All The Single Ladies

Lately everybody, I think, is busy getting married except me.

I’ve made invitations, helped bake a wedding cake, be the events coordinator of my friends' weddings, shared good natured jokes about married life with them. And as always, when everything turns to the idea of how happy it is to be married to the person you love, they turn to me and ask me, so Joyce what are you waiting for? When are you getting married?

That question is no stranger to me anymore.

Í already have the date of my wedding, it will be a Sunday affair, 6p.m. Year is yet to be determined. Now all I have to do is find myself a groom.

If I could just choose the man of my dreams and haul him straight to the altar without him filing a case of kidnapping against me, I would gladly say, I found the one. I would gladly do it, with much gusto in fact!

The only problem is I still haven’t purchase a reliable baseball bat to use for my prospective groom. Just so when he happens to pass right before my nose, I can just weld my mighty baseball bat and strike the living daylights out of him. Drag him to the altar and get married. When he wakes up, he doesn’t have any choice but to accept his faith and love me until thy kingdom comes.

My love story would be an adventure for sure.

I met with a girlfriend yesterday and she was “mourning” the same funny problem as mine. We were amused about it. It seems like everybody is concerned of finding the right man for us. The only thing left that they haven't done is to put us in the marriage market in the literal sense of the word. In the Philippine society, when a woman reaches the age of 30, it is as if it is the time to send her to an emergency room. Time is ticking and she should find herself a husband.

If this was Spanish or American period in the Philippines, I am so sure that by the time I have reached the age of 25 then, I would be called a spinster. But at least they are now more forgiving with single ladies. This time at least when it is thirty years old. When you reach the proverbial thirty something, some people will undoubtedly ask you why aren’t you married at this age. Sometimes, I find it funny that many of my single friends share the same sentiments and funny stories as mine.

On occasions like weddings and baptisms or any family gathering for that matter, mark my word, someone is bound to ask you the question why aren’t you married yet. Our society seems to follow a sort of check list in order to belong to it. We were born first, then we reach puberty, adulthood, then it is expected that we get married. We have to leave a legacy in this world so we have children . And then, we die. (Okay, I sound so morbid with the last one, I know.) We have to follow those stages. It’s the natural order of things as some people would say. It’s a step by step process that society expects for us to follow.

When you’re single in a society that dictates double, sometimes things get nasty or yes, funny.

On gatherings such as weddings, birthdays and what have you, single ladies are almost readily paired with available single men. The son of a friend, the son of a neighbor, the cousin of a friend and so on. Sometimes, without being asked whether they would like to be paired at all. Believe me through the years, I’ve ALMOST memorize the lines before my relatives could even pair me with one. I really dont take it personally because their intentions might be for my own good but it still amuses me at no end. And by the way, if it’s any consolation, ALL my unmarried girlfriends have experienced the same thing one time or another.

Eventually, it has become a constant source of joke among ourselves.

The world is so busy finding the right man for us while we are so busy exploring earth and the universe beyond. I’m perfectly fine with being single just as I’m perfectly fine with being in a relationship. I know my time hasn’t come yet. There are adventures to experience and new horizons to discover. Earth is such a wonderful place despite of everything. One look at the sunrise makes me marvel about the beauty of our existence.

Yes, I am so busy appreciating life.

I’m never bored being single. Not once did it become my problem. Of course, I enjoy the company of a man and also develop interest in the male specie. Why not? the male species are fascinating albeit complicated sometimes. But to say I’m suicidal because I just turned 32 and unmarried? No sir, I am not. It will come in its own sweet time.

I really don't know.

Maybe tomorrow, next week, next year or maybe in the next five years or maybe ten years. Only God knows. But it will surely come. Period. For the meantime, society should stop expecting that I will go out of my way and hunt for the man of my dreams. He will come. In the right time, he will be there. And as what I jokingly tell my single girlfriends always, God provides. Ask and it will be given.

Being married is a blessing just as being single is also a gift.