Having a boyfriend has never automatically subjected someone to feel ashamed or cringed, but reading the latest Vogue article “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” It’s something I’ve been thinking about recently, and other people are now realizing the same.
It’s not about simply having a partner, but if that partner is even good enough to shine attention on.
Women have always been told excessively, “Find a man, settle down.” Social media has only made this worse, the couple pictures, engagement announcements, having a boyfriend as an “accessory.” To other people, a women’s world should revolve around her man.
However, as writer Chanté Joseph puts it: “Being partnered doesn’t affirm your womanhood anymore … it is no longer considered an achievement and, if anything, it’s become more of a flex to pronounce yourself single.”
Women all around the internet are echoing the sentiment. Women on Reddit, TikTok, X, they do not necessarily hate relationships, but they’re rejecting the idea that their value depends on being in one.
One user on Reddit simply wrote, “Having a bad boyfriend is definitely embarrassing. Being alone is better than being in a terrible relationship.”
What I love about this cultural flip is how it gives women permission to say, I can have a boyfriend, yes, but I don’t want to be the girlfriend whose life is defined by him. It’s not “boyfriend = lame,” but “boyfriend becomes lame if you let him define you.”
The article itself gives a telling quote: “There is something cringey and embarrassing about constantly posting your partner these days … I wouldn’t want to be boastful.”
Some voices online stretch the narrative, saying it was always lame to have a boyfriend, or treating singlehood as the gold standard. Theres a deeper message in this though: women waking up to the idea that their identity, visibility, and worth doesn’t mean being attached to someone else’s arm.
At its core, the article is a provocation, not an anti-relationship manifesto.
It asks: Why are we so ready to make our partners the highlight of our lives? Why does being single feel risky? For women who have long been brushed as “sad if no boyfriend,” this shift feels like finally seeing their era.
In the age of women standing in their full light, the real embarrassment would be letting someone else carry your story.
