This Is Why We Are Still Single

Normally this space is reserved for some comical story I’m reciting to my kids that for the most part is exaggerated just to make them laugh. You’ve pretty much got the gist of how this blog is run, don’t you? However, this week things are different. This week, this post is for me. And for Chris Thompson. And for Gabe Phillips. And for everyone else out there who is sick and tired of married individuals treating us like we are the scum of the earth. 

This post is for all the single people.

For full effect, download "It's My Life" by Bon Jovi and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

It seems that in our culture if you are older than 25 years of age and do not have a spouse, a fiancé, or a steady dating partner for a solid six months, you are automatically condemned to the outer darkness of social interaction. A place where obese Aunts and Uncles shake their heads in disgust during family reunions. A place where there are an unending number of attempts to be set up with that one 43-year old schizophrenic lady down the street who owns a shelter for abandoned cats.

If we have graduated with a six-year Bachelor’s degree in hand and still haven’t found someone to take to the altar, in your eyes, we are dead.

Married people, why do you treat us single folks this way? Why do you feel we are “lost causes” who are so far off the beaten path that we might as well sign up for the nearest vasectomy? Why are we viewed in the same light as Hepatitis B? Why are the first words out of your mouths to us after the initiatory greeting, “So when ya gettin’ hitched?”

In your eyes, our single life is as valuable as the dead goldfish you just flushed down the toilet.

It's as if there is a war between our two sides. The married couples against the bachelors and bachelorettes. The ones with eternal partners versus the ones with gym memberships they actually use. Those with rings, against those without. And you just can’t wait to convert us all to the ways of married life.

You want us to join your club of couples who are legally in L-word and have the vows on tape to prove it. You want us to know what it’s like to have your "best friend" with you at all times, and can look into one another's eyes and sing Kenny Chesney songs over a bottle of wine late into the night. You really don't care who we end up with, as long as we can have those cheese-tasting parties with you on Wednesday nights and complain about our kids painting the walls with their own poo, because that's married life, right?

But you see, there’s a big problem with that last sentence.

You don't care.

You don’t care who we decide to be with for the rest of our lives, or at least until one of us gets sick of the other and turns into an axe murderer or calls an attorney. You don’t care who we bring home for the holidays, as long as we are bringing home someone at all. Because in your mind, you are content with the fact that we aren’t alone, and we have finally fallen in L-word and have found that someone that gets us into the secret club of people who can post phony photos of their glorious wedding day every single TBT. 

Well you know what, and for the record I’m speaking for all the single people out there with as much pent up frustration you can imagine, the reason we aren’t married just yet, is because marriage to us sounds miserable. If you were to poll a group of single people and ask what we think marriage is, the majority of us would come up with the same blanket concept.

Marriage is a game.

Marriage to us is a competition of tactical strategies to try and prove your point over miniscule arguments. Marriage is picking your battles and figuring out if you want to fight over whose turn it is for laundry, or whether or not you can go golfing with your buddies. Marriage is cooking dinner and buying your wife a new dress only hoping with your shaking fingers crossed under the table that she will consent to have sex with you for the first time in three months.

Am I wrong? Because at the sound of that last paragraph, I think I’m ready to go join a monastery.

Now I know I’m just picking the ugly side of the equation here, and I’m sure there are dozens of married folk out there reading this who are chomping at the bit ready to chastise my foolishness and write a rant about how blogs like this are the reason I’m still single and that I have a snowball’s chance in Hell at ever finding a woman who can put up with my egotistical vocabulary, and that married life is so much better than I will ever be able to imagine.

But the thing is, I’m making these presumptions based off watching all of you. And hearing how the world mocks the way a married couple treats one another. And seeing the look in your 19-year old eyes when you realize the honeymoon wasn’t as exciting as you thought and now you’re attached to a creep you can’t stand.

And you wonder why all single people are classified as having “commitment issues”. 

I’m speaking the truth when I say that myself, and Chris, and Gabe, and every other single creature out there does not want to be content with someone who we’re only proud of on certain days of the month. And to answer your question, as to why we are still single, why we haven’t settled down yet, and why we are still holding out for that “twue wove” as The Princess Bride minister with a speech impediment so eloquently put.

It’s because we want something different. We don’t want to just be “content”. 

I’m not stupid. I know relationships change and everyone is not always going to be on that euphoric cloud nine every single waking second in a fantasy world of romance. I get that those things fade away with time, and that there are going to be ups and downs along the way as married couples grow older together.

But I don’t want to get caught in a philosophical staredown with myself in the mirror and question whether the bond I have with my wife is really worth it in the long run. I don’t want to wonder about what might have happened had I held out just a bit longer in that crazy dating world to actually find my best friend. I don’t want to question whether I, or the girl I share rings with, have honestly “settled”.

Those are the reasons we are all still single.

And they’re pretty damn good ones too.