Prose: What Is Wrong With Me?

By Morenike Nie Smith

Society makes us believe that being alone is more of a disadvantage than an advantage. The older generation makes it even worse by reminding us that the good book says marriage is an honorable thing. Is my being single dishonorable?

Why is my being unmarried an issue? I have tried so many times to defend this, but I always seem to be in my own world. The society we live in is one that is controlled by views, analysis and different points of view, and mine remains, being single is a state of mind.

After we graduated, we all had plans of families, the number of children we would have and where we would settle with our respective spouses. I for one knew that the union was meant to be blissful so I kept looking forward to it. I still am. I watched my friends all tie the nuptial knot and I kept asking myself the most common question. ‘What is wrong with me?’ As soon as they started untying the knot the question changed to ‘What is wrong with them?’

I grew up in a family that believes in marriage and all the good things it comes with. My mother still prays fervently for a husband, for her dear daughter and when she does, I laugh under my breath because it is no longer about getting married as it is about being single in marriage.

I sit on a bar stool and watch the number of men who do not wear the wedding band and when I ask, the answer is similar to the next ‘It got stolen’, ‘I react to it’, okay we get it..

What’s trending? The fear of being alone is the greatest of them all. It is either we female folk end up with half bred men or the male folk end up with their mothers’ nightmare. I remember my friend who prayed day and night for a man to call her ‘own’ and after series of frogs, she finally landed her prince.  Was he really the prince? She was excited about the impending wedding and so were we. I looked forward to the endless list of bachelors who would come prowling for the next hook up – after all, wedding hook ups can be the ‘ish’.

On that fateful day, I sat and watched from behind what a joke they all looked like. She grinned from ear to ear while he had a smirk on his face. Perhaps it was just the fact that all I wanted was to have a drink and the reception was more like the place I would rather have been so I only saw what I wanted to see. Mass ended, and the whole lot of us proceeded to the reception venue. I looked around wondering what would be different…the food, the guests, or the dance?   Same old story.

I sat amongst her friends and they all giggled like they were happy. In truth, her wedding gown was a sorry sight, the maid of honor looked better than she did and the bride kept glancing to see if her husband noticed. She wanted to be with her friends while he wanted to be with his. Was I missing something here or wasn’t this meant to be some sort of union?

As lost as I was in thought, it began to dawn on me that the pressures of getting a life partner and the realities were two different things. There really was no difference between me and the bride because in every single picture she looked lost and I prayed the groom would suck on a lemon because his grin had become unbearable. Reality hit me he did not spend a dime. All he did was present himself and there was a wedding. It could have been the other way round but this was their case.

My friend sits here as I write and when I ask why he is divorced he has no concrete answers. All he says is that he was married to the Ideal and my couch is reality.  I thought it was for better or for worse? He is so in love with being single I can almost swear he was never married. Yet, he denies what I see and I still wonder….was he too busy being single while he was married or vice versa?

Where does the buck stop?  Do we have to feed a societal hunger just to end up single in marriage?

Mum, I am honorably single and proudly so…I don’t want to be single in marriage.