The Politics of Opting Out: A Response to Vogue’s ‘Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?’

Image via Fine Art America

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Just a few weeks ago, on October 29th, Vogue published journalist Chanté Joseph’s article—“Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?”

Almost instantly, Joseph’s piece went viral, her article’s assertions rippled across the internet, and she was inevitably met with a storm of mixed reactions. Whether people loved the article, or loathed it, the internet seemed to unanimously agree—the article had captured a cultural “script shift” everyone had quietly sensed for a while now, and put it into words. 

Finally, someone said it out loud—having a boyfriend (and flaunting him online) is just not as socially prized as it once was, and is, sometimes, even frowned upon. 

For much of the 2010s, being partnered boosted a woman’s social cachet, especially online. Youtube and Instagram was a kind of “Boyfriend Land,” where beloved beauty and lifestyle vloggers began to feature their content around the aspirational glow that came with the goal-worthiness of their seemingly perfectly adorable relationships. The coolest girls of this social media era all seemed to have an adoring boyfriend by their side. In a way, their identities soon began to blur with their relationship’s, and their appeal to younger girls became tied to their status of being “chosen” as a girlfriend.

That era has now, evidently, collapsed. 

Now, the internet’s coolest influencers condemn having a boyfriend. Joseph’s article cited commentary from some of TikTok’s currently most trendy, “cool girl” users:

“Why does having a boyfriend feel Republican?”

“Boyfriends are out of style. They won’t come back in until they start acting right.” 

Even the women with boyfriends tend to engage in this sort of lighthearted, casually antagonistic humor online in solidarity, as being seen as simply a “boyfriend girl” feels socially regressive. In contemporary feminism, many women are more worried about how they’re perceived in alignment with other women, rather than being approved of by men. 

What’s even more striking is that this cultural moment doesn’t just exist in a vacuum—or on social media—but mirrors broader demographic and political trends defining our modern (dating) world. 

Across the entire globe, women are characteristically marrying less or later in life, or, not at all. Nearly half of Canadian adults now say marriage is unnecessary. Women in countries like Japan are opting out of marriage entirely. In the United States, fewer than half of all households are headed by a married couple—the lowest rate in modern history—and the fertility rate has dropped to a record low of 1.6 children per woman. Evidently, women are not just decentering men online—they’re doing it in real life. For the first time in history, many women have gained the financial and social freedom to reject the unfulfilling marriages they once needed to survive. Opting out of relationships no longer signals the death of livelihood; for some, it signals liberation. 

Historically, marriage has been an institution built on women’s submission—from being “given away” at weddings to losing legal autonomy under coverture laws, it has long operated as a patriarchal contract rather than an equal partnership. Today’s women, conscious of this legacy, see disengagement from this institution as both self-preservation and political protest. When they do participate in relationships, visibility remains a negotiation. 

When a “cool” feminist woman does post her boyfriend on her social media pages, he’ll typically be seen tucked into the background, rather than featured at the forefront, of her content—a main component of the discrete “soft-launching” trend. Meanwhile, young men are often applauded for loudly flaunting, or endearingly “showing off,” their girlfriend online. 

Female politicians and public figures know they must acknowledge their husbands to appear legitimate to male audiences, yet must meticulously distance them from their campaigns or overall image as a strong female leader in the eyes of other women. Male politicians, on the other hand, thoughtlessly and proudly showcase their wives as symbols of stability, accomplishment, and virtue. 

Overexposing your male partner, for teenage girls and elite policymakers alike, now risks saying “I’m defined by him.” Across every sphere, the same question arises—who benefits from being seen in love, and who risks being diminished by it?

Women, perhaps initially responding to this culture of surveillance, are increasingly recognizing that the burdens of having a boyfriend might outweigh the benefits. Part of why having a boyfriend now feels so embarrassing is because of what that dynamic has historically demanded. Women are tired of playing therapist, mother, and motivational coach to emotionally underdeveloped men—roles men rarely have to assume for their girlfriends. As one Stanford researcher describes, women in relationships are performing “mankeeping”—managing the emotional fallout of male loneliness (while suppressing their own needs in the relationship).

Consequently, recent studies show that single women report higher levels of satisfaction with their relationship status, life satisfaction, and a lower desire for a partner compared to single men. Women are now finding that single life is not just sufficient, but fully fulfilling. 

The side effect? Men are floundering. 

As women begin to statistically outperform men in academics and leadership roles, and are increasingly decentering the value of men in their lives, men overwhelmingly respond by sinking themselves deeper and deeper into the so-called “male loneliness epidemic.” While young women have become significantly more liberal, young men have trended conservative—many claiming that “advancing women’s and girls’ rights has gone too far.” As women “opt out” of relationships, men feel rejected and turn to online echo chambers for validation—spaces filled with misogyny and anger. Influencers like Andrew Tate have built empires off male insecurity, selling victimhood as masculinity. This wave of young men “refuse to take accountability for their misery,” blaming women, rather than adapting to new socio-political landscapes. For the first time in history, it’s men who must compete to be chosen—and many aren’t. Statistics show a shocking 39% of men ages 25-54 years old were unpartnered in 2019. 

Of course, not every boyfriend is “embarrassing,” but women’s newfound selectivity reflects progress—the refusal to settle for men who drain, disrespect, or endanger them. For example, domestic violence rates have declined by about 9% since the 1990s, which could be a meaningful sign that women are, perhaps, escaping emotionally stunted, abusive men earlier, or even refusing to enter into relationships with them in the first place. 

Maybe this phenomenon isn’t merely a social media trend cycle—it’s women finally, actually decentering men in a society that has long centralized them (while the men, in effect, might be struggling to recenter themselves). 

“Being partnered doesn’t affirm your womanhood anymore.”

For centuries, women were taught to measure success by their proximity to men. Now, the ultimate flex might be freedom—the power to say “no.”

Still, society must consider what happens when women stop participating in heterosexual relationships at such a large scale? Does this cultural and political shift protect women, or merely deepen an already immense divide between the sexes, further fueling resentment that may be exploited politically? Furthermore, how will a shift in the private sphere, romantic relationships, interact with the public sphere and policy, as tax codes, social benefits, health coverage, and more, all assume family models. If younger generations continue to defy these expectations, our political institutions may be challenged in ways that could reshape governmental and social order all together. 

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This article was edited by Vedha Gokul and Graciela Wray-Rivera.