Alone in a crowd or happy by your lonesome
SINGLES by Karenina Yaptinchay
Manila Standard, P. 24B, 23 November 2000

During the pre-interview for an episode of Studio 23's Points of View, the researcher asked me if I still want to get married, considering that I am single and unattached. My immediate answer was "Why not?" I guess she was trying to find out if I am what I would call an "involuntary" or "voluntary" single, if I may borrow from singles workshop conductor and author Susan Page.

As the name implies, the involuntary single is one who wants to have a relationship with a partner but does not have any. Most of the single people I know fall under this category. But it goes down to the very basic question: Why do people want to have a relationship?

First, there is the loneliness issue. Society does a pretty good job of falsely equating being single and being lonely. Society claims that if you are single, you are likely to be alone and if you are alone, you are likely to be lonely.

Point of argument: Being single does not automatically mean you are alone. Although you are more likely to be by yourself in the absence of a better (or worse) half, there will always be people around who can keep you company. If you live with your parents, you'll be surprised how "so not alone" you can be. A friend of mine refuses to move out of his parent's house because he cannot stand going home to a dark and empty house at night. So if being alone bothers you, you do not have to move out of your parents. Besides, staying with your parents until you get married is widely practiced in this country. If you decide to live on your own, there will always be friends who can keep you company.

Also, being alone is more of a state of mind, nothing physical. A married friend of mine confessed that she feels alone most of the time, even with her husband and kids. What a pity! But that is one reality some of us must deal with. You can be in a room full of people, yet feel so alone.

In the same way, you can be by yourself and not feel alone or, as society puts it, lonely. My roommate once told me that the thought of not having someone terrified her at first. But when she actually immersed herself into physical aloneness, she realized it was all in her mind and that she actually enjoyed being by herself, most of the time. Surprisingly to many, some people actually find joy in solitude. And some people can only enjoy privacy and freedom when they are single. Sure, you can enjoy privacy and freedom even if you are married, but I have yet to see a married person who is totally private and free. If being private and free matters most to a person, I don't see any reason why he or she would want to get married.

But who really wants to be alone all the time, or worse, forever? People need to interact. Even God thought it would be too lonely for Adam to walk the earth all by himself. But in my opinion, not wanting to be alone has little to do with marriage. I do not have to grow old alone or lonely if I don't want to, whether or not I remain single. And even if you get married and have children, you can still end up alone and lonely if you get separated from your husband and when your kids finally have families of their own.

No wonder many people dread being single. It is the fear of loneliness that leads them to believe that marriage cures loneliness.

The second issue for involuntary singles is emptiness or incompleteness, which is usually felt by those who have loved and lost because only then can there be a comparison. How can anything be empty if it was never full or incomplete if it was never complete? To avoid such feeling, I try to convince myself after every break up that I was doing alright before I met the person who broke my heart or whose heart I broke. I was complete way before I met my partner so I guess I can survive. But I know, too, that the pain can sometimes be so unbearable. Sometimes, it can even lead to rebound relationships that actually work.

The voluntary single is one who chooses to remain single, for some reason or another. One of the reasons, as I have said earlier, is the high personal prioritization of privacy and freedom of single life. A guest at Points of View's episode on singlehood said she knew herself well that she could not live with anyone. Another said singlehood was an "acquired taste." Voluntary singles stop the buck.

Remaining single voluntarily makes life easier than remaining single involuntarily. Besides, voluntary singles can easily change their minds and decide to marry the minute they find the right person. Involuntary singles can likewise change their minds and prefer to remain and not mind being single. Whether by default or by choice is another matter.

There are definitely advantages to being single and some people do choose to remain so. But there are always two sides to a coin. What if you choose to get married? It is not the same as choosing to be single because when you make that choice, all you have to do is reject all the marriage proposals you get, if you get any. If you have not received any proposals, then you just go on with your life.

When you choose, however, to get married, you will still have to go through a search for the right person. It is not as if you wake up one morning, decide you want to get married, and marry the man or woman of your dreams. What if that person never comes along? Do you just marry anybody who is willing? I guess it will have to depend on how badly or how desperately you want to get married. A bigger problem is if no one is even willing to marry you.

When I tried to figure out which category I belonged to, I had no choice but to come up with a third category: the passive single, one that includes those who are not really looking for a partner but open to the probability of marriage. This means I am not closing my doors to marriage but in the meantime, I am enjoying the fruits of my single life. C'est la vie. Marriage will come at the right moment, if it will ever come at all. But, as I said in Points of View, in the meantime, I live my life.

Comments? E-mail me at [email protected].