I've noticed a strangely sick pleasure I've developed since turning 25. As I get along in years, the unabashedly single gal that I am, I tend to get these looks of sympathy or questions as to why on earth I haven't up and married yet. As though I'm just beating them all away with a baseball bat, resolute on never settling down (we can't all be el Seco), or living my life locked in a tower while some powerful evil force prevents me from escape. In fact, last year my own mother sold me out, giving me a bouquet of flowers and some strange motherly knick-knack on mother's day. When I asked, "what the heck is this!?" My mother replied, "It's because I know you want to be a mother someday, and I didn't want you to feel left out!" I simply muttered to myself that the idea had never crossed my mind, but that I was oh so appreciative for bringing it to everyone's attention.
At first, when hearing people offer advice or an opinion regarding my singlehood, I'd simply give a meek smile and nod in the hopes that they'd just shut up and leave me alone. Now, I realize I somehow take a certain amount of joy in turning the situation around and making them feel as uncomfortable as possible.
For instance, when I hear the nauseatingly recurring phrase, "It's going to happen for you, I just know it is."
To all of these girls I have this to say: "No you don't. You can't know. So please stop going around pretending that your idea that I must be miserable and pathetic if I continually go on in my current state can easily be shrouded by your so-called fervent belief. For all you know, I could die alone as soon as tomorrow if not fifty years from now. Only you don't have to think about it because you're secure in your youth and the likelihood that your best years will ever dry up as you become the spinster that sits in the back of the chapel, giving all of the young spring chickens advice on the life lessons you've learned, knowing full well that your dating pool has come and gone, taking all of your aging peers with them, never really even crosses your mind." (To be honest, only about 1 or 2 of these sentences actually make it out of my mouth during such moments. But on the rare occasion such a diatribe occurs, it simply secures my status as the girl with a biting sense of humor. No harm, no foul).
Secondly, there's the age old "He's out there, just you wait and see." Note: the overly used qualifier "I just know" is often added.
"So he is? Am I out there for someone else too? Because obviously we haven't run into one another, so what should I do? Is this like one of those circumstances where I'm just supposed to stay in one place, and eventually he'll come along and find me? Or am I supposed to find a security post and report that I'm lost and sit in a room with all of the other singles that are waiting for their future spouse to pick them up as they read old issues of Highlight magazine and play with overly used toys covered in teeth marks like I had to do that one time I got lost in Disneyland? Because if so, I don't know what kind of security post I'm supposed to go to. And if I'm staying put and he's staying put, then I guess we're both screwed. But if one of us is supposed to move, how do we know which one? And if we both move, then wouldn't we just be switching places? And what if there's more than one He? How do I know which He, he is supposed to be? And what if two He's were walking side by side, how do I know which He is for me? Am I just supposed to pick one out of a lineup? How is this all supposed to work??" (This is particularly enjoyable if at the very end, you grab the person's shoulders and jostle them back and forth).
Then there's the patronizing "You're so lucky you don't have a husband and kids tying you down. Why, if I was still single I'd . . . "
"Right. Because I'm one of those people that could never possibly be fulfilled with a spouse and a family. I suppose you're right, I mean, it's not as though I actually have anything to offer anyone else. And gosh, could you imagine me as a mother!? That's just not a good idea. Like it's ever going to happen anyway once you consider the fact that I have a tipped uterus and by the time I'm desperate enough to settle down with some guy I have lukewarm feelings about, everything will probably stop working anyway, and who really wants to have a kid with the guy you're not really even all that attracted to?" (Also, keep in mind that sometimes it helps to take their suggestion of what they would do if still single seriously, and actually do what they wish they could and rub it in their face as much as possible).
At this point, I just find myself regularly sitting around with my girly friends (because really, they're all married), and openly verbalizing my contemplations about death. They now know better than to point out my singleness, but at times when they go on and on about what their wedding was like, or the house they're gonna buy, or the kids they're gonna have, or the showers, or the scrapbooks, or the many things that I can in no way identify with but am asked about anyway, I tend to answer them by saying "oh, I don't know . . . I have nothing really to look forward to at this point but the sweet mercy of death." Please keep in mind, that I don't really seriously think this way, but it's hard not to laugh as I watch my friends squirm after I've equated my life to a huge waiting room in which at any moment, my number can be called while in the meantime they can go off and be distracted by their life with their spouse and kids and home and puppy dogs and quilting parties and soccer games and school plays, while I have nothing to distract me from thinking about the inevitable.
Evil? Yes. But it's just one of the many joys of being single.
