{"id":693426,"date":"2025-11-14T17:01:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T14:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=693426"},"modified":"2025-11-14T17:01:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T14:01:17","slug":"my-story-asking-if-boyfriends-were-embarrassing-went-viral-heres-what-that-says-about-the-state-of-heterosexual-dating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=693426","title":{"rendered":"My Story Asking if Boyfriends Were Embarrassing Went Viral. Here\u2019s What That Says About the State of Heterosexual Dating"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Opinion<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

My Story Asking if Boyfriends Were Embarrassing Went Viral. Here\u2019s What That Says About the State of Heterosexual Dating<\/h1>\n
By <\/span>Chant\u00e9 Joseph<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

November 14, 2025<\/p>\n

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    Artwork: Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n
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    As a straight woman, I say this with love, care, and concern: are we okay? Earlier this month, I filed an article asking a simple question: \u201cIs Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?\u201d I could not have imagined the chaos that would follow.<\/p>\n

    Since I shared it on social media, the TikTok I flung into the ether at 2 a.m. has been watched 5.7 million times. I acquired more than 100,000 new followers across my platforms practically overnight. I\u2019ve spoken to media outlets across the globe. My face has been everywhere, my name butchered in multiple dialects. People have stopped me to ask for photos. I\u2019ve been heralded as the voice of single women, a wannabe Carrie Bradshaw, a witch! Even the mayor of New York, my<\/em> mayor (I live in West London), chimed in.<\/p>\n

    I watched my article spawn a global TikTok trend (and knew it had peaked when brands started jumping on it)\u2014it was incredible to see how fast an idea could take hold. Part of me was just thankful to see that journalism can still spark such a reaction. People are reading, reflecting, and debating\u2014thank God! I rode the highs of \u201cJournalism is so<\/em> back,\u201d and the lows of, \u201cThis is the problem with media today.\u201d But as I marveled at the attention\u2014good and bad\u2014I couldn\u2019t help but wonder<\/em>: why is it that of everything I\u2019ve ever written, this piece sparked such a visceral and widespread reaction? And what does that say about the landscape of modern dating?<\/p>\n

    As much as we think we\u2019re living in relatively progressive times, there appears to be a widespread reluctance to take a closer or more nuanced look at heterosexual dynamics, and the ways in which they may not exactly be serving us.<\/p>\n

    I was tagged in countless sound-sync videos of swooning couples, captioned: \u201cSorry, Vogue<\/em>, this is not embarrassing.\u201d I mean, sure. But none of that takes away from the fact that we\u2019re clearly in the midst of a cultural shift. From speaking to countless straight women\u2014both for the article and after its publication\u2014it\u2019s evident that many of us are moving away from defining ourselves by our romantic relationships in public settings, in ways that differentiate us from prior generations, even in comparison to just a few years ago. To me, that\u2019s worth speaking about and interrogating.<\/p>\n

    Another common response to my article was an immediate rush to add caveats to the main question. People insisted that having a boyfriend had the potential to be embarrassing only<\/em> when a man doesn\u2019t meet certain criteria, or isn\u2019t good to you. Whether that\u2019s true or not is irrelevant. The need to identify exceptions is one way of evading conversation about meaningful change within heterosexual dynamics, and the mess of modern dating. But it can\u2019t be all men,<\/em> and somehow not your man<\/em>\u2014that is delusional. Dating fatigue is real and, to me at least, reflects a wider issue of misogyny in the dating space. We should be focused on pushing for better\u2014and that\u2019s a shared fight, not a private one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Depressingly, the article also sparked some hateful abuse, most of which came from men who read the headline and apparently flew into a rage. They wished abusive future relationships on me, warned me I\u2019d die sad and single, or in some cases described how they\u2019d murder me. At points all of this was worrying. But I quickly realized they likely saw the article as a threat to a system that has historically favored them. If having a man used to be the ultimate prize, and now some women are questioning whether it is anymore, well\u2026 that\u2019s bound to be destabilizing.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s funny in all of this is how much I\u2019ve been accused of demonizing people for seeking love. That couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. So many of us, myself included, yearn for companionship. I am not completely hopeless; part of me wants to believe things can get better. I wonder whether the original piece touched such a nerve because our obsession with straight coupledom\u2014what it means, the ways in which it\u2019s for so long been positioned as aspirational\u2014conceals a lot of the unsavory things we\u2019d rather not address, mostly because they\u2019re too sticky and complicated to fix all at once.<\/p>\n

    If merely asking<\/em> whether or not \u201chaving a boyfriend\u201d\u2014once that most coveted and desirable of things\u2014has become culturally embarrassing causes such a fiery global debate, I think it is a conversation worth having, and continuing to have. Maybe on the other side of this reaction is a future in which our romantic relationships are a source of joy and liberation, instead of division and fatigue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

    Source URL: http:\/\/vogue.com\/article\/on-the-reaction-to-is-having-a-boyfried-embarrassing-now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Opinion My Story Asking if Boyfriends Were Embarrassing Went Viral. Here\u2019s What That Says About the State of Heterosexual Dating By Chant\u00e9 Joseph November 14, 2025 Artwork: Getty Images As a straight woman, I say this with love, care, and concern: are we okay? Earlier this month, I filed an article asking a simple question: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":693427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-693426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-vogue-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=693426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/693427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=693426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=693426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=693426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}