Are Boyfriends Embarrassing?

Maybe the age of the status-symbol boyfriend has finally passed

Last week, British Vogue declared having a boyfriend to be “quite culturally loser-ish.” This is quite a departure from the playground days of protesting that you did indeed have a boyfriend, he just “went to another school.” In my teens, having a boyfriend was the ultimate status symbol. Those lucky enough to have one would parade him around like a trophy, taking him to parties and relentlessly posting soppy month-aversary stories. 

As I grew up a bit, however, I did start to question if having a boyfriend did indeed catapult you to the top of the social ladder. It seemed, instead, to catalyse social isolation. Suddenly, you haven’t seen a beloved friend in months, as her schedule fills up with date nights and bae-cations. When you finally pin her down for a coffee date, she texts an hour before with “you don’t mind if I bring my boyfriend, do you?” Boyfriends aren’t quite so cool anymore when they become a substitute for friends or, even worse, a substitute for a personality. 

After witnessing friends slip away into this blinding mist of boyfriend-obsession, a lot of women seem to fear themselves meeting the same fate when they enter into a relationship. This is perhaps why we’re in the age of the ‘soft-launch.’ An Instagram story of a slightly hairy hand on a dinner table is Gen Z’s equivalent of updating your relationship status on Facebook. Then, we get a series of pictures of the back of his head, but from so far away that it’s indiscernible whether it’s a man or a tree. At the one-year point, we might actually get to see a picture of his face. 

Women seem so afraid to become one of those boyfriend-girls that they veer so far in the opposite direction, you can go months without learning of your friend’s new coupling. She’s so afraid of talking about him too much that she’ll never bring him up at all. It’s a hard balance to tread. When you’ve been single for a while and known to shout “I hate all men!” across the dinner table after a bottle or two of wine and a few too many bad Hinge dates, it can seem embarrassing to be suddenly strolling down Market Street holding hands with your new beau. 

For a lot of women, singledom is synonymous with independence. It feels feminist to be single, to provide for yourself, to never let a man buy you a drink, and to rant and rave about how terrible all men are. It can feel like a renouncement of one’s principles when you have to admit that you do actually like some men, and it is indeed comforting to have someone on hand to open stiff jars and fill up your water bottle at nighttime. It is the small things, after all. 

We’ve established that it is embarrassing to have a boyfriend if, within a few weeks, you become incapable of doing anything other than hanging out with him or talking about him. Before long, you’re missing every girls’ night so he doesn’t get lonely, you’ve neglected your own interests so you can adopt his, and you’re incapable of doing anything on your own. This lack of independence and individuality is a bit embarrassing. 

It’s also embarrassing if, to put it simply, your boyfriend doesn’t like you very much. When you’re blushing while talking about your mediocre boyfriend who routinely forgets your birthday and flirts with other women, on top of being much uglier than you, everybody is embarrassed. Ditching your friends to hang out with a man who probably doesn’t even know your middle name —  not very cool. 

So, is having a boyfriend loser-ish? It definitely can be, but it doesn’t have to be. If you’re in a happy relationship, managing to delicately balance spending time with the person you love and maintaining all the other important relationships in your life, then I would definitely not call you a loser. However if, after getting a boyfriend, you took your carefully developed sense of self and threw her out of the nearest window so that you might become a blank canvas on which the likes, dislikes, and schedule of your boyfriend could imprint themselves, I would invite you to scramble out of that window and try your best to retrieve her — if she’s still there. 

Illustration by Vera Kaganskaya