The list is written, and I hope will also be read, in good humour, and with a smile. (I wrote on this same subject over on the wonderful www.threadsuk.com page and some people there seemed to have had a sense of humour bypass about the whole thing...). I am making a serious-ish point in a light hearted way. It's ok to laugh (in fact, please do). However, the sentiment that, as single people, we would rather not hear these things, is true. Please don't read it as a bitter and twisted rant though - it is anything but! As I hope is clear, from here, and from the book, and elsewhere, I love my married friends very much and mostly they're wonderful and supportive and fabulous. Obviously they sometimes say fabulously inappropriate things about my singleness (as I have no doubt I do too, about all sorts of things that I know nothing about and misjudge horribly!). Sometimes the comments were made not by friends, but by random strangers, which makes them a little harder to swallow, as that person hasn't yet earnt the right to be daft! But hey ho - we've all been there!
So, here is Part 1 - the first 5 things on the list, as I describe them in the book. If you like them, please let me know. If they've been said to you, do share (kindly and anonymously, please!). If you want to take issue with any of them, feel free - but again, do remember the spirit of the thing! In the book I also give married people a chance to say the things they'd like to say to the singles, so it's all fair!
1. You're so lovely, why are you still single?
This is quite a favourite, it seems, as I have lost count of the number of people who have said it to me, or about others in my hearing. On the face of it you might wonder what’s wrong with it – surely it’s meant as a compliment? Well, yes, I’m sure that it is meant as a compliment. The problem is that when that sentence is spoken, this is what we hear – “You seem lovely, but there must be something wrong with you, otherwise you’d be married. You can’t be quite as lovely as all the lovely married people around you. If you were only a bit more lovely, you’d be married in no time.” I know, I know, that’s not what you meant at all – but unfortunately that is what we heard.
2. Don't worry, you're still so young.
This is another tricky one because on the face of it it’s complimentary, and it seems to offer consolation and hope. But to be brutally honest, when you say this sentence I simply cannot hear you over the sound of my biological clock ticking. I have known people aged 16 and aged 60 who felt exactly the same about their desire to be married (and of course I have also known people at both of those ages, and everywhere in between, who had no desire whatsoever to be married). At the moment when singleness feels like a struggle, whatever age you are, you don’t ever feel young enough to not worry about it!
3. Do you have a family?
I wish I had a pat reply to this question which worked every
time but sadly, for some reason, no matter how many times I get asked it, I
still stumble over my response. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with the
questions ‘are you married?’ or ‘have you got children?’ – those are questions
seeking information which are perfectly valid in a conversation, and to which
I’m quite happy to reply. But the question above isn’t the same as those
questions. The question above means ‘are you married with children?’ but that
isn’t what it asks, and so we find ourselves thrown by it. I find it hard to
answer because the answer is yes, I do have a family, I have parents and
grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. But I know that’s not what
you’re really asking. If I reply in that way you might think I’m being
deliberately obtuse and that’s not what I want to do. And yet I don’t want to
say ‘no’ because that isn’t the right answer to the question you have asked,
even if it is the right answer to the question that you meant. Can you see why
it’s confusing?!
4. If you get your relationship with God sorted, then he'll send you a spouse.
This is clearly nonsense! What more needs to be said...?! So
presumably absolutely every married Christian person has a perfectly healthy,
mature relationship with God then, do they? No, that’s what I thought...
5. I was single till the age of X so I know exactly how you feel.
I’m sorry, but you simply don’t. It’s obviously true that
while not everyone is married at some point in their lives, everyone is single
at some point. But you don’t know how I feel. You may of course be able to
remember how being single felt for you, at that time, but that is not the same
as how it feels for me, now. In the same way, I don’t know how anyone else
feels – even another 34 year old single female vicar. (This doesn’t mean that
you can’t empathise, or sympathise, or be involved in my life – of course it doesn’t!
But you really don’t know how I feel!)
Part 2 will follow soon...
