Forget nepo babies, the new social privilege is being in a long-term relationship

If you’ve been in a monogamous relationship for a decent chunk of time, you may have fallen into familiar patterns of complaining about your partner. Why does he leave balled-up socks in random places all over the house? How does she manage to shed hair everywhere? Wouldn’t it be nice to have that spark from the beginning of a relationship back?

Aside from the fact that I love my partner dearly (and he’s my best friend), I have come to the realisation that being in a relationship is the best way to experience life socially and economically – something one of my single friends recently confirmed when relaying a truly upsetting story to me.

Our society expects you to pay a privilege for being single. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

She had just sat down in a cafe at a two-seater table by herself but before she could even order, she was asked to leave because a family had arrived and wanted her table to add to theirs. Despite her being there first, the business clearly saw more economic value in the larger group. With no other tables available, my friend had to humiliatingly pack her things and leave.

This might feel like a minor incident, but society is built around and for couples. Whether it’s being stuck with the bunk beds in every shared holiday house booking (or being expected to pay the same amount for the accommodation as two people when the costs are split), having to pay to celebrate socially sanctioned couple milestones like engagements, weddings, baby showers and subsequent children’s parties, the emotional and financial implications are vast. And they have to do it all on a single income.

According to a March report from Everybody’s Home, a single person now needs to earn $130,000 a year to be able to comfortably afford rent. And as Victoria Devine noted in these pages last year, a single person’s salary declines by almost two-thirds compared to a couple’s after bills, transport, groceries and other living expenses are covered. You might think that one person has roughly half the living expenses of two, but it isn’t that simple. For example, the average single person spends 65 per cent of what a couple spends on groceries a week, and 81 per cent of what a couple spends on electricity per quarter.

Then there’s the social privilege I enjoy not only from being in a couple, but especially since we had our son last year. When you have a young child, people rush to give you their seats on public transport. We have priority parking options at shopping centres. People are entirely understanding when you’re late or if you cancel plans at the last minute. Doctors see us sooner, and roadside assistance wait times go from hours to minutes when they know there’s a baby with us. Strangers go out of their way to smile, chat and interact with us.

Society loves people who conform to the expectations. Yet having attained all of those hallmarks of “success”, I am acutely aware of how unfair the system is. But whether you’re in a relationship or not has very little to do with who you are as a person, and a lot more to do with luck, timing and compatibility. You can’t, for example, help if someone decides to walk out the door one day. Whether you then choose to have children, or are able to, is also dependent on another set of factors that are often out of your control.

The irony in putting so much value on coupled people (and in particular, coupled people with children) is that none of us would be able to function without single people in our lives. My colleagues without children willingly take on overtime or weekend work. My sister and friends help out babysitting because they have the capacity. My neighbour looks after our dog when we travel as a family because she’s able to leave her own home and stay in mine without much fuss.

I’m aware that my capacity to give back has dwindled since having a kid, and I worry that they don’t know how much they mean to me because the focus is so often on family life now. Perhaps because of this, and the reality that society has created a ranking system none of us agreed to, it feels like I have a responsibility to put in more effort to celebrate them, their achievements and the things they’re excited about and, at the very least, acknowledge that we are treated differently.

Zoya Patel is a freelance writer.

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