Yes, my friend and I made up this term in our early twenties. We were confident, young women ready to make our way into the world. We were not feminists, no. But we did believe very strongly that we could live in the big city, rise in our careers, look glamorous, and be everything we wanted to be, AND we “ain’t need no Man” to either inspire or help us do it.
So we set off as YIFs, happy and energetic. We rented our own apartments (found other YIFs along the way), booked trips and traveled together, went hiking, cooked feasts; we lived by that mantra. We moved and built our own furniture, did our own taxes, dressed fancily for a night out, all just for ourselves. Sure, there were men along the way; we did not avoid men — there were dates and long-term boyfriend, coworkers, guy friends. But it always felt so refreshing and reassuring to ourselves, that we were most certainly not defining our lives or planning our lives around a man, or a need for a man.
Would we have liked a man? Absolutely. Did we flatter our ways into getting a man’s help sometimes? Guilty. Sometimes it just makes sense not to waste our YIF energy in doing something that a man can more physically and mentally do more easily (i.e. carry the bags of 25lb rice, decide what restaurant to go to or what movie to watch).
The one kryptonite of a YIF though, is when despite all intentions and attempts, that one man does enter her life and ruins it all. Maybe we’re fickle, maybe we’re frauds, but try as we might, if it is the right man, the YIF power fails to activate. And I’m not even just saying the few days a month. Once a YIF has experienced that perfect softness yet sturdy hand entwining her fingers, or the untimely, quirky humor that raises her eyebrows, she just loses the focus required to carry on. In fact, it’s almost like the power source for YIF has been replaced with the oftentimes unreliable battery pack of that one man. And when that man doesn’t show up, the YIF becomes a weepy, angry, hot mess, entirely contrary to her usual composed and in-control YIF-ness.
It is even more frustrating when a YIF desires desperately to be a YIF and summons all her energy trying to return to that level of YIF euphoria… but cannot because of a stupid boy. Perhaps one day, the YIF and the right man will learn to combine their abilities and advance to that of Power Couple and Superhuman Parents, those who have been able to take on the world as an unbreakable pair.
