Hats off to the single life
I remain unmarried, despite all the pressure and temptation
SINGLES by Karenina Yaptinchay
Manila Standard, P. 24B, 31 August 2000

Some of the single people I know tell me that when they are in the company of non-singles, they often act as clowns, the comic relief. When the conversation zeroes in on why they are still single, they usually say something funny, hoping someone would change the topic. To many, being single has become a joke.

In fact, some people have become so accustomed to making single life an object of humor that they sometimes find everything about it amusing. One of my married friends once talked about how fulfilled she felt when she took a walk with her son at the beach, saying that nothing could compare to the feeling she had at that moment. When I said I wouldn’t really know how that felt, everyone burst into laughter. I wasn't trying to be funny, I was just being honest but they all thought I was making fun of my being single. Sometimes, that's okay. It's always nice to put smiles on people's sometimes too serious faces.

A married friend says she finds solace in the company of her single friends because they break the monotony of her married life. It's maybe because singles project having lives full of fun and adventure or simply full of things that married people can no longer do.

"The Single, long a stock figure in story, song and personal ads, was traditionally someone at the margins of society: a figure of fun, pity or awe," so wrote Carla Power in "The New Single," an article published in Newsweek a couple of weeks ago.

Being a figure of fun is one thing. Try watching Friends and Ally McBeal or reading Bridget Jones' Diary to see how fun and amusing single life can be. Being a figure of pity and awe, however, can be disturbing.

We live in a society where everybody is expected to marry someday. No wonder, people tend to think that because you are single, you are most likely to be lonely and unhappy, pitiful and pathetic, ever "in waiting." Today, statistics show that more and more people, especially women, will remain single due to the unequal ratio of the genders. How lonely this planet must be!

I couldn’t count the times when I hear people compliment married couples for getting married, for making their marriage work, and for raising good kids. To many of us who are members of this society, that is achievement. When people get married, we automatically tell them "congratulations." There is nothing wrong with that, really. We are congratulating them probably for kissing the curse of single life goodbye.

But how often do you hear people congratulate singles for their achievements? Hardly. Not many people realize that singles also accomplish a lot of things, too.

For example, when you are the only one who has managed to remain single and a virgin for a very, very long time, you don’t hear your friends congratulating you. Instead, you hear people telling you how prude or how frigid you are. They also call you strange, something short of a freak. Although some people might probably think keeping virginity is not too big a deal, I believe it is an accomplishment, a milestone achievement. In spite of all the pressures from friends and family, you manage to hold your ground and muster enough courage to stand up for what you believe in, if that's what you believe in. (Someone I know had a theory that those who went to single-sex schools know very little about the opposite sex, implying that it can be a reason why some people are still single. He believes life is "better" for him because he grew up in an environment full of interaction with the opposite sex. Far out.)

If you remain single for a long, long time, isn’t braving criticisms and surviving talks about why you are still single an accomplishment, too? Sometimes, people have a nasty way of trying to figure out what is wrong with you only because you are single. Carrie, one of the main characters of "Sex and the City," has a theory that when you remain single after 30, you are probably a freak. Funny how she turned up to be a paranoid freak herself when she turned her boyfriend's place inside out just to find out what was wrong with him because he was still single. Her paranoia caused their break-up. Only then did she realize that she could enjoy her single life by herself by not getting too caught up, paranoid or neurotic about it.

How about when you survive break-ups? You see, those who have married have survived their relationships, an accomplishment indeed. But picking up the million pieces of you broken heart is just as tremendous a feat as making a relationship work, probably even more difficult because unlike love, which comes with both laughter and tears, picking up the pieces is mostly about confronting pain. It takes a while before you start laughing with genuine pleasure again. What's worse, each relationship that follows comes with the possibility of another break-up. Of course, married couples also share this possibility, but a single person has nothing to hold on to, not even an eternal vow that may someday be forgotten. Society expects marriages to work and I believe it should. But the sad truth is that not all marriages work. Although marriage also can lead to separation, you don’t hear people commending those who were able to get their lives back after marriage. What you hear from people are criticisms or pity.

What about not being duped into a relationship that is bound to be doomed from the very start? Singles don’t get credit for being too choosy about their partners. In fact, some people say I am single because I am too choosy. They all miss the point. Choosy is when you have a lot of potential partners to choose from. The problem is even the choices have become scarcer. There are a lot of people out there who marry for the wrong reasons. They get criticized, too, but at the end of the day, they are still able to do what is expected of them. They can act like getting married is the answer to their problems, and, sadly, some of them do until it is too late and it sometimes is once the vows have been exchanged.

Singles go through life without the pleasure (or displeasure) of having someone to count on. While most people think this is, again, a lonely and pitiful situation, I think it is another achievement.

I am not going to start a debate on who has achieved more, married or single people. I believe that life, in general, is so complex and difficult that it is necessary sometimes to have some sense of accomplishment to make it all worthwhile. Singles also go through as many trials as married people, although these trials may be quite different. Singles also have a hard time with all the battles, the struggles and the pressures of their semi-charmed kind of life of fun, pity and awe. Surviving life as a single is a major achievement. I've stayed single despite all the pressure and temptation, all the boredom and delirium, all the dreams and fears, hats off to that! Applause, please.