Here’s to singularity and not feeling like the meat tray.

“Most cultures on earth recognise that there is a significant gap between the experiences of men and women. With the Masai in West Africa each newly married man is actually required to wear his wife’s clothing for a month as a way of gaining insight into her life. If only it were that simple. The point is while rituals and customs may vary almost all cultures put significant pressure on single adults to form bonding pairs. In ancient Persia, if a girl died a virgin they would go so far as to marry her corpse off before burial. The groom was usually quiet well paid.

Its bad enough being on your own without every TV show and commercial and magazine ad trying to tell you how abnormal it is. They make you afraid of being alone but at the same time tell you not to settle for anything less than the perfect romantic ideal- like that actually exists anywhere in the real world. Either way you can’t win”.

[Extract from Stargate SG-1, Season 8: Episode 7. “Affinity”.]

With several friends announcing their engagements of late, and the remaining ones in bonding pairs, it’s hard not to feel a little left out of things at times. Being a Christian female in her 20’s it’s expected that I would be in a bonding pair or at least finding interest from a Christian male in his 20’s at this stage in my life. The fact that I am not causes much controversy and hardship in day to day life.

Whilst I do not debate the happiness of these couples in my immediate friendship group, nor debate their existence, the fact remains that once bonded, they really don’t understand the singular lifestyle.

Being single does not mean that I’m at fault. It simply means that right now, I am with myself. And it’s taken awhile, but I can finally say I’m happily single. I like being with myself. I get to go places without having to check with someone first. I can go somewhere nice, and experience it just with God. And I can finally know what it is to be really at home with who you are before finding out who someone else is.

However, the Church has now made me cynical. One of the main barriers to attendance is feeling like the meat tray when I walk in. Whilst it’s fantastic that the church meets and greets, you feel the eyes on you as you make your way to the pew. Am I a 4? Maybe a 6? What would you rate me out of 10? Quick, sound the alarm, we have a winner. Let’s try to get them married in less than a year- and if they don’t do it by then, we’ll put increasing pressure on them- because we all know you can’t be happy if you’re alone!!

Here’s to being single. Here’s to the church that finally stands up and declares a war on matrimony in a generation that want’s everything now, and will find any way to get it. Here’s to the church that welcomes the single, and the couple, and allows God to control it, instead of seeking to control it on their behalf. And here’s to true happiness, and a life examined and experienced in the purest form. And last of all, here’s to all the single men and women in the world- may you be patient, and know that you are truly brilliant.