Here’s a question for you all.
Do couples have less of a social life than singles?
On a Saturday night at 8:18 p.m. when Matt and I are both sitting at our computers, I’m just wondering.
The Tin Man
Here’s a question for you all.
Do couples have less of a social life than singles?
On a Saturday night at 8:18 p.m. when Matt and I are both sitting at our computers, I’m just wondering.
I’ve wondered the same thing. Its possible singles enjoy more social outlets. However, if you’re happy and content where you are, does it really matter?
I’m single. It’s 7:17 PM here on Saturday and I’m reading blogs. Does that answer your question? ;-)
To the extent that people craft a social life as a strategy to find a partner, possibly. I’ve been surprised by the amount of people I’ve met who think there’s no other reason to go out.
Based on my experiences in coupledom, yes… usually.
James and I will be together 7 years in May and since this is the first real gay relationship for either of us we talk often about this type of thing. We both never enjoyed the gay bar scene, or the ‘norms’ for what being gay is all about. So as we sit on Saturday nights watching a film, or doing something on our office computers, or having dinner with friends and tea and chat late into the night, We smile and know this is the life we always wanted. The ‘social scene’ was just a way to try and meet someone that was so special and fun that we needed no other folks around. In the end I met James at Borders Books while reading a newspaper. He came up and asked, “Anything interesting in the news?” Now there is a pick up line that works!
We’ve been living together about four years now, with only just a month of marriage, and we rarely go out. At first we did do the whole club scene in Boston and Providence (we now live equidistant from both with the new Route 44 highway). Then we gradually just did the local bar scene, being lucky enough to have about four bars in a 20min driving distance. Now? We cook at home, invite friends and family over, tend our indoor winter gardens or outdoor summer ones, play with the cats, read, watch dvr’d shows or dvd’s, and play Warcraft. We also travel a fair amount and do hiking-camping when time allows. And it’s a great, very enjoyable lifestyle for us.
That we gradually arrived at this lifestyle, slowly leaving the gay-bar/club scene behind, is more about finding what really is fun for us together than anything to do with coupling-inertia.
The gay scene is fun, but from our perspective seems increasingly consumerist, culturally homogeneous, and partying-centred. Going to a club or gay-bar, to us at least, is more like visiting in-laws in the increasingly irrelevant gay-ghetto. So, when we do go out it’s more about eating specialty foods with friends/families at a favorite restaurant (mmm, anything Japanese or Korean), attend a DNC cabal with other Mass Lefties, or buy meats to grill back at home. It’s not about seeking hordes of others with which to party and play in a particular, static scene.
The last two commenters have mentioned the gay bar scene. But that’s not what I mean by a social life. I’m talking about socializing with other people. Friends. Do couples tend to have fewer friends than singles, because they spend more time with each other?
In response to the last question, I would say my/his/our friends have actually doubled. There were two of my friends that left me as I was no longer “on call’ for whatever they wanted to do, but overall we have more friends as a result of being together. We tend to have more kitchen time with friends either here, or at other peoples homes as we seem to center lots around eating and talking there. But his friends are wonderful and academic, mine are more from the poltical world, and so the combo makes for lots of fun interaction. On the whole I think his friends have enriched me mentally more than the other way around even though he truly enjoys mine.
BTW, I do think this is a wonderful topic that you have brought up.
I think it depends on the individuals that comprise the couple. Nick, for example, is a social butterfly with many friends and routinely goes out every weekend. I am more interested in my computer hobbies and don’t see much daylight let lone social nightlife. During the week we pretty much sit side by side in our office typing away, distracted only by what the god TiVo has recorded for us. On the weekends he still goes out and I either just work late or come home to ready another O’Reilly book on open source this or that. He certainly still has countless friends and I still have…well, um, yeah. :-)
My social life is way busier now that I’m in a relationship. Now we have both sides of social activity to attend. I was never all that social – just a few good friends, never really into the party scene, bar scene or “networking”, and now the social life is a bit overwhelming. Many weekends we go from party to party until I’m BEGGING to go home: “I’ll blow you for an hour if we leave right now…sweetie-pumpkin-jujube.” We had to come up with a “one social event per weekend” rule although we haven’t adhered to it.
In a word, yes.