When Vogue recently posed the provocative and now viral question  “Is having a boyfriend embarrassing now?”  it distilled something both ridiculous and revealing about the cultural moment we’re living in. A moment where irony has become emotional armour, and sincerity, especially romantic sincerity, is treated with suspicion.

In the social media arena where everything is performative, from your skincare routine to your heartbreak being visibly in love has become a quiet act of rebellion. We’ve curated personas around being unbothered, independent, and in control. To be “down bad” is seen as a loss of power; to be loved openly, a loss of cool. But what does it say about our generation that we find vulnerability cringe, and companionship somehow embarrassing?

At Chaud, we’ve spent the past year gently interrogating these cultural contradictions  from essays on the joy of hobbies that belong to you alone, to features about friendship, sisterhood, and how adult womanhood is as much about nurturing platonic love as it is about romantic fulfilment. We’ve written about solo date rituals and finding your rhythm outside of your partner’s,  a reminder that the healthiest relationships are built between two whole people, not two halves waiting to be completed.

The irony, of course, is that even when women try to decentre men from our narratives, we end up circling right back to them. Whether the topic is the “male loneliness epidemic,” hypergamy, “bird theory,” or the performative mockery of the “my man, my man, my man” trend, men remain the gravitational force around which the discourse orbits. Even the rejection of them requires their presence.

bell hooks once wrote, “We can only love others as much as we love ourselves.” In her seminal book all about love, she argues that love is an action, a choice grounded in care, commitment, responsibility, and knowledge. For hooks, love is never something that should humiliate or diminish us. It should expand us.

And perhaps that’s the essence of modern womanhood: not the rejection of love, but the redefinition of it. Not cynicism, but discernment.

The New Self-Actualised Lover

The self-actualised woman is not embarrassed by her relationship. She does not shrink into it, nor does she weaponise her independence against it. She knows who she is, what she wants, and what she will not tolerate. She tends to her own garden, literally and metaphorically so that any relationship she enters is an extension of her joy, not a substitute for it.

In the age of online discourse, love has become algorithmic: everything must be labelled, decoded, optimised. There’s a podcast for the “high-value woman,” a debate about “soft life” femininity, and a TikTok tutorial on “how to date like a man.” It’s exhausting. What’s been lost in the noise is that companionship in its healthiest, most grounded form  is deeply human.

It is not embarrassing to be loved well. It is not regressive to want partnership. What’s embarrassing, perhaps, is pretending we don’t care when we actually do.

Fulfilment Before Fusion

This year at Chaud, we celebrated the art of having a life outside your relationship. The quiet pride in hobbies that exist beyond the male gaze: the simple pleasure of candle-making, perfume blending, reading, hosting dinner for friends, dancing alone in your kitchen. These are acts of selfhood that reinforce a deeper truth  that love thrives best when two people come to it already whole.

The most compelling women I know are not defined by their partners but are deeply present within their relationships. They’re the women who can discuss philosophy and fashion, who text their girlfriends memes and check in on their mental health, who travel solo and plan anniversaries. They live their “main character” lives without making others the supporting cast.

As hooks writes, “Love is an act of will, both an intention and an action.” Choosing to love wisely and deeply is not a betrayal of feminism. It’s a continuation of it. Because love that honours freedom, equality, and mutual respect is revolutionary.

The Beauty of Choosing Love Anyway

To choose love in a world that rewards detachment is, in many ways, an act of courage. To believe in romance without losing your sense of self is radical. To say “my man” with joy and sincerity, without irony or performance, is a reclamation of tenderness.

Yes, Olivia Dean’s “The Man I Need” might make us cringe at its earnestness. Yes, “my man, my man, my man” TikToks can be excessive. But they also remind us that there’s still something irresistibly human about wanting to be seen, cherished, and adored. We just need the discernment to ensure the love we receive mirrors the wholeness we’ve built.

Hypergamy, “bird theory,” “situationship culture”, these are all linguistic detours that keep us analysing men instead of exploring ourselves. The real work lies in knowing our desires intimately: to ask ourselves what kind of love aligns with our values, our peace, and our purpose.

Because a partner, no matter how wonderful, is not the plot. They are a subplot in the story of a woman who is deeply alive, creative, fulfilled, and present in her own narrative.

Unembarrassed, Unbothered, Unapologetically In Love

The next era of womanhood isn’t about de-centering men entirely  it’s about de-centering dependence. It’s about holding space for romance and realism, affection and autonomy. It’s about reclaiming the right to love without irony, to enjoy companionship without performance, and to choose joy without fear of judgement.

In the end, self-actualisation doesn’t mean rejecting love. It means loving better, with boundaries, clarity, and a sense of humour about it all.

So, no. Having a boyfriend isn’t embarrassing. Being ashamed of joy is.

And as Chaud enters another year of exploring womanhood in all its complex, fragrant layers, let this be our quiet manifesto: We will not apologise for being whole and in love.