271: a selection of 15 unhelpful things people say to singles

I recently asked a group of Christian singles for unhelpful things people say to make us feel better in our singleness. I got some doozies! 

Birthday flowers from a student's mom

1) If you stop looking, it will come to you.

This doesn't even make sense. First, we don't use this logic for anything else we want in life, like a job. Second, it's not Biblical (just clear your mind of all thoughts and what you most desire will magically appear). Third, if I'm not looking, then why would I say "yes" to a coffee date?

2) Maybe God is waiting for you to ____ first. / Once you become content, then God will bring a spouse to you. / God will bring you someone when you're ready for marriage.

Marriage isn't a bargaining chip! Marriage isn't something you earn. One person insightfully noted that the idea that we're not married/dating because we're not ready "gives the unhealthy and damaging notion that singles are defective by default." Also, were you ready when you got married?

3) Don't be so picky. / Perfect doesn't exist.

Please tell me what it is I'm too picky about because I don't know what it could be. I don't want to be picky--maybe you could teach me what you mean--but I also want to marry someone I WANT to be married to. The world is full of people who SHOULD have been more picky. 

4) I don't understand why you aren't attracted to so and so or so and so.

I don't either (or maybe I do!), but you can't force yourself to be attracted to someone. That doesn't sound like a good basis for a happy marriage.

5) Maybe it's because of your physical touch boundaries. / How do you expect to get married if you dress modestly?

Y'all, if this is the issue, we've got bigger problems than delayed marriage.

6) Be less able to do manly things and men will like you more. / I think you might be too put together.

I've never personally been accused of either of these, but it seems unfair to ask someone to hover in a state of incapability or weakness years on end in order to catch a man.

7) Have you tried online dating?

Yes, I have. Have you? It's not all it's cracked up to be.

8) Get out and meet more guys.

This was said to a girl who meets Christian guys all the time--know your audience!

9) You're trying too hard. / You need to flirt more. 

Just. can't. win.

10) Have you ever prayed about it?

Yes, actually. :)

11) I'm jealous of all the free time you have. / You're so lucky you can do whatever you want without worrying about a husband/kids.

I WANTED the hard sanctification of marriage and kids. Your life would have been my first choice. It was GOD who gave me this life. So, please don't make me feel guilty for having the potentially "easier" life, because you have no idea how many years it's taken to be okay with God choosing a LACK of what everyone else experiences to sanctify me.

One lady added, "That's the thing though, it's not easier. It's different...different challenges, different joys, different heartaches."

Also, you don't have to downplay your married life to make us feel better. Aren't you grateful for your husband and kids?

12) Singles are naturally selfish. They can't help it since they don't have a spouse or kids.

This was a quote from a speaker. God help us all.

13) ...when you are asked to babysit, dogsit, etc. BECAUSE you are single.

It's not that we mind helping, but you aren't doing us a particular "favor" by asking us to help. Just because we are unmarried doesn't make us the perfect candidate for jobs that have been traditionally teenager jobs.

As two commenters put it, "Contrary to popular opinion, not every single woman is dying to hold babies and listen to four small children scream simultaneously," and there is the false assumption "that babysitting someone else's kids will make me less sad about not having my own kids."

14) One day someone will want you.  / I'm so proud that you're content with having no one.

Someone needs to repent of their insensitivity. Also, with the second statement, do you know me, my journey, my current desires? If not, then shush.

15) God has someone special for you. It's just a matter of trusting and waiting.

A good marriage partner is NOT a guarantee -- fake news! To me, this is the worst of the well-intentioned statements. It's saying something about God that isn't true, and it gives false hope.

~*~

Maybe this selection of things said to singles will help us all evaluate the platitudes we dish out whenever we are trying to soothe wounds or mend any situations we have no control over. I hope to do another post on HELPFUL things people say!

270: purpose of my singleness

I've been through a lot of life change since my last post. Or, rather, maybe it hasn't been much change as much as much change of hope. Since the last post, I both got engaged and got un-engaged. Then I spent my short two month summer break busily going hither and thither and yon to keep myself from spiraling with the reality that what I had unconsciously been setting my hopes on was now...nonexistent.

Now I'm continuing the process begun years ago--wrestling with the possible reality of never getting married.

I am not discarding hope. Hope for marriage and family and to be a homeschool mom is so ingrained into the fiber of who I am that it is going to take either a complete metamorphosis or a knife to cut that expectation away from me.

Last week I had a good week. I fought every day to remind myself that my life has purpose, and that I am (generally) happy with my life, and it's okay to not have the life scenario I wanted (who does?). But by the end of the week I realized that it had been a good week because I had fought constantly to uphold those truths.

And then, I became too tired to fight I guess and plummeted back to earth where I have to fight again to scrape myself up.

The reality is we have to mourn, and as any counselor will tell you, grieving doesn't end, it comes in waves, it just changes. The other day I saw my hair (yes, my hair) in a far-away mirror, and I had to wrestle with the grief that no one will ever (permanently) admire my hair. That my hair is worthless beyond being part of what makes me feminine to the world. All those who have not gone through long-prolonged singleness may not realize even the little things that we have to mourn that are meaningful losses to us.

Every one has a different reason why singleness is so hard for them or why a future marriage is so important to them. For me, it's been mostly purpose. If I were married, I'd have a built-in purpose in life, I've thought. Recently I asked a question in the Facebook singles group I'm part of (PtL to know we're not alone!!). "What is one purpose you can see God has for your current singleness, one way He is using you?" I typed. I had already thought of a few ways before asking the question, but I lay back on my bed and decided to ask God the same question.

The answer was unexpected.

He took me right back to one of my life verses:

"You are My witnesses," says the LORD, 

And My servant whom I have chosen, 

That you may know and believe Me, 

And understand that I am He. (Isaiah 43:10) 

He is using my singleness to increase my knowing of Him. He is using my singleness to know Him and believe Him.

"[T]o be a witness to God is, above all, to know, believe, and understand Him. All that He asks us to do is but means to this end. He will go to any lengths to teach us, and His manipulation of the movements of men...is never accidental. Those movements may be incidental to the one thing toward which He goads us: the recognition of Christ."--Elisabeth Elliot, The Savage My Kinsman

If He is using my singleness so that I can know Him, who am I to argue? If He is using my singleness specifically for His eternal weight of glory, if He specifically has me here because He wants me to believe Him more through this circumstance and this is His pick for how that knowing and believing occur, then that is amazing. Painful in the loss, but amazing.

I was reminded of my other life verse, earlier in my late teens and 20s:

Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ (Phil. 3:8)

I'll be honest: I don't want to count all things loss. Listening to a friend talk about child-raising today knowing I may NEVER experience what she is talking about, knowing I am still in the SAME life stage and lack of experience that I was 20 years ago, is a LOSS that I did not choose (besides saying no to relationships for non-flippant reasons).

But, if that loss is for the EXCELLENCE of the knowledge of my Lord, that is something I can remind myself of as I fight for stability and happiness. This loss is not just loss. It is in exchange for knowing the excellent eternal Lord and growing in faith and believing.

The desire for what I have always wanted does not go away. The mourning does not disappear even as I look around and really enjoy the life I have. The fight continues on for stability. But, He has given me an amazing group of both friends in the same life stage and friends who are not who lift up my hands so the battle can go on. Whatever is going on in your life--and we all have something--keep fighting, keep wrestling, keep holding on, not letting go until He blesses you, even if you continue with a limp (Gen. 32:26).