Being Single?

I just want to discuss on a more sensitive topic, perhaps also speak on behalf for some single friends out there and hopefully help to answer some of those sensitive questions they are often asked especially by someone they have not met for some time.

Very often, dear friends and relatives like to ask me questions like “when are you getting married?” or “any boyfriend or not?” Actually, this question of marriage vs. singlehood has seriously only been on my mind recently, or should I say, when I hit 30. This was the beginning of “self-doubt” and a series of “looking within”. Questions such as “Am I strange? Ugly? Selfish? began to surface. Yet I think I am normal, average looking. (Those who know me, can I say that of myself?) No major vices (maybe just TV addict), happy yet shy person. (Not many of my friends would agree on the “shy” description though.)

Looking around me, I have many single female friends who are in their late 20s or early 30s (Perhaps like people attract?) All of them are really very fine ladies, well-educated, kind hearted, generous at heart, humorous, pleasant looking and some are even very beautiful to behold too. To be honest, if I am a guy, I would sure fall for any one of them for any of the above listed attributes. Yet why?

However, I have not really felt short chained or lacking in any way for being single. I am not sure if this is normal, but I have never really imagined starting a family, perhaps only recently when people started to ask me and when I see several of my friends having entered into another new phase in their lives - Motherhood. Do I envy them? This I am not sure.

Other questions surfaced as well. Was it because I am too shy, not out going? Never go clubbing to know more people? Am I too strong, overly capable like a man? Am I staying at home too much? Or am I really missing out something in life like what all others are questioning me?

A dear friend asked me some time ago, been truly in love before? Not sure how to answer this in a few words. To like someone, I do, and the person changes in different phases of life. It certainly sound absurd to some of you, I felt I am already in love some 12 years ago since the day I knew Jesus. I am in love with Him. We communicate, we joke, we sing, enjoy a good show together, we go through thick and thin, I quarrel with Him (yet all the time, He is always right), I have cold wars with Him (yet He is always the one who takes the first step again to touch my heart). We are lovers, deeply in love with each other. (Please don’t think I am a schizophrenic, I don’t talk to myself!) I never felt deprived until people started questioning me… and I began looking at myself through people’s eyes.

But thank be to God, for the past year, I began to reconcile this fact. I see that not everyone who is in a relationship or who is married is happier than I am right now. I am very independent, I can watch a good movie, shop or read a book at a park alone, watch, laugh and cry over a good Korean drama, I enjoy my work greatly, enjoy the time in church listening to a great sermon, etc. (Enjoying moments being alone does not mean I have no friends, I have many precious friends, and you who are reading this could be one of them.) In short, I enjoy my life! This does not mean I have no desire for a relationship, if it comes, why not? Yet for now, I just want to be the way Jesus wants me to be, enjoying my life in Him. Hope this little note encourages you singles out there too! You are not alone, He is with you always!