Young adults gladly go it alone
Christi Rae, 33, lives a life many people would envy. The Montreal native has a rewarding, well-paying job as a video-game development director at Electronic Arts Canada. Between the ages of 25 and 30, Rae lived abroad, spending three years in New Zealand and backpacking through several other countries before settling in Vancouver. Besides travel, her big passion is rock climbing, and she hangs out with a wide circle of friends.
What’s missing —or not missing—from this happy picture? Rae has done it all while staying single. Sure, there were some romances along the way, but for most of her adult life she’s been a free agent—by choice. Rae tells the Georgia Straight that after she left university, the thought of marriage made her cringe. Her 20s were about exploring, and during the past few years she has focused on her career. She hasn’t ruled out meeting the right guy and starting a family, but she’s clearly in no hurry. “I always knew in my head that I wanted to get everything out of the way that I wanted to do myself,” Rae recalls. “So then whenever I had kids, I could be very committed and not be one of those people that were thinking they gave something up to have a child.”
If recent stats are any indication, Rae is one of a growing number of young Canadians who are going it alone. According to Statistics Canada, between 1981 and 2001 there was a sharp decrease in 20-to-29-year-olds living as couples. The proportion of women aged 20 to 24 in marriages or common-law unions plunged from 46 to 26 percent; for men the same age, it dropped from 27 to 14 percent. In the 25-to-29 age bracket, the percentages fell from 73 to 57 and 64 to 45, respectively. Is single the new married? Maybe not, but it’s looking like a contender.
Young adults gladly go it alone Just as singles defy social pressures, young couples have staked out new territory. Vancouver counsellor Jocelyn Rose says many of her clients are opting for what she calls a “designer relationship”. In other words, they refuse to let religious mores and other people’s views dictate the terms of the relationship. “It’s more of a ”˜Who are you, who am I, and what’s the contract that you and I need to work out together or design?’” Rose explains. Couples also visit her for tune-ups. “They come a few times a year, just if there are any problems that are showing up in their relationship that they just want to get out of the way before they blossom into anything ugly.” The other new thing Rose is seeing is an embrace, so to speak, of swinging and polyamory. “Couples that are in relationships are no longer willing to give up their sexuality to the same degree that our parents were,” she says. “So they’re also looking at ”˜Okay, right now we’re going to be together, but 10 years from now when we’re really tired of each other sexually, how are we going to handle that?’?” These couples aren’t waiting around for infidelities to develop in secret, Rose adds. “[They’re] thinking about that now, while [they’re] still totally engaged in each other, and then start building a relationship based on trust.” According to Rose, some of her long-time clients with children have actually strengthened their bond by joining the swinger set. But without consent, sleeping around is just cheating. “It can’t happen in the middle of a relationship—boom, somebody has an affair,” Rose says with a laugh. “That still gets the same results it always did.” |
What forces are at work here? Rae belongs to a generation of women who grew up with more opportunities than their mothers did. Because she and her single female friends are financially independent, they don’t have to rely on men for security. Freed from old social constraints and expectations, they’re adventurous too: for example, Rae has always travelled alone. In her experience, this freedom can result in a reluctance to commit. “I think every door’s open to us, so because you have so many choices you then tend to take a whole bunch of choices,” she says.
Jocelyn Rose, a professional counsellor and life coach based in Vancouver, has many single clients in their 20s and 30s. “I’m finding that a lot of people are very slow to marry,” she observes. “It’s no longer the cool thing to do.” Rose says much of this change is being driven by women who question the value of having a husband. She also notices more young women experimenting with bisexuality. Rose has learned that as people age, it’s men who are less commitment-phobic. “I’ve got a few male clients that kind of stall it out, but I’ve got a lot more women that, quite seriously, can take years to get into a relationship.”
If singles do decide to get serious, Rose says, they often approach it in the same cool-headed way they plan everything else. “Now it’s like buying a car,” she notes. “Now you’re interviewing all of the prospectives.” According to Rose, long hours at the office and a lack of community make it tough for people in their 30s to meet potential partners. So they turn to Web sites like Lavalife, and the screening process begins. Rose says Internet dating is part of a new emphasis on making careful—if somewhat self-centred—decisions about life and relationships. “That’s probably a good thing, but it’s different from anything that we’ve known before.”
Christi Rae has seen her 30-something friends start dating on-line—not out of desperation, but because it may help them find what they want at this stage in their lives. As for herself, she claims not to feel what she admits is still a strong social pressure on women to get married and have children. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get married,” she says. “But does that mean I’m less serious with someone? No. I don’t agree with that. I could be with someone for the rest of my life.”
Besides giving her a stronger sense of herself and what she likes, getting older has made Rae less preoccupied with guys’ looks. “You just realize you don’t put as much importance on it as the mental compatibility that has a huger impact on your relationship,” she explains. Older or not, Rae is definitely wise.
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