Home > Singles > Single Minded
Turkey Day
by Camerin Courtney
December 10, 2003
Holidays often mean family. And family, for us single folks, sometimes means insanity.
Take my recent Thanksgiving holiday, for example. It gave new meaning to the term Turkey Day.
It all started when my cousin, shortly after sitting next to me with a plateful of ham, stuffing, and pink fluffy "salad," mentioned that he'd heard about my recent speed dating adventure. After asking all about the mechanics of this new singlehood phenomenon, he encouraged me to try it again … and again. "Until you've met at least 100 men," he advised. "Because, you know, finding a spouse is all just a numbers game."
I smiled politely at this dubious bit of wisdom, not knowing that this was just the tip of the iceberg. I was to hear "it's all just a numbers game" countless times before the day was done. As well as a bunch of other "helpful" hints for "fixing" my single state.
Things really heated up when my grandfather got into the game. This man, whom I'd just cured from asking about my love life just after saying hello each time we see each other, jumped at the chance to join in the conversation about me finding a mate. So as we were all sitting around "drunk" on dessert, my grandfather and cousin settled in on one side of the island in my parents' kitchen firing questions and comments at shell-shocked, still-single me on the other side. I felt like the day's guest on one of those debate-oriented news talk shows with names like Hardball or Firing Line.
First they wanted to know what I was doing to meet men. "Are there any guys at your workplace?" my grandfather asked.
"Well, dating someone at work could get a little complicated," I replied, thinking of friends who'd experienced this truth firsthand.
"The way I see it," my all-wise grandfather said, "if he's not at your workplace, you're in the wrong job."
Great. Ten years at my current job all for naught.
He tried a different track. "Are you volunteering?"
"Yes."
"Are you hanging out regularly at a local restaurant or library?"
"Yes. I'm a regular at a couple local coffee shops."
"And nothing's brewing?"
"No."
"And what about church?" he asked next. "Are you involved in a singles group there?"
I explained that the singles group at my church just went defunct but that I was involved in a Sunday school class of my peers, both single and married. When he asked if there were any prospects there, I replied, "Not really. My single friends and I don't seem to find a ton of available men at church."
"What about singles groups at other churches?" he pressed.
"What about them?" I asked, afraid of his response.
"Can't you go visit them in search of a good man?" he said.
"Well, I feel pretty strongly against church hopping just to find a mate. That seems so desperate and sacrilegious and contrary to the reason we should go to church."
"Isn't church about community?" he retorted.
"Yes, but it's about so much more than just that. You know, there's that whole worshiping God element."
He finally fell silent. So my cousin chimed in. "When was the last time someone asked you out?"
"Um, about a year ago," I replied, suddenly realizing the rest of the family was now listening in to my little inquisition. Great, instead of playing a board game we were playing Pick on the Single Girl.
"What?! You mean men don't ask you out when you walk down the street?" He looked incredulously at me while I looked incredulously at him.
"You do realize I'm not a hooker, right?"
"Well, yeah." He was silent a moment. "You must not be showing enough leg." I thought of myself walking around in a miniskirt in the middle of Chicagoland winter, and just shook my head in disbelief. Even if that was the way I wanted to attract a man, I think I'd soon lose my legs to frostbite.
"The USO!" my grandfather suddenly piped up. "Isn't there a naval base on Lake Michigan? Those military men need dance partners, you know." He smiled at this great idea, no doubt remembering USO dances from his own past. "Surely you can find some good men there. The military did great things for me." Obviously, I thought.
Note to self: Get right on that USO idea … as soon as I find a time portal and transport myself back to 1930. Sigh.
It was like I was receiving life advice from Rush Limbaugh and David Letterman. I was being double-teamed by two of the most cynical, opinionated men in my humble home state.
When I sighed heavily, my frustration no doubt obvious by now, my grandfather got to the root, generation-gap cause of this conversation. "I just want you to be happy," he explained genuinely.
"I am happy!" I snapped angrily, ignoring the ironic combination of my words and tone. "At least more days than not," I explained. "I mean, no one's happy all the time." I realized my grandfather was furthering the common myth that marriage equals happiness. Anyone who's been married, even happily so, and anyone who's spent a fair amount of time with married folk will attest to the fact that those who are hitched have their bad days as much as we single folks do. Getting married is just trading one brand of up and down days for another.
And I also realized that my grandfather was trying to fit my life into a form of "settled" and "happy" that was familiar to him. And my cousin? I suspect this still-single 30something was trying to shift the attention off his own life and onto someone else's. Become the inquisitor to avoid being the inquisitee.
Ah, family. I guess I should be grateful, really. It could have been worse. One single friend of mine once told me how her grandmother once asked her if she really liked men. And conversations such as these always give me something to regale my married friends with and to one-up my single friends with when we compare notes about our respective family gatherings after the holidays. This year I have a feeling I just may "win" these unofficial competitions.
Later that fateful Thanksgiving Day, I felt the need to reassure my parents, who'd been present for this whole conversation, that I hadn't become so pro-single that I was now anti-marriage or anti-men. "I do want to get married someday," I explained. "Just not to any ol' Joe on the street or at any USO dance that may still exist somewhere." We chuckled. "I was just balking at their underlying implication that I'm still single because I've done something wrong—or haven't done something right. Or that my singleness is a problem that needs fixing. Or that singleness and happiness can't coexist."
True happiness, we singles should know by now, is about attitude and optimism, about choice and unconditional contentment, about hope and faith. And about being able to recognize and somehow appreciate family members' genuine though sometimes misguided attempts to make sure we're "okay," even when it's a generationally informed, stiflingly narrow definition of the word.
And in not, as they say, letting the turkeys get us down.
Camerin welcomes your feedback and brainstorms at: SinglesNewsletter@ChristianityToday.com
Sign up for the Singles Newsletter and receive a new article plus community updates in your inbox every week!
Copyright © 2003 ChristianityToday.com
| 
