I came across this article (below), that I wrote for Full Woman in the Saturday Monitor three years ago.
In the last three years, I have received more enlightenment about relationships. And because I have a deeper relationship with God, this enlightenment has been geared towards godly relationships.
Do people still ask why I’m still single? Yes. Do some go on to assess this single state and give a reason for it? Yes. The reasons they give are still the same as they were in the article below.
In fact there are more, now that I consciously seek God and desire to follow his ways. The most outstanding is that I have “become too religious”. In fact one guy said he wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with a girl like me because he would have to compete with God.
“Then girls like me are blessed,” was my reply. I was fast to explain to him what I meant lest he felt offended; girls like me would want to be with a man who seeks the Lord just as much if not more –one who would never feel like there is a competition between him and God because God is above all things.
Another thing that has changed is that people telling me why I’m still single doesn’t irritate me as much as it used to. Because of this, I don’t get into endless arguments, trying to defend my singlehood. I know it is not something to be ashamed of but to delight in. Soon, the people asking these questions realise this and stop bringing it up.
Oh, and my little brother is now old enough to understand the dynamics of one’s sexuality. That hasn’t stopped him from telling me that he is getting too old to be the page boy on my wedding day. What are little brothers for after all?
The article that ran in Full Woman, Saturday Monitor in October 2012:
My little brother says I am gay because I have no boyfriend. This is a nine-year-old’s opinion. And he had an explanation. According to him, a boyfriend is a friend who is a boy and seeing as all my friends he has met are girls, it stands that I have girlfriends hence I am gay.
But that is beside the point. What got me about this conversation was not the part about me being gay; Lord knows the poor boy has not fully grasped what that really means. What got me was the fact that even a nine-year-old has something to say about why I am single.
In the past months or so, many people have told me why I am single. And the reasons, good heavens, the reasons! Some are well… reasonable. Others are just preposterous and there are others which, after listening to, I feel like the world’s greatest, insert word that rhymes with a sandy beach.
I shall illustrate; “you are too serious, no one likes serious girls.” Really? No one, in the entire world, likes serious girls? Here I was thinking that the women I look up to are serious women. Most of them are married or in a relationship, take care of their families and work hard at their jobs. But it turns out that they had to be flighty in order to hook those men. Come on!
“You love yourself.” I have never fully understood what this means but I usually interpret it literally. Of course I love myself, why shouldn’t I? Should I hate myself so that someone else will love me? How twisted is that?
“You fear men.” Apparently men are not human, there are a different race similar to ogres. That is the only way I can explain why someone would think I could fear a fellow human being. Do not get me wrong, there are some fear-inducing people out there. But the root of fear is not their gender but rather their character.
“You are unapproachable.” This one always makes me think of the porcupine which throws spikes when it senses danger or even the skunk and its ungodly musk. Is this how these people see me? Well if it is, I wonder how the people around me manage to talk to me.
“You are too much of a mukiga.” Hmmm, I have never figured out how someone tests my level of kikiganess but rumour has it that mine is too much. I wish I could place a laughing emoticon here because that is the only way I can react.
The rest are not phrases I would write in a family publication so I will stop here. But not without telling these all-knowing people that most times things are because they just are. So I am single because I am. Where is it written that every 24-year-old has to be in a relationship?
My biggest question right now is not about a relationship. It is more about how I can grow in my career, what I’m going to do next in school, what I can do to show my parents that I appreciate them. Or even the simple things like getting that nice pair of heels I spotted last week.
Raising my glass to “getting that pair of heels” 😀
Story of my life too. People around me have added another reason, “You have joined forces” That is not going to stop me in way from getting a wife. But in God’s timing.