Excerpted from a comment that I left in last weekend’s discussion on Jezebel about Fucking While Feminist:
The whole “they complete me” idea we have of relationships totally disregards the fact that for some people, long-term monogamous partnerships are just not fulfilling. Some people don’t need romantic love in their life whereas others might want more than one romantic partner, yet all of us get sold the exact same idea: there’s one special person out there who we should be waiting, looking, and striving for. And this is a message given to EVERYBODY — regardless of gender or sexuality.
But what about people who are asexual? People who might have totally great friendships but don’t prioritize romance for whatever reason? People who don’t want to do cohabitation and would prefer to live alone for the rest of their lives? Not choosing love or sex or The One is perhaps the biggest societal taboo, even more scandalous than sleeping around or marrying and divorcing indiscriminately. (At least those things indicate that one is pursuing companionship, be it sexual or romantic.)
If one opts out of all love/sex or doesn’t aspire to be one part of a unit, one automatically becomes known as a crazy person. And while this stereotype is more true for straight women (e.g. unwanted spinsters) than men of any orientation (e.g. swinging bachelors), I definitely think that the both groups are subject to pressure to couple up.

And P.S. is it any surprise that so many marriages end in divorce when the expectations that we have for our spouses are incredibly high and often