Still Singled Out

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Met up with a friend to give her my pasalubong from the States.  Apparently, one of her officemates had just gotten engaged, so when I happened to make a gesture with my hand, she thought I was showing off a ring.  Which was crazy because I was gone for less than a month, and despite how it might’ve sounded in my previous blogs, I am not someone who’d just throw caution to the wind and make that kind of commitment to someone she has known for less than a month.  Besides, it’s not as if I actually met someone, so that was a big hindrance to getting engaged, haha.

While we were kinda on the topic, my friend (who is single, like me) told me about how she was talking to a married person she knows, and that person actually told her, “I-enjoy mo ang pagiging single mo.  Buti nga ‘yan, iyo ang pera mo.”  My jaw dropped… well actually, my reaction was a little more vehement than that. 

That married person probably meant that off-hand comment as a “look on the bright side” kind of thing, but well, I couldn’t help but notice the subtext of that statement… ‘wag mo munang gustuhin yung pag-aasawa, pangit yon, mawawala sa ‘yo ang kontrol mo sa pera mo.

Alright, I admit, I may be going all histrionic here, but I have sat through enough conversations about my single state to know the drill.  It usually starts out with a perky query about the state of my love life, and when I reply on the negative as I usually do, I get the “okay lang ‘yan, ienjoy mo ang pagka-single mo speech.”  Which is not bad, but this usually melts into the “why-being-single-is-better-than-being-married” speech. 

Given that the people I talk to are aware that I am hoping to be married one day, trying to dissuade me from even wanting the very thing that I am believing for in my life just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.  It reminds me of this strange double standard most people seem to have...  If they hear that someone is praying for a better paying job, words of encouragement naturally spill out of their mouths.  If they hear that someone is praying for healing, for sure, they’d pray over that person.  But if they hear that someone is believing for a partner in life, they apply the breaks and try to talk that person from wanting it too badly and too soon – it’s not as if marriage is that great anyway.

Why is that?  You don’t tell someone, “you know what, you should appreciate having a small paycheck – at least you don’t have to pay more taxes!” or “don’t be in a hurry when it comes to receiving healing – at least now that you’re sick, you have an excuse not to do chores around the house!”  Being single and believing to have marriage in your future seems to be in a category on its own; it’s the only prayer request that other people seem comfortable trying to talk you out of wanting too much.

You don’t have to worry about us: we know our verses about not awakening love until it so desires and all that, so constant reminders about this isn’t really necessary.  To borrow something that pastor and motivational speaker Lynette Lewis said in one of her talks, like most people believing for something, single people do not need formulas (“kaya siguro wala ka pang boyfriend, ang taas siguro ng standards mo”…. “kung kailan hindi mo hinahanap, dun siya dadating”) and yes, we also don’t need to be talked out of praying for something we believe that God has promised us.  What we do need is for you to stand by us in faith.  To tell us to don’t give up, just hang in there… because if we’ve sought the Lord and if we’re sure that marriage is something He has planned for us, we should just stay strong in faith because we know it’s going to happen, sooner than expected.

Alright, in the name of total honesty, a part of me really, really wants to be able to say that I can revel in my singleness so much that meeting someone isn’t something I think of a lot.  But months and months back, I felt drawn to a specific passage, as if the Lord was speaking directly to me through this phrase: “"I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26).  So if I’m being a bit too noisy and being exuberant about seeing this particular prayer request answered in my life, try to understand that it’s my way of declaring favor over my life, like a warrior secure of impending victory.  That’s just where I think I’m supposed to be now.

<sigh>  It feels good to get that off my chest.  Now back to the day job....