Baby, Marriage, Boyfriend, or Whatever Order It Goes In
An analysis on why I’m expected to date against my will.
I’m looking at my weekly schedule and I’m pissed! There’s nothing on it. Let me rephrase: There’s only one thing on it - my 9 to 5. That’s fine and normal, but it’s bizarre and contrasting to the life I’ve been living up until this point. Since the end of school for the rest of my life I’ve had nothing but the achingly long minutes and seconds after work and on the weekend to not do homework. I recognize the dramatics of this statement seeing as how it’s only been about two weeks since school’s end, but you have to understand that after being “too busy” for everything since 2015, I almost feel useless when tackled by open space and time to do anything I want. I have been the busiest person in the world since I was a girl-Ama running alongside her mother from school to swim practice to karate and back home for homework. Now that I’m adult-Ama, with all this power and control that I don’t want, I’m expected to be the superhero of my own life. With my age comes family and friends looking me up and down at my height and matured face since the last time they saw me and promptly leads into questions. So many questions, questions, questions, but one in particular framed in various ways, “Do you have a boyfriend?” “Are you dating?” “Anyone special?” “How’s the love life going?”
Kelsy, A 2023, Niagara Girls Trip, digital, 7 May 2023.
Laying it all out on the rug, I am extremely frightened by this question. On an analytical level, I am completely aware that humans love and absolutely adore the topic of romantic love, but I can’t help but feel backed into 22 corners, feeling like I’ve been wasting 22 years loligagging instead of finding a high school sweetheart. Why wasn’t I boyfriend hunting after my first birthday? It would’ve given me a head start. Although it isn’t a race, there seems to be this expectation of me to act and be a certain way, that she likes men, she has time, her time should be filled with a man? No? Truth is, I’m not sure. It's safe to say in these recent months Confusion has been my default setting and these questions, questions and more questions don’t help.
As a child, my mother used the fear mongering tactic when it came to crushes and anything remotely romantic. It was all about what would happen after liking someone, the distraction and its potential to ruin everything you’ve worked for and your life as a whole. Is this particularly healthy? Oh, definitely not, but I’ve only realised this recently, so you can imagine its effects on my hypothalamus (the part of the brain that feels love). You can also imagine my surprise when my mother asked me about my love life herself. Specifically she asked me, 'So there isn’t anyone cute at work’ as if we had been talking about it two minutes prior; like the beginning of a novel that starts in the middle of a conversation. And while I enjoy this technique in literature, I was taken aback by the question in my very real, non-literary life. So I took the best course of action when asked a question by someone who never wanted to know before now - evaded the question to no end. The demand to know if I’ve spoken to someone of the opposite sex is not an offensive one per say, but it’s definitely interesting based on its sudden nature. If this starts at my age now, does this mean it’ll continue into my 30s? Can I take another eight years of this? I can feel myself growing more resistant and stubborn (which I’ve been told I can be, but I feel that it’s never without reason or fact) and wondering if I should be single forever just for spite.
What followed was self doubt of course, and we can’t forget the overthinking. When family asked me about the tedious topic, my immediate go-to was to say that I had no time but suddenly it was and isn’t true. I do have time, so those slots and gaps when I do things myself or with friends seem like they’re being wasted, like they should be spent on someone who may or may not like me or may or may not end in disaster in three hefty months of incompatibility. Though maybe my cynical side has made an appearance. The truth is, I carry my free time, time with friends, time with family as precious and this little blotch of paint tainted with the feeling that I could be doing something different with someone who is “supposed” to carry more meaning than my platonic friends feels odd, mostly because I didn’t put it there. It was brought on by uninvited artists and their creative visions for my life.
Kelsy, A 2023, Rainy Monday, digital, 7 May 2023.
Being someone who may or may not have only-child syndrome, there is no innate discomfort I feel about doing things myself compared to hearing the qualms of my friends with heaps of siblings. Preferring to do things by yourself seems to be taboo in our North American society. It’s like the stats of loneliness heard by the masses of 60% of Americans saying they feel lonely on a regular basis (PBS, 2023) has to include me. As mammals who’ve been through a pandemic and industrial revolution (both being known to cause the feeling of isolation amongst the masses), and whatever else, it’s understandable to see how a lack of touch and closeness can result in loneliness. Though, does that mean every single person around you is yearning for a partner? Statistically, this can’t be possible. We also tend to ignore how platonic love can fill one's heart just as much as the more popular kind of love.
This isn’t a critique on everyone else. I lump myself in the category of the Overasker as well, but being on the other side for the first time, I realise how isolating the question is compared to actually being single. Ironic.
Now, of course this new phase in life is annoying and generally gruelling and probably carries remnants of sexism with people not believing a young woman can be happy alone, but aside from all that, it’s flat out corny. The more I see other humans, I’m sure the topic will keep coming up and I’m sure I’ll keep recoiling at the inquisition, but those are the motions I guess, so I’ve just got to go with it. And go with it I will until I have a pile of corn on my lap and no butter to make it the least bit flavourful.
Written and Published by Ama Kelsy
