Culture: The Cruelty of "Forever Girlfriend"

Photo by rayul on Unsplash

Every once in a while, social media explodes with a familiar story. A woman who’s been dating the same man for five, seven, or ten years shares her frustration over not being married yet, and the internet responds with variations of, “If you’re that unhappy, just leave;” “If he wanted to, he would;” or “This is how you end up a forever girlfriend.”

Even when the advice sounds well-meaning, there’s a sneer behind it. Forever Girlfriend isn’t meant to be simply descriptive, but derogatory. There’s no charity, no empathy for her. There’s no acknowledgment that a relationship is more complicated than “if he doesn’t propose you should leave.”

These women become a joke, portrayed as incompetent for not being able to control the pace of their relationship or find a man who will do as she wants when she wants it. They’re seen as stupid for not “seeing the signs” and realizing the man they’re with “doesn’t really love them” as if the measure of true love was a wedding ring.

I get the general reaction. It’s easy to judge others’ mistakes from a distance, to look down on the women who stay with a man for five, seven, or ten years without a proposal or a wedding ring and point out how they’re “wasting their lives” with men “who don’t respect or love them enough.”

It’s easy to identify one sore spot that stands out and forget there’s probably a lot more behind the surface. It’s easy to forget that a relationship is made of two complex humans and a result of how those humans interact with one another over time. It’s easy to place men and women into rigidly defined boxes: these men are dishonest; these women are stupid.

The message is clear: only stupid women end up with dishonest men. Smart women become wives. Stupid women remain forever girlfriends.