A Woman Without Her Man Is Nothing

Among the twelve of us in our team, I am the only one without a partner.

And I plan on staying so.

There was one time when four of us were in the faculty room and I found myself watching my colleagues talk about their boyfriends. And as I was looking at their animated faces, I thougth that they totally forgot about themselves, drowned in their little chitchat of what makes their boyfriend adorable. Suddenly, it was as if their identity is tied to their boyfriends, as if they would dissolve into nothingness Sandman-style without their man.

Though they were happy, I was sad for them, because in a single second, in their single smile, they lost their being to another person. They became dolls, lifeless dolls, they became not themselves anymore. They are not my colleagues, not my friends, just a giggling something.

Then I thought, "Woman, without her man, is nothing".

I think of myself as a feminist. But this remark, in this one moment, rings eternal.