Jen’s dream proposal partakes above a sprawling Nevada desert from a hot air balloon. The early sun catches her hair as she places an engagement ring on her finger. The landscape rolls in the background while she describes feeling as free as the balloon she’s floating in. With Jen is Ottawa filmmaker Amen Jafri, who’s creating a documentary on sologamy. While picturesque, that hot air balloon ride was postponed several times due to bad weather. Then Jafri lost some equipment just before shooting the scene. On top of that, her lens was covered in dust. But despite the numerous challenges, she catches the engagement scene, which kicks off Jen’s journey to get married in Las Vegas.
Jen gets engaged to herself in a hot air balloon over the Nevada desert. Photo provided.
Sologamy is the act of committing to and marrying oneself. Its niche popularity has likely received acknowledgement in the last decade thanks to media depictions, including one particular episode of Sex and the City. In the episode, Carrie announces that she’s marrying herself after a friend criticizes her life choices as a single woman. She later points out that there are few celebrations for singles. Instead, single stigma runs rampant. While self-marriage is non-binding, it’s a concept that has grown beyond such comedy-dramas. Jen is among an expanding group of sologamists, as documented in Jafri’s film, So I Married Myself.
Self-marriage ceremonies usually involve a mirror. They also borrow elements from traditional marriage rituals, like wearing a wedding dress or suit. Jafri says that because sologamy is a relatively new concept, people have been making it their own and coming up with creative weddings. Much of the goal is to help the to-be-wed view themselves as another person. Folks’ reasons for developing a loving relationship with themselves vary.
Jen, for example, is a divorced single mom who explains how she’s interested in personal growth after living a life of self-sacrifice as a mom. Some people are attracted to sologamy for its emphasis on self-sufficiency. Others who haven’t gotten married by a certain age and missed out on engagement parties and weddings want a celebration for themselves.
“People gift you all these things that help set you up for the next phase of your life, right?” Jafri says. “But if you don’t have those things, then you don’t get anything, and it creates an uneven balance between people if you’re not partnered up or you’re not married. Like, ‘okay, so I don’t get set up in life?’”
Jafri says she didn’t want to be boxed in after marrying and taking on a mother’s role. Sologamy isn’t just for singles; folks can be partnered or not. However, Jafri adds that she didn’t want to keep piling items on her own life’s to-do list: “I realized that list is endless and I’m never going to be happy, but I had this idea in my head. I bought into this idea that there’s this happily ever after, and it just sort of never ends.”
Photo provided.
Sologamy has its fair share of critics. Comedy skits have been made about it. Some say it’s unnecessary, rejecting it in favour of the sanctity of traditional marriage. Others frequently call it selfish; it’s sometimes referred to as “selfcest.” As a movement predominantly led by people who identify as women, Jafri says that women being labelled as selfish comes as no surprise.
“Because, you know, we often hear that about people that openly say, ‘I don’t want to have children,’ they’re always told, ‘You’re being selfish,’ right? And I think their reasons are often not selfish.”
The February 13 screening of So I Married Myself at the Digital Arts Resource Centre Micro Cinema has unfortunately been cancelled. Find out more about the documentary on Instagram.
