This is Why You're Single

As you grow older, your perspectives on your singleness start to shift.

The first weddings out of high school, you feel a twinge of sadness that you didn't find your own high school sweetheart because weddings are so romantic and bridal showers are so fun, but you also feel like the people who get married at 18 are not particularly typical and so you may experience a twinge of jealousy but you also figure that you have to go through college and find that job and maybe live somewhere other than your parents' house before the time comes.

By the age of 25, if you grew up somewhere other than a very cosmopolitan town and your friends are all from church, you find yourself suddenly as the old maid as the last of your single friends get married. At this point, it's actually embarrassing to go up for the bouquet toss with all the 18-year-olds but your friends still insist on calling you out and forcing you on the floor (at which point you stand with your arms crossed and dodge the bouquet if it comes firing in your direction).

Until the age of 28, you can answer all the relatives who ask you why you're still single by telling them that you haven't even reached the median age of marriage so why so much pressure?

By your early 30s, you've decided that perhaps a cosmopolitan town might just be a better fit, so you've invested in your career and moved to a larger city where you're still relatively "normal" in your singleness but it doesn't take long before all the new single friends you've made start to pair off. At this point, no one forces you up for the bouquet toss anymore because they all know it's embarrassing.

Photo by Sweet Ice Cream Photography on Unsplash

And then you reach an age where you can't use statistics anymore to justify your singleness and you start to think... there might actually be something wrong with me.

And as I've looked deep into myself, I've found that there are, in fact, a lot of things that are probably "wrong with me". Here are a few:

• Men have, in fact, described me as "intimidating and unapproachable"
• I cannot flirt. And by that, I mean, I do not know how to recognize when someone is flirting with me. I do not know what flirting actually is. I cannot respond in any sort of normal way when I think, based on limited research, that a man may be flirting with me.
• I have not been able to last more than 96 hours on any particular dating app.
• I overthink absolutely everything and have a complete inability to move forward without optimizing every angle of a situation.

And those are just the flaws specifically related to dating. If you ask my family, close friends or people I've traveled with, they could probably list off a few other areas that could use some refinement.

Okay, but... none of that is why I'm single.

God is actually not up in heaven saying things like: "if she would have just swiped right [or is it left?] on that guy before deleting Bumble..." or "if she would have used the wink emoji instead of the smiley face emoji, he would have realized she was interested."

I've long believed that attraction is a tool that may seem nonsensical but can actually be used by God to shape where he wants us to go. I may be a great catch (aforementioned flaws notwithstanding), but if a particular man is not what God has for me, the most pain he can spare me is to just simply make that man not attracted to me. And on the flip side, I could have all the walls up and God could just send someone who doesn't care that I'm awkward or don't giggle properly at his jokes (I assume that's part of how you would flirt?) and he could just pursue me anyway.

So the actual answer about why you're single is because that's exactly where God wants you to be.

We lose sight of the goodness of singleness in our society. I can become overly focused on the fact that others aren't there for me as much as they pair off and build families and lose sight of the fact that I have margin in my life to pour into others. I've had some friends and family with kids come stay with me a few times over the past few months and I love them all, but it reminds me that I take for granted the simplicity of my life and the simple pleasures that being alone affords me. I get frustrated that I have to either travel alone or try harder to recruit friends to go with me, but I lose sight of the fact that being single (and childless) means that I can travel much more extensively without having to worry about someone else's preferences or travel schedule.

And we start to doubt God's goodness. We wonder if maybe he just forgot about us, rather than trusting that he is weaving together a beautiful story which may or may not involve a wedding in this life, but is guaranteed to be what we would choose if we could see everything that he sees.

And so I might propose... maybe it's time to stop trying to worry about shaping ourselves specifically to meet the unknown and mysterious requirements of some hazy future spouse, and instead pursue holiness, community, worship, service? There's a lot that's "wrong" with me, but I am better served to work those things out in community as I learn to pour myself out for others and let them sharpen me as iron sharpens iron. Marriage doesn't come when we've worked out all our kinks. If God does bring a husband into my life, it won't be because I finally cracked the code on how to flirt or worked out enough of my flaws. It will be because he's good. And if I stay single forever, it won't be because I didn't pick up on the right signals or because I haven't fixed enough of my sinful behaviors to warrant his goodness. It will be because he's good.