Congratulations are in order to Chappell Roan, who confirmed that she is in a relationship (and it’s “serious”!) on this week’s episode of Call Her Daddy. Also confirmed? That despite being “very in love,” the superstar remains “pro-single.”

“It’s serious. I’m very in love, but I am pro-single,” Chappell told host Alex Cooper. “Everyone should be single, I’m serious. Be single. Stop dating. Be single. Have a great time alone. Find out for yourself if you can 100 percent be okay alone before you date. That’s what I found out. I had a great time when I was single and I know that I’ll be okay and I have an awesome time now that I’m with someone.”

To some, Chappell declaring her continued support for the single population as if it were a political position before launching into a monologue on the joys of being unpartnered as a member of the “very in love” elite may come across as unnecessary, condescending, or even a tad insincere. But let me say, as someone who is both (perhaps aggressively) pro-single and actually single myself, I get it.

An early episode of Sex and the City famously proposed the existence of a “secret cold war” between single women and married ones. Per the show, friendships become strained or even impossible to maintain when women cross over from the Singles to the Marrieds because once they do, “they become married, and we become the enemy,” as Carrie puts it. In a somewhat Samantha-coded moment, Miranda cosigns this theory, claiming married women see their single counterparts as a threat: “Married women are threatened because we can have sex anytime, anywhere with anyone. And they’re afraid we’re gonna have it anytime, anywhere with their husbands.”

For a show that infamously “hasn’t aged well,” Sex and the City has a way of reminding us that we haven’t come as far as a society since 1998 as we may like to think—that perhaps we, ourselves, haven’t aged particularly well. While I don’t know that it has much to do with anyone assuming single women are all shameless adulteresses just waiting to sink their claws into other people’s husbands, I think it’s hard to deny that some quarter-century later, there’s still an unspoken societal divide between partnered women and single ones—and that crossing over from one side to the other can feel like a betrayal.

Chappell Roan’s impulse to clarify that she remains a single ally and wax poetic on the virtues of singlehood speaks to this divide, as well as a modern anxiety I suspect it breeds for many partnered women. Upon getting into a relationship, I think many newly coupled women are afraid—not that their single friends now pose a sexual threat but that they’ll judge them for switching sides. For leaving them in the trenches. For becoming one of them.

The way I see it, this is the result of two main things: (1) a society that privileges romantic partnership, and (2) a modern feminist reaction against it. Because this societal “couple privilege” remains rooted in dated, heteropatriarchal ideals and structures, getting into a relationship can feel vaguely regressive or embarrassing to modern young women who like to consider ourselves progressive and open-minded. As a politically fraught era of “childless cat ladies” vs. trad wives has increasingly politicized the divide between single and partnered women, getting into a societally sanctioned relationship and collecting the status boost that inevitably comes with it can feel like conceding to a system, submitting to The Man.

As Chappell’s comments seem to illustrate, even for queer women in non-hetero relationships whose love lives should presumably be exempt from these patriarchal undertones, leaving Team Single behind and rising to the ranks of Team Couple can still carry a kind of reverse stigma re: the idea that to be partnered is to be propped up—that to be in a relationship somehow means you can’t hack it on your own, that you need a partner to be complete.

Like most aspects of womanhood, partnered vs. single status is yet another double-edged sword. And for many women who’ve been forced to contend with both sides of the blade, going from “single” to “in a relationship” comes with the fear of being seen as a traitor who’s crossed enemy lines or a sellout who’s forgotten where she came from. You don’t want to be seen as one of “those girls.”

Hence this desperate need to make sure everyone knows that just because you’re in a relationship now, it doesn’t mean you’re one of those “relationship people” who fears or looks down on singles. You love single people! You even love being single! In fact, as Chappell herself proclaimed, “Everyone should be single!”

And ultimately, while I think Chappell made some very sharp points about the importance of being secure on your own (and love that she coined something as iconic as “pro-single”), I regret that as women, we so often feel compelled to defend ourselves and our choices—that whether single or partnered, we’re still always on guard against judgment from someone (and each other). In an ideal, less annoying world, we’d be able to trust everyone to simply understand that just because we’re in a relationship doesn’t mean we hate single people, and vice versa. Because yes, you can be both “very in love” and “pro-single.” No girlboss, but ladies, we can do both!