Epictetus pointed out that, if you want to be happy, you have to distinguish between things you can control (your own thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors) and things you cannot control (pretty much everything else).  If something falls in the second category, there is no use worrying about it. 

One of the main things we cannot control is other people, and in particular, their opinions of us.  Sure, we can try to convince or persuade them of something, but we cannot control what they think (and attempts to persuade them otherwise often backfire). 

People will think what they think.  There’s not a lot you can do about it. 

You probably know the Serenity Prayer.  Here is one adaptation of it: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

---

Find Kindred Spirits

See if you can find kindred spirits (or at least distant-cousin spirits) to hang out with, even if they’re half a world away.  That will help to defuse shaming.    

Social media has a lot of downsides, but this is one of its big upsides.  Rather than being stuck trying to find people in your local community that think how you do (good luck with that), you can find them online. 

By hanging out with kindred spirits, you feel less like an oddball.  You get reinforcement for your own perspective.  You get emotional support when you need it.  You get “counterprogramming” that goes against all the standard social programming about marriage and coupledom. 

---

Don’t Stoop to Their Level

Don’t return hate for hate.  I’m not saying return love for hate.  I ain’t Jesus.  I’m just saying, don’t let them drag down you to their level. 

Mark Twain put it well. 

Don’t wrestle with pigs.   You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

Mark twain

I don’t think I can improve on that.

---

Ok, that covers the simple strategies.  I’ll move on to the more complex ones in Part II.