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It's official: There's no place safe from questions and comments about my singleness. Silly me thought that being out of the country with a group of internationals I'd never met before would make me safe from this usual topic of conversation.

But no, even in a remote Slovakian town I still can't pronounce after being there almost two weeks, surrounded by a group of international Christian journalists for a conference, I still found myself in conversations about my unmarried state.

It all started with the wonderful couple who drove me to the conference facility. This Austrian-Canadian pair has been married 32 years and you can tell they're still crazy about each other. It's there in the way they obviously amuse each other with her contagious enthusiasm about life's little details and his playful verbal sparring with a mutual friend of theirs. And it was evident in the way he watched her give the keynote talk the first night of the conference. I even saw him wipe away a few tears.

When I told the woman what a great job she'd done, I mentioned how fun it had been to watch her husband watching her. "That man's obviously crazy about you," I said with a sly smile. She thanked me for the compliment, then said something totally unexpected: "That's what I wish for you—a husband who'll be as supportive for you and the things you're called to as my husband is for me."

I felt a tad silly when I said that I wouldn't mind that either. Just hearing myself say "I'd like that, too" instead of something along the lines of "oh, don't worry about me, I've got a great, full life" startled even me. This dear new friend promised to pray for a spouse for me as she felt the Holy Spirit had put that on her heart. I thanked her, hugged her, and then walked away feeling an odd mixture of gratefulness and embarrassment.

I heard a similar sentiment a week later from a Ukrainian woman who barely speaks English. I'd shared simply one painfully awkward conversation with her during the conference, one in which I'd tried desperately to understand her fractured pronunciations and also in which my unmarried state never came up. Nonetheless, as we hugged goodbye, she whispered in my ear, "I pray for husband for you." And at the end of the conference, a woman from Malaysia brought up the husband issue for me during a private prayer time.

This was getting eerie. Or depressing. Did I look that desperate? That lonely? That in need of a spouse? I didn't know whether to feel offended or flattered … and I wasn't exactly sure about the origin of either of these emotions. Why offended? For desiring to get hitched? Why flattered? For the fact that these women who barely knew me had somehow found me marriageable?

It was during a frozen-yogurt run with a fellow single friend a few days after I returned from my trip that I began to get a peek at a possible answer. I regaled her with tales of these three international women who'd added my marital status to their prayer lists, joking that with these three spiritual pillars lifting this request heavenward, I half-expected to find my hubby waiting on my doorstep when I returned to the States. (Sadly, no such luck.)

But then the conversation turned more serious and I admitted to the part of me that bristled at these offers of prayer for my future spouse, the part of me that wanted to utter confidently, "No really, I'm just fine, thankyouverymuch."

I was somewhat relieved when this friend mentioned that she, too, felt silly when she'd recently found herself uttering aloud in a moment of loneliness, "I want to get married." When she later reflected on her sheepishness over this declaration, she traced some of her feelings back to, of all things, the feminist movement. "During the latter years of the feminist movement, when the emphasis was on hatred of and autonomy from men, it somehow became a no-no for women to want to get married. I don't think they did us any favors." We then discussed how there's probably always been somewhat of a stigma for men to express this desire.

We, the growing new breed of singles in our thirties and beyond, are carving out a new niche in our churches and society. And I fear that in attempting to legitimize our life station, to make it independent, strong, and three-dimensional, we've also made it somewhat shameful to desire to leave it one day for the married life. Often, as an unmarried woman who values her independence and who often preaches full-bodied single living, I've thought I'm not supposed to want to get married, that it's somehow a sign of weakness. And if there's anything we're still loath to admit, even in our Jerry Springer-loving society, it's the presence of an unmet need or perceived weakness.

What followed with my friend that day as we snarfed our swirl cones was a refreshingly honest conversation about what it means to be a strong single (namely, an ability to be real with ourselves, each other, and God) and what it doesn't mean (a prideful denial of what's really in our head and heart). We talked about our shared desire for a godly spouse, and about our somewhat embarrassed feelings over that desire. We talked about our fear of becoming that brand of single whose sole purpose for getting up in the morning is the quest for a spouse, but also wishing for an alternative other than patently denying that desire altogether.

Surely there's a way to be honest about this wish without sounding desperate or one-dimensional. For many of us, seeking to carve out a successful single life in our romance-obsessed popular culture and our family-centric churches is a daily exercise in trying to find that middle ground of living with the paradox of contentment and longing. It's not easy. But in the middleofnowhere, Slovakia, I discovered another benefit of being real: Others can pray for you. I could have denied those prayers, and missed out on the extra mouths and minds to lift this request heavenward, a request I'm slowly getting bold enough to admit I really do desire.

It's also a request that sends me occasionally to my doorstep—just in case these prayer warriors from other parts of the world finally help me receive the once-secret desire of my heart.

Camerin welcomes your feedback and brainstorms at: SinglesNewsletter@ChristianityToday.com

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