There’s someone out there for everyone! And all that other horse hockey...

“There’s someone out there for everyone!”

“Oh, you just haven’t met the right guy yet, but you will!”

“I used to say the same thing and then 2 days later I met my husband.”

Stop.  Just…STOP!!

Seriously.  I can’t take it anymore.  I wish death and dismemberment on the next person who utters that kind of nonsense to me.  Bless their hearts.  *rolling my eyes*

I’m not sure why our culture feels the need to perpetuate the myth that there is someone out there for everyone because there’s not.  There is no guarantee that out there in the world is your perfect (or imperfect) romantic match.  There simply isn’t.  And to be honest, at 38-years-old and chronically single, I’m sick and tired of hearing the BS.

I realize that the speakers of that claptrap have good intentions.  They are simply trying to make me (or whoever) feel better and have some hope, but it really has the opposite effect.  It’s damned depressing.  As is listening to or watching lovebirds fawn all over each other or a bride-to-bed discussing the proposal or well, I could go on, but I won’t because someone will get offended that I feel that way and then I’ll get angry and it’ll snowball from there.

Suffice it to say that for me, at least, I am tired of people spouting nonsense that someday some guy is going to come into my life and it’ll be all hearts and flowers from there.  Because you know what?  No matter how many times you say that to me, I’m well past the point of being willing to believe it.  And that’s ok.

Years ago – and many pounds ago, for that matter – I believed it.  I did.  My generation of little girls was still brought up with the notion that one day Prince Charming was going to ride up on his white horse and whisk us away to the magic castle where we’d live happily ever after (HEA) and life would always be happy, happy, happy!  Well, ok, so that’s a bit much, but I believed that one day I’d meet a great guy, fall madly in love, and blah blah blah. 

But I grew up and realized that fairy tales are simply that and not reality.  That doesn’t mean I don’t believe that people fall in love and have the potential to live HEA. It just means that I don’t believe in it for me.  And that’s ok.  I’ve cried a few rivers over it and moved on. 

But it’s also at this point that all the clichés become extra annoying.  Honestly, HONESTLY, do you really believe there is someone out there in the world for me?  Seriously?  Because I don’t.  But the difference is that I don’t think that it is part of God’s plan for my life for me to meet someone. I think God’s plan for me is to be single.

I’m not saying I like that plan necessarily, but for the most part I’ve come to terms with it.  Sometimes it hurts. It can hurt a lot.  But at other times it’s very freeing.  I consider it a blessing that I have never wanted to have a child because I’ve watched friends who are single and desperately want to be mothers or even married women who have trouble conceiving and it’s just not happening for them.   I consider myself fortunate that I’m not in those situations.

Now, there are those that would say that I simply don’t have enough faith in what God can do and that’s not true.  I never said that God COULD NOT bring a man into my life. I’m saying that I think God CHOOSES NOT to do so. I can’t say why that is; it simply is. 

God can do anything my friends.  Anything at all.  But sometimes He chooses not to give us the things we want. He gives us the things we need.  Whoa baby. Big difference there you know.

If you give it some thought you will see what I mean and what a blessing that “not getting” can be in your life.  Ok, so maybe I don’t know why God hasn’t hooked me up with some front row seats to a Bon Jovi show, but maybe it’s because He knows I’d make an ass out of myself screaming over David Bryan and security would have to pull me away and there would be restraining orders involved and it’d just get uglier from there.  Or maybe it’s because that would only reinforce my Bon Jovi obsession and goodness knows it’s bad enough as it is.

But on a more serious note, I have to trust that God knows what He’s doing because He does.  I’ve prayed for years to have someone in my life. Just one man. I don’t need 15 boyfriends or 3 husbands (one at a time, mind you) or anything like that. Just one decent guy who is interested in me and i'ts mutual (I’ve had more than my share of the non-mutual from both sides). It seems like a small enough order, but God has never come through for me. Never hooked a girl up.  I don’t know why (and refuse to psychoanalyze myself and my character flaws), but that’s just the way it is.

Which brings this ramble back around to the topic of needs versus wants.  I find that in life we seem to focus so much more on what we want than what we need and that happens when we pray as well.  I often pray about something and even while doing it I realize that I’m only thinking about what I want.  Fortunately, God thinks about what we need.  And that’s what He gives us.  It’s not always what we want and we might not always like it, but it’s hard to argue with the decisions that God makes. 

Now, that doesn’t mean I understand a lot of those decisions, but I’ve stopped arguing with them. I don’t understand and never will why my mother had to get sick and suffer and die from breast cancer.  She was a good person, who never hurt anyone, but while I believe God heard our prayers; His will was different than our wants.  I stopped questioning it because there were no answers to be found.

The same with my friend Andrea who died last year (also from breast cancer).  I don’t know why God allowed it to happen, but if I stopped and put too much into asking why, I’d never get out of bed in the morning.  So I take a lot on faith and trust in God that He knows what He’s doing.  Because He does.

So at the end of the day I cannot say that I always appreciate my singleness.  It’s annoying at times.  It can also make me very, very sad and lonely.  I don’t want to think about being alone as I get older, I want someone to share my life with. 

At the other end of the spectrum, it’s freeing that I can come and go as I please and don’t have to answer to anyone except me and God.  If I have ice cream for dinner, I can have it.  If I want to spend my money on something, I can do it. 

In the end all I know for sure is that I do trust in God that He knows what He is doing.  That He is ultimately giving me what I need, if not what I (think) I want.  And hopefully through a lot of prayer I’ll come to even better terms with my singleness.  And not actually dismember the next person who throws a lovely platitude in my face.  Because they mean well. Bless their hearts.