Socially preferred

Emotional freedom isn't something you can achieve with a snap of your fingers. If you're emotionally trapped, you need not only will and time, but also a little bit of luck, to get out of the trap.

I've been emotionally trapped many times before.

Now I've been emotionally free for over a year, and it feels GREAT. I feel stronger when I'm single. When I'm with someone, or getting over someone, I feel weaker, I feel as if I'm giving up a part of who I am, I feel suffocated. When I'm single, I am ME. And it's the best you can be.

However.

However, people take you more seriously when you're with someone. When you show up at a social function, or a cultural event, arm in arm with a respectably looking opposite-gendered individual, people take you ten times more seriously than if you showed up alone or with one of your same-sex friends. Being with someone shows you're dependable. Stable. Worth sticking around, somehow. And the perks don't stop there. When people think about you as a COUPLE, they tend to think about inviting you to their own events more often. Especially other married and committed people. Think about it: A couple - man and woman. At a gallery opening. And me. Alone. We meet there. We chat. I'm closer with the guy because we met before, at another function, and we clicked. As friends. Then I meet his wife or girlfriend at the said gallery opening. If I'm ALONE, his wife might see me as a threat. And might want him to not hang out with me even if she likes me as a person. BUT. If I'm arm in arm with a handsome guy, she will NOT ONLY NOT feel threatened, but next time she has a get-together at their place and is wondering WHICH COUPLES to invite, one of the first couple she will think of, will be US - me and my handsome supposedly-boyfriend. Then I NOT ONLY get a chance to be more socially involved and accepted, but I ALSO get a LICENSE to hang out with committed men without being seen as a threat.

So I'm thinking I need a boyfriend. Lets be clear - I don't WANT one; I NEED one. We don't even need to be together in real life. Just socially together for the sake of social and cultural inclusion and acceptance.

Yes, it sucks to not be able to be who you are. But if society is going to play games with you, you can play games with society.