With week seven upon us, the quarter is starting to come to an end. This means that soon enough I will be back in my hometown living with my parents for six weeks. I do love the time off school and spending the holidays with my family and all, but it means judgment time is coming.
Most people think that the worst time for a single girl would be the bars on a Friday night, as all the couples are a little liquored up and their PDA is really out to play. False. But the time that I feel the most single is when the questions from family members come rolling in about who I am dating or if there is anyone special in my life. The despair comes across their face when I tell them that I am, indeed, single. Their response is usually, “Oh honey, but I’m sure you’ll find someone soon.” When they say, “I’m sure,” they actually mean, “I hope.”
What really gets me is the grandparents. All baby boomers were married and pregnant by age 20, so the fact that I’m almost 22 years old and single about sends my grandmother into a shock every time she asks about my life. I was one of the lucky ones to actually get to know my great-grandmother. Though I loved her dearly, she always asked the same questions about my dating life in hopes that I would soon be engaged, never worrying about the fact I was 17 years old. Over a year into a college she was still asking about my high school boyfriend, apparently never understanding that we had broken up. I brought this up to my mom one day that grandma was still asking about him and she didn’t realize we broke up months ago.
“Oh just don’t correct her. She’s getting old and it will just worry her. It will be nice; she will think she knew who you would marry before she passed.”
Apparently the world would crumble if she died knowing I was single.
I know my mom means well, she really does, but her concern for singlehood will sometimes make me concerned until I stop myself and remember that I really am doing OK, single and all. As the holidays come up, I know we will all sit around the table and talk about my cousin’s engagement that is sure to happen at any moment to her longtime boyfriend or my other cousin’s pregnancy to twins. There I will be the single one who they will all be scrambling to think who they can find a blind date for. Also, the questions of whatever happened to so and so and why can’t I date him, usually responding that I knew him five years ago in high school.
So with the last few weeks of the quarter, all single girls should be preparing for the big test, no not finals, but the six-week break at home.
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