The actor Emma Watson, a well-loved role model for gender equality recently announced that she calls herself self-partnered, not single.

I definitely understand the impulse. It sometimes feel like "single" is a female state. Single men are often seen as the desirable that can't be 'caught', or accorded the gravitas of seers, thinkers and warriors. A woman untethered continues to make people uneasy, with implications that she may be high-maintenance, not good enough to choose or too uncompromising. Especially when embarking on a different road as young people, we find our choices diminished by constantly being defined vis-à-vis the existing convention, not as choices in themselves whose meanings will unfold over time. Often, we reach for new terms because we want to assert that our natures and choices are not only with respect to convention—they are something valid in themselves. But, we also end up sometimes presenting this still in terms of the existing frame or classification—in this case partnership becomes the default—rather than on its own terms.