Single women often have many well meaning friends and family who drive them nuts with their attempts to help them deal with their singleness. (Maybe single men do too; I don’t know.) I’m fortunate that mine tend to not be so bad, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t heard my fair share of unsolicited advice and annoying platitudes. I try to walk the thin line between complaining about singledom to the point of inviting such things and saying so little that people think I’m not even interested in getting married. Sometimes people take the smallest comment, “he has nice hair,” or a simple second look at a guy’s posterior as an open invitation for their thoughts on my relationship status.
I had a friend who once suggested that “God needed to teach me to let go of my independent spirit” before He would send me someone. Um, let go of my independence? I’m independent because of God. The whole reason I function in our patriarchal, couple-driven society as an independent female is my Christian belief. If God created me in His image, knit me together in my mother’s womb, gifted me with spiritual gifts, and sent Christ to die for my sins, why do I need anyone but Christ? This is the way I was raised. Christ is the great equalizer. And Christ-centered marriage does not involve codependency.
When I was let go from a job for budget reasons and told a friend that I was interviewing in New Hampshire and West Virginia, her response was “maybe God has someone waiting for you in New Hampshire.” There I was, without a job, looking to pick up and move across the country again, my plans for the summer ruined, and her words of comfort were that maybe I would meet Mr. Right.
I understand how to many people that might seem like a comforting thing to say. Her reasoning was that if I met Mr. Right, it wouldn’t matter if I took a sucky job with a pay cut in a community with no cultural events, because I would have him. It wouldn’t matter if I had to dip into my savings to pay $1500 for the u-Haul move across the country. It wouldn’t matter if my summer was spent packing, driving, searching for an apartment, setting up my utilities, unpacking, finding a laundromat and grocery store instead of FINALLY traveling to England, because I would have him.
As you can see, I was not particularly comforted. Furthermore, the idea that all situations should be embraced as a possible opportunity for meeting “The One” is ridiculous. I mean, according to some people, I need to always be prepared to meet him: at the grocery store, posting a letter, attending a student’s graduation party. Why, I could get into a fender bender with “The One” and if I haven’t applied lip gloss that morning, all is lost!
Besides its not being helpful, the other problem I have with people saying maybe God has someone for me wherever I end up is the implication that there is only one person out there who is your match. And God is in charge of putting the two of you together. It’s usually phrased like “God sent me Joe when I least expected it” or “God will send you someone when the time is right” like God is a stork dropping boyfriends off on women’s doorsteps.
Yes, God is sovereign and in control, but I don’t think he’s up there orchestrating a matchup with my one and only soulmate. I think there are several people in the world I could marry and be happy with, and who I end up with will be partly my own doing. I come from an Arminian background, so I’m big on free will.
These same people who view God as a celestial matchmaker also think that He “blesses” people with singleness. (I don’t think they actually believe it, they just say it to make us feel bad when we complain about being single.) The idea is that as a single, you can do things for God that you couldn’t if you had a family. Things like lead the French army to victory and then get burned at the stake. Great. It’s bad enough to suggest that God has selected some people for prolonged celibacy while He provided their nominally Christian friends with spouses years ago. It adds insult to injury when people are made to feel like failures because they’re working normal jobs instead of using their “blessing” by leading the French army to victory and being burned at the stake.
To clarify: Because I’m single, God, as puppet master, must have planned that for me, and if I don’t do extraordinary things that being married would keep me from doing, I am squandering my singleness? No pressure there. When single women read between the lines, the message becomes “women who know their place and get married early are following God’s plan. The only acceptable reason for a woman to remain single for awhile is if she is doing something super spiritual like being a missionary in the remote jungles of Africa.” It’s almost as if these people don’t realize that some women get married early because they were raised to believe that was the best they could aspire to. And some women remain single longer because they were raised not to settle for some half-wit with no sense of adventure.
God gives us free will and a brain for exercising it. My brain tells me that while God might place certain people in my life, I ultimately have a choice as to how I interact with them. Yes, I want to get married, but only to someone who would be a good husband. Not a “good husband” in the abstract, but a good husband for me. One who understands there are certain things I won’t give up. I won’t give up my identity. I won’t give up pursuit of adventure. I could be persuaded to give up letting dirty dishes pile up in the sink if I have to. Until that happens, it’s okay that I’m not a missionary, it’s okay that I’m single, and it’s okay that I don’t believe in “The One (and Only)” so much as “The One (of My Choosing).”