It’s a question most young women find themselves having to answer at family dinners when they come home from college. So, where’s your boyfriend? For most, this is a joke or rhetorical question. For me, as woman who was born as raised in a region of tradition and conservative values, the question is asked with a little more concern.
I was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee. Yes, I have a southern accent and I do like country music and no, I’m not a huge fan of Elvis.
When I was in high school, all of my first dates had to endure my highly traditional mother.
My mom and I at my high school graduation and on Christmas Eve this year.
For a first date, I would make sure I was ready on time and would rush out the door to meet my date at his car. As I was making my exit, my mother stood in front of me and asked, “What in the world are you doin’?”
“I’m going out to the car…duh, mom.”
“No, go back in your room and make him wait for you. You should never ever go out to the man’s car when he calls because it will make you look desperate! That’s the equivalent of running out to his car when he honks the horn. He needs to come in and meet me. No, ifs, ands, or buts about it. I’ll meet him and then I’ll come get you and then y’all can go.”
“Are you serious? This is so embarrassing! He doesn’t have to meet you! It’s not like I’m going to marry the boy.”
“Oh yes, he does!”
Needless to say, I spent the entire first date completely mortified by my mother’s actions. I felt like I was living the plot of Gone With The Wind, except there was no terrace and at the time I never would have dated any guy with a girly name like Ashley.
My high school class. Yes, we had to wear the pastel jumpers everyday with saddle oxford shoes.
For high school, I went to an all-girls catholic school. Many of the girls there didn’t stray very far from tradition when it came to planning their future.
In one high school class, we were each asked to say where we imagined ourselves in seven years. Mind you, at the time, we were about 16 years old. A lot of the girls in the class said they imagined themselves with a ring on their finger and a college diploma from a southern college, of course.
I remember thinking to myself, “Are you crazy? I can’t even say where I’ll be in one year!” But that’s a southern tradition: girl goes to southern college, finds herself a good ole southern boy, and settles down by her mid-twenties to make southern babies and raise them in the same zip code as her parents.
Not me.
I used to go out to one of my favorite states, Colorado, every summer to work on a ranch.
My whole life, I’ve gone against social norms.
A lot of girls collected Barbies. I collected toy horses.
A lot of girls read books about American Girl dolls. My favorite book was about female sharpshooter Annie Oakley.
A lot of girls grew up attending Daughters of the Revolution events. I grew up riding horses and competing in barrel racing events.
So when it comes to the southern tradition of going to a southern college and finding a man to marry, you can guess this is another southern tradition I’ve gone against.
When I told people back home that I was going to IU, they couldn’t understand why I would want to go to a school that was in a different part of the country, where I didn’t know anyone.
My first Indiana winter, it was pretty brutal for me as a southern girl.
During my sophomore year at IU, I saw one of my old high school friends for the first time since we graduated. She told me, “You’re one of the few girls from our class who has been successful in college, as in going far away and not coming back home your first year.”
Huh? I’m successful because I left the south and didn’t come back?
Then there is the inevitable family get-togethers where I am inevitably asked, “So you got a man up there? When are you gonna bring a man home to meet us?”
This is only partly a joke on their part. I mean, when my older cousins were in college (in our hometown of course), there was always a new man at the holiday dinners.
So I always stick with the response, “I won’t be bringing anyone home to meet y’all until I walk down the aisle. Y’all would scare off any man I brought home! Why do I need to bring home a man, anyway?”
To be honest, I’ve dated many different types of men during my three years of college. None would ever be Mr. Right, and I didn’t necessarily ever imagine any of them to be Mr. Right.
In fact, of all of the goals I’ve had for college, none included finding a nice boy to settle down with and take back home to Memphis with me.
Now that I’m getting to the end of my junior year of college, I’m seeing a lot of the girls I knew in high school in serious relationships or getting engaged. If they’re not doing that, they’re fretting the fact that they’re still single at the age of 21.
I’m not concerned at all.
In fact, I give it about 10 more years. Heck, maybe even longer than that to tie the knot, if I even decide to do that.
I’m sure when my extended family reads this, there will be some gasps at the dinner table. That’s right, the youngest I want to be when I get married is 28 years old.
I’m not even worried by the fact that I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m actually not even looking for one at the moment.
And it seems more and more women are sharing that same sentiment. According to the latest Census, in 2009, there were 96.6 million single Americans who were 18 years old or older. Of these single Americans, 53 percent were women and 61 percent had never been married.
Not long ago, one of my good girlfriends at IU was talking to me about her concerns that she was the only girl from her group of high school friends who wasn’t either in a serious relationship or engaged to be married.
She told me, “Brooke, no wonder you’re still single. You’re intimidating as heck to guys. Not necessarily in a bad way. I mean, you’re so intelligent and beautiful. And you just have an attitude that says ‘I don’t need a man.”
I thought, “So what’s so wrong with that?” If anything, it just weeds out insecure men I wouldn’t waste my time with in the first place.
“Look Emily, think about it,” I replied. “When you do get married years down the line, you’re going to have the most unhappy wedding audience in the world. Because, while you’ll be getting married for the first time, all of your friends will be signing their first round of divorce papers. But I won’t be in that mix.”
I’ve got to say, I’ve met a ton of really cool people over the past three years. Some have come and gone, and others have stayed. Either way, I can’t wait to see who else I’ll meet in the future.
For a lot of reasons, waiting longer makes sense. I’m a completely different person now from who I was my freshman year of college, with completely different interests and an almost completely different set of friends.
It’s scary to think about if I’d stayed close to home, hung out with the same group of people, and settled with someone I knew in high school. I would have never gotten a chance to find myself.
I love being single. I honestly do. Why? Because there’s not going to be another point in my life when I get to do what I want, when I want, and meet anyone I want, without consulting anyone else.
I have a good guy friend who also left the south. He told me, “I hate it when people say, ‘oh you’ve changed.’ Well, I haven’t changed, I’ve just grown more into myself. I’m more myself now than ever before.”
So ladies, whether you’re just getting over a breakup, thinking about breaking up, never had a boyfriend, wish you had a boyfriend, or hate all men, keep this in mind: there’s more to life than fretting about whether or not you have a man.
There are too many things I want to do while I’m young.
Learning how to salsa in Spain. I can’t wait to go back again on my own and do everything I want to do.
I want to go back to Europe by myself and spend a year there working.
I’m thinking about volunteering for Peace Corps.
I want to go to law school, and I’m thinking about getting a Master’s degree in Public Affairs.
I have no problem doing things on my own. In fact, that’s one of the things I love most about myself: my extreme independence.
And I am so happy to be at a point in my life where I can do all of these things if I want to without planning around anyone else.
I’m not saying that I’m not open to the idea of meeting someone.
And I would be lying if I said there weren’t times that I wish I had someone in my life. Every girl has those thoughts every once in a while.
However, I have to say, being single takes the cake right now.
If I find myself in something serious, all this southern girl has to say is, he’d better be ready to wait a long time with me.
He better be able to handle this pistol real well.
Now that I’ve shared my story of a southern girl gone awry, I will leave you with my life motto. It’s a quote said by a fellow Tennessean and a savvy woman, Dolly Parton: “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.”