For many women out there, like myself. We have spent much of our lives being single, but maybe we have been doing it all wrong. Do we really know “how” to be single? After all, there really is no rulebook or handbook and no one has ever taught us how. We were, as women, only taught from a young age that finding and keeping a man was our life’s purpose…societies standards, Disney, etc…our goal in life was finding “the one” and our happily ever after…
As Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie says best in her TEDtalk We Should All Be Feminists: “Because I am female, I am expected to aspire to marriage. I am expected to make my life choices always keeping in mind that marriage is the most important. Now marriage can be a source of joy and love and mutual support but why do we teach girls to aspire to marriage and we don’t teach boys the same?”
You may recognize her voice from Beyonce’s song Flawless…Catch her full TEDtalk here…
Now, I am not saying that men don’t WANT to get married, I am saying that it isn’t drilled into their head from a young age to be a top priority in their lives. I feel as though men look at it is “if it happens it happens, if not oh well!” Men aren’t obsessed with finding “the one”!
For some people, they met “the one” in school (like high school or college, maybe even on the playground in kindergarten), maybe they met at church or through a friend. But for those of us who are still single in a life that seems devoid of any real opportunities to meet a decent significant other…what do WE do??? Well…we do the only thing we really can do…we wait…I mean do we have a choice? But..do we??? Do we truly WAIT? I know that I don’t do it very patiently…
Most women, not all, (and by most I definitely mean me) are not naturally patient people… We spend a lot of our time figuring out how to get into a relationship, to find a man, or trying to figure out why the last relationship didn’t work and why we weren’t good enough. We never really truly take time for ourselves…we don’t know how to truly be alone!!
We spend so much time worrying and thinking about how we could possibly meet a man in our current circumstances…there may not be any available man at your church or your job and you don’t really want to pick up a man at the club and you’re not too sure about the Internet dating scene. So how in the world is it going to happen??? Is one going to drop out of the sky and land in my lap? It’s not going to rain men, unfortunately…
So… everywhere you go you feel like you have to “appear” single… exactly how do I appear single without broadcasting it on my T-shirt or on a billboard over my head??? (This has become a running joke with me and my two friends…who are guys… who are also gay. People think that when I am with one of them…we are married). So then I start to wonder are guys passing me up because they think I’m in a relationship already, because I am not “appearing single.” The more I think about it…I’m thinking I should invest in a T-shirt in every color that says “I’m single, he’s gay”. I’m only half-way serious! HAHAHA!!!
The more I worry about these things the more stressed out I get that it just isn’t ever going to happen for me. But hey! They…the elusive “they”, always say…”it’ll happen when you least expect it!!” But…how can it happen when I’m always thinking about it…even when I’m trying not to think about it…I’m STILL thinking about “it”. As Trista (played by Regina Hall) said in one of my favorite movies With This Ring… “I’m tired of pretending that I don’t care if I meet the one. Why is it okay to fight for your career, but marriage is some cosmic prize that you get only after being completely peaceful that it’ll never happen? It’s so depressing. How do you beat impossible odds while pretending to not even try?” I think she expresses all of our frustrations pretty well throughout her character…sitting around wondering when is it going to be MY turn?
Maybe it all boils down to the fact that some of us just don’t know how to be single!!
***So join me as we embark on an 11-part series about How To Be Single. Upcoming posts to include:
Part 1- Settling
Part 2- Saying No!
Part 3- Triggers and Timing
Part 4- The Disney Dream
Part 5- The Enchanting Power of the White Dress
Part 6- Denial
Part 7- All This Waiting
Part 8- Strategic Patience
Part 9- Living As You…Before Living As We
Part 10- Self-Inventory
Part 11- Discipline
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