Leiper's Fork

     

                 

Single & the South

I was sitting at a nameless person’s kitchen table, sipping on some sweet iced tea when a metaphorical sledgehammer charged my brain. After expressing frustration over a recent romantic situation, the kitchen hostess responded with, “I hear that ‘so and so’ church has a great singles group.” Cue needle-off-record-screeching-halt moment. Admittedly, having dealt heavily and painfully with some God issues at the time, I was irrationally averse to such a community to begin with, but it wasn’t the seasonal church-y frustration that stunned me. This is where they send us, I thought. A contrived holding pen where we can rape each other emotionally until maybe making some manipulated spiritual connection that will OBVIOUSLY lead to an ideal marriage. Enlightened and offended, I chewed on that Southern Singularity beef jerky for the next six months.

I was twenty-two at the time. The fact that this meant I was past my prime and reaching some unspoken expiration date confused me. “What does this mean about the South?” I asked myself. “What does this mean about me?” Bladdy bladdy blah. I went to lingerie showers, endured Facebook wedding countdowns, and even wholeheartedly celebrated with the friends who I thought completely ready to jump off the cliff of matrimony. And then, while choking down champagne during an especially heart-wrenching Daddy/Daughter dance at a reception, I discovered something : I do not even want to get married. (Yet.)

Shocking horror of all horrors, arriving at the truth that I may be slightly uncertain about making a decision that will affect my life every day. Forever. I navel-gazed selfishly for a time, and then thought about a hoped-for you. A y’all, if you will. A community of people who can intelligently say that IT IS OKAY TO BE ALONE. Because, the truth is, we aren’t really alone.

So here I am, giving a voice to the culturally pitied single ladies of the South. Maybe we’ve been dealt a shitty man card, maybe it’s by choice, but regardless of your previous travels, it sure does blow to feel like you’re in a holding pen before being shipped off to a ticky-tacky suburban land that bears no resemblance to your current life.

…Is it just me?

Surely not, because I see you in those church singles groups that are mostly just created to address a problem rather than form community anyway. I see you on E Harmony, far too young at that, because your culture has told you that you are past the deserving age for a Pinterest wedding. And I especially see you ladies blowing through thousands of dollars on friends’ weddings that make you feel like there is something wrong with you.

Oh, I see you. I am one of you.

The fundamental problem with our group is the uncertainty of membership duration. We are different from AA or other various support groups, in that typically we aren’t struggling with some mental illness or addiction. (Though many married early twenty something’s might think we are.) For this very reason, we find it difficult to accurately and publicly voice concern, primarily because most of us won’t be in the group for life, and even if we are dedicated to and love this club, we could go out for drinks after a weekly meeting and subsequently be fatedly introduced to some drop dead gorgeous soul mate human. This is not to even say that we’re waiting for this universe-aligning moment to even happen all at once, because right now we just happen to have other priorities.

To summarize, it’s basically unfair, because I want to rally together and make bonds, but the permanency of the aforementioned promises are paper thin due to our obvious magnetic attractiveness.

So….join forces? Come up with a better response to the ever-condescending, “Oh, you’re just waiting around for the right one, aren’t you?” (Gag.) I thought it high time to address a problem in our dear old Dixie land :

Why the hell can’t we be single and happy?