Manila
Standard, 26 July 2001, p.21
‘If your life is a
bit crap and you smoke too much, or you’re a bit overweight, or your love life
is a catalogue of embarrassments and failures, it’s sort of all right so long
as you’re yourself, having a nice time and having a laugh’ —Hugh Grant on Bridget Jones’ Diary
What do Carrie Bradshaw, Ally McBeal, and Bridget Jones have in common? They are all fictional characters
that have gained international attention because they are female and, more
important, single. What’s the big deal? What makes these fictional women so
unique is the fact that they are all in their 30s and go through life thinking
they are freaks, inflicted with the “I-am-going-to-die-alone” syndrome.
Social history, statistics, and probably experience have shown us that
people in general get married between the ages of 20 and 30. So when you enter
your 30s without getting married, you and the rest of the population could not
help but wonder if you have already missed the boat and are doomed to an entire
life of singlehood. The pressure to get married undoubtedly increases as you
get older.
The funny thing is there never seems to be a right time, except when
you are in your 20s. Try telling your parents you intend to get married at the
age of 19 and they’ll tell you that you are out of your mind. But when you are
still single at 30, your parents will start wondering what the hell is wrong
with you.
Is the window to get married limited to just 10 years? How can we be
sure that we could find and marry our lifetime partner in a span of 10 years or
even less, if we are allowed to socialize later in life?
When you are in your 20s, it is the time you try to find out who you
are. But then again, some of us spend our whole lives trying to find out who we
are. When I was 25, a friend of mine would always have sessions on how we get
so confused about what we want to do in life, our “future plans.”
If you already have a job, you would wonder if that was something you
would be willing to do for the rest of your life. If you have not yet entered
graduate school, you would wonder if you would like to torture yourself some
more with another two or more years trying to increase your market value. If
you have a girlfriend or boyfriend, you would wonder if you would want her or
him to be your spouse.
“Quarter of a century crisis,” we called it. Whatever decision you make
at the time will definitely have an impact on the future.
I quit my first serious job when I was 25 because, aside from burn out,
I could not see myself doing the same darn thing for the next 10 years or so.
So I also decided to pursue further studies and increase my market value.
Besides, my boyfriend then and I were too poor to get married. We could
certainly use more time and money.
But that didn’t mean he was spared from my nagging about getting married.
Of course, I brought it up, pretending it didn’t matter to me if we lived in a
box in some nasty neighborhood because neither one of us wanted to live with
any of our parents. But it did matter. It still does, to most of us, at least.
A 24-year-old
single friend of mine kept whining about her boyfriend of six years, who did
not want to get married yet. I told her if there was anyone who would have the
right to whine about being single, it would be me.
I could not blame her, though. Being brought up in a very comfortable
environment where money hardly became an issue, she could easily lose sight of
the economics of marriage. When I asked her if she wanted to live with their
parents or if she would be willing to rent an apartment until they could afford
to buy their own house, her answer was no to both.
Well, some of us would not really mind asking our parents if they could
spare a part of our inheritance, if any, for a small townhouse or a condo unit.
Some do not even have to ask. It comes out automatically upon the announcement
of marriage that some sort of living quarters will be spared for the newlyweds.
But some of us want to be able to spend for everything on our own. Some
of us are also not lucky enough to be part of the very small number of people
in this country who cannot feel the difficulty of surviving through a very sick
economy.
In such instances, there really is nothing much to do except wait. Wait
for the time when you and your partner can live with or accept whatever
resources you have or when you become beneficiaries of your parents, who were
undoubtedly given a much better chance at saving for the rainy days, which, in
this case, come in the form of your marriage.
Unless you have already received a hefty inheritance from your parents,
have no qualms about living off of your parents, or could find satisfaction in
the salary of someone with less than five years work experience, then getting
married early should not be a problem once you have found that perfect partner
for you.
Whether for financial reasons or not, some people still reach their 30s
unmarried and unattached. That, however, does not necessarily mean they are
strange. When you think about it, what really is the big deal about being a
female single in your 30s?
The pressure stems from two things. The first depends on the
upbringing. Some of us are brought up in an environment where women just aim to
get married to become full-time mothers and housewives. Career was never an
option. So when you reach your 30s without getting hitched, everyone around you
starts to wonder what is wrong with you. The more “traditional” women are in
one’s family, the more the pressure.
But let’s say the environment one grew up in did not espouse
“housewifery.” Where does the pressure come from? I tend to believe that the
pressure is self-inflicted. The pressure comes from the fact that while
everyone else you know has already run off and gotten married, why have you not
done the same thing? Being different from everyone else could sometimes create enough
pressure for you to want something that could make you “not” different.
But what really hypes the popularity of Carrier, Ally, and Bridget?
Well, they do make being single in their 30s very comical, but it’s really
because more and more people can relate to their experiences, especially the
female population. After all, we are experiencing a big shift in the way we
live all over the world.
Many books have already been written on this subject. One book claimed
that the shift is attributed to the fact that people nowadays have more things
to do than just get married. Another attributed the shift to the economics of
getting married. It is cheaper to remain single so people just don’t give in to
the pressures to get married just because everyone is doing it.
But one thing remains the same. Everyone still wants to find true love,
with or without the societal pressures. To some, not finding the perfect
someone to marry could mean not being able to find life’s meaning.
But then again what we all tend to forget is that life’s meaning can be
found from within ourselves. I doubt if anyone who is not happy within himself
or herself could be happy with someone else.
Single life is definitely not easy but it is very possible to have fun.
That’s probably why it is not hard for Carrier, Ally, and Bridget to become
part of every single woman’s life. Apparently, there is a great deal of humor
in single life, especially when you reach your 30s.
When Hugh Grant was asked about “the point” of Bridget Jones’ Diary, he said, “That if your life is a bit
crap and you smoke too much, or you’re a bit overweight, or your love life is a
catalogue of embarrassments and failures, it’s sort of all right so long as
you’re yourself, having a nice time and having a laugh.” That’s pretty much
“the point” I want to make. Thanks, Sweetie!
-30-