For young singles, friendships add weight in everyday life. The emotional, social, material and economic assistance provided by traditional marriage and family is being replaced by social networks. In his first English-language film, Repulsion, Roman Polanski explored the isolated world of singleness. Released in 1965, this thriller tells the story of the heroine Carlo Redu, a manicurist who lives with her sister in London, is young and beautiful but does not like to interact with people, repeatedly rejects the pursuit of handsome British teenagers, and avoids developing relationships with him. When her sister went on vacation with her boyfriend, Carlo, who had begun to become nervous, fell into a state of madness. This beautiful and isolated woman fantasizes about the perpetrator lurking in every dark corner.
Polanski constructed the three worlds of singles in ingenious ways. The first world is full of helpless emotional relationships, such as Carlo's sister's boyfriend's lack of patience and lack of ability to read and look, and Carlo's colleague Brigitte is full of complaints: "A bunch of damn bad men!" They promise you the whole world, but they can't give anything. Director Polanski highlighted Carlo, who works in a beauty salon, in an industry where women want to please men, and who never really cares about women's own desires (which has led to polanski's criticism, and he has also been prosecuted for having illegal sexual intercourse with minors).
The second world is made up of people who refuse to fall in love. Polanski presents a deep fear within the human heart, that is, a fear of his own emotional isolation. Carlo represents unmarried women who are left unattended. She did not take advantage of her beauty, but isolated herself until her tragic death.
The third world is most often overlooked by critics, the world of singles in groups and social interactions. Carlo looked out the window many times from her sister's apartment and saw the nun happily playing with the ball in the monastery garden. This social approach of replacing love with friendship provides support and brings joy, but is not explored in depth in this film, which is indeed in line with the atmosphere of the 1960s, when this choice was rare outside the love of religious groups. However, the director's depiction of this alternative approach is the most reasonable and desirable. The nuns support each other emotionally and socially, and in the process create a solid structure that draws both director Polanski and protagonist Carlo.
Today, the idea of not wanting a partner like Carlo no longer triggers crazy associations. When the film came out, 72 percent of adults over the age of 18 were married, and now that percentage is about 50 percent. However, how society allows Carlo to overcome panic and make single people connect and socialize with each other is still puzzling.
To solve this puzzle, we can first understand what strategies modern singles employ to be alone and face the fear of isolation. The content discussed below will be discussed in conjunction with the Social Interaction Study, which explores how social activity affects single people. We can enter Carlo's inner world, understand what she thinks as she watches the nuns playing in the courtyard, and think about how singles can boost their sense of well-being.
Alone you will encounter a lot of inconvenience
At first glance, everyone needs a partner to be part of society, and the smallest unit of the big puzzle of society must be composed of at least two people. Research shows that one of the big benefits of marriage is being accompanied and the sense of dependency that comes with marriage. Marriage is therefore used as the most common "vaccine" against the lack of happiness caused by prolonged isolation.
Megan is over 30 and has never been married. She lives in New York and has an enviable job. Megan has some friends and colleagues she can talk about, and everyone likes to get together, but when Sunday comes, she feels trapped and can't help herself. She wrote in her blog: "For a long time, I was afraid of a person's Sunday morning. When I woke up, I noticed that I was alone and anxious. I long for a partner who can heal the pain I've caused by my dislike of myself. I wanted someone to spend lazy Sunday mornings with. I fantasize about hanging out with my lover in the morning when my head is still groggy, snuggling up to each other, drinking coffee or having brunch (or having coffee and eating brunch again), holding hands for a walk, and forgetting the hangover because of the hot love. ”
Many singles, like Megan, feel bad on weekends because they don't have family to spend time with them. There are two main reasons for this: first, there is no work on weekends, so singles have a lot of free time to do, and second, there are fewer friends and no colleagues and customers to meet the needs of social interaction. Therefore, if there is a partner or children to spend their free time on the weekend together, they can realize their desire to interact with others at the same time. When these needs are not met, single people may be depressed and feel unwell.
Sarah encounters the same problem on weekends, and her article talks about the anxiety caused by loneliness, a well-known problem that is quite common among single people. In the neighborhood where Sarah lives, the loneliness grows worse for families to go to church, eat together or travel together. Sarah has no husband or children, and she doesn't know if she should be social and religious alone. In it, she wrote:
I sat in the car and wondered if I had the mental strength to go to the restaurant alone, after all, the weekend was the right time to eat out. I thought it would be better to have a simple sandwich at home and change the route to go home. My tears were almost falling, and I kept telling myself, "It's all right." God has the best arrangement, He has always been there, and you are not alone. Don't cry, don't cry! God, save me. "So I do a mental struggle every week about whether or not to go to church. I went alone, sat alone, left alone, ate alone. I don't really like weekends. Sarah finds herself embarrassed and sad when she goes out alone, so she decides to go home, only to be depressed and lonely. Some single people, like Sarah, feel that they can live, but when they encounter certain types of social interactions, they feel out of place and worthless. This feeling reflects social prejudices. As discussed in the previous chapter, there is ample evidence that society views singles as a burden, even a threat. Social perceptions suggest that single people are more violent, unstable, and in need of help. Polanski's thriller, which describes Carlo's story, is a masterpiece because it highlights the deep fears that singles tend to go crazy about not being able to be alone. The film ends with Carlo killing her suitor and her sister's landlord, depicting the ends that living alone can lead to, nakedly revealing the ultimate collective fear.
In addition to emotional challenges, single people may also face physical/material challenges, such as taking care of household chores, losing their jobs, or experiencing illness or limited mobility. People with partners, especially those with children, often feel blessed in this situation because close relatives can help. During unemployment, your partner can provide financial support and help with your movements, diet, etc. when you are sick or injured. So it's not hard to understand that Sarah has a new idea a year after describing a lonely weekend. Sarah goes on to describe the difficulties of living alone:
There are two situations that make me dislike living alone. First, there is something that cannot be opened. One day, I seriously considered whether to smash the newly purchased salad sauce jar on the tile floor and clean the glass. However, I couldn't lose the woman's face, so I knocked hard, used a towel, hit hard, and finally succeeded, trying to open the can for five minutes to make my hands sour.
Second, when you are sick. Frankly, being alone when you're sick is really worse than anything. The most tragic thing is not the feeling of loneliness, but the fact that you will start to worry that you may die of undernutrition because you don't have the energy to cook for yourself, the thought of getting up, stepping out of the distance from the bedroom to the toilet, and being able to smell the food when cooking... It's really not a comfortable thing. Anyway, I didn't eat for days.
Sarah is afraid of getting bogged down in tough times and writes about the difficulties encountered in everyday chores like opening a can. Situations like this that require help can be frustrating, and you can't make an emergency call to ask someone to open the jar. When no one can provide simple but necessary assistance on the spot, single people can feel extremely distressed and helpless. The challenge of moving or eating is more difficult and will be encountered more frequently as we age. Many people, like Sarah, are usually able to cope with a person's life, but when they are sick, they will especially need the assistance of someone next to them. In fact, the motivation that makes people want to get married sometimes lies not in the beautiful fantasies of their partners, but in the fear of a person who is vulnerable and helpless, so they use marriage as an insurance plan when their physical function deteriorates.