Digging deep

This one is dedicated to the girls.

When we were younger, life revolved around getting home in time to watch the Smurfs.

A few years later, it involved meeting friends for trips to the mall, or tuition or just on the journey home from school.

Then we were off to college where we discovered a whole new world of knowledge and self confidence. Some of us lucky ones found our calling in life and worked toward achieving it. Some succeeded, some didn't. All in all, it was a journey to adulthood.

Come adulthood, talk centres around careers and mortgages and down payments......and relationships. All of a sudden, aunts and uncles you don't even remember are asking whether you're attached or getting married.

Seems to me that in society, your success in life is measured by whether you've started your own family. It doesn't matter that you might be brilliant in physics, invented the new Viagra or discovered the secret of time travel. It all comes to nought if you're not married. You could be a president of a multi-billion dollar company or a chair of the rocket science board but you can just hear the awkward silence when people find out you're not married. How many times have we heard the jibes directed at the new boss for being 'difficult' just because she's a spinster?

I am lucky to be able to further my tertiary education to a level that might be considered unnecessary for a girl by old standards. Yet, I've reached an age where I feel that no one seems to care whether I am doing well in my work or studies. It's all about whether I have a boyfriend or not. Recently, I feel that I might as well be working at a gas station as long as I have a boyfriend. Because without one, I'm a failure in life. I have failed at my purpose on earth, to procreate and repopulate the earth.

I'm not against getting attached. It's just that things like this is not like going to the nearest mini-mart and scanning the aisles. If I could choose, I would love to have someone that I could share my feelings with, someone who would love me as much as my parents do. Someone who I would matter to. It's a nice feeling knowing that in this whole world, there's someone that thinks about you every night. A nice feeling knowing you're not invisible in this world.

But if I don't have that someone, am I considered a failure? Current polls seem to think that I am. Despite all the bra burning back in the 70s, your status in life is measured by the band on your finger. Every romance movie made always has the girl ending up with the man of her dreams. Never once, does she lead a comfortable, successful, happy life on her own. Aren't we subcounsciously telling little girls around the world that the ultimate goal is to get a husband?

Barbie was slammed for being too sexist. It was an inappropriate role model for little girls because it taught them to aim for nothing more than pretty clothes and big piles of hair. Yet, no one points a finger at the movies. Around the world, hearts melt when Cinderella marries the prince, when Ariel marries the prince, when Sleeping Beauty marries the prince ( hey notice how they all get princes?? You would think normal citizens didn't get married). Yet, there's no movie that starts with a girl striking it out on her own............ending with her on her own.

Being single is alright when you're young but it's a real b***h when your older. No friends, no company, maybe no money even. My parents favourite argument 'All your friends will be married and you'll be all alone'.

So am I supposed to just jump the next guy that happens along my way? Disregard the fact that I may not like him, and he may not be too inclined toward me either? Get a marriage of convenience? Might as well marry a male nurse then, at least he'll have good training. If getting attached is so important, why did I spend all that time getting a degree, getting a Masters, working and then uproot myself halfway across the continent all in search for a better job?

I wish people wouldn't judge us on our ability to attract the opposite sex. I agree, not all of society is obsessed about marriage, but I bet that these people, are already married.

I love being single. I don't love it for the freedom, but I love it because I haven't been UN-happy being single. I suppose, it's like choosing tea over coffee, because you've always had tea, not because you hate coffee. I just wish other people, the people who matter the most to me, saw that and could be happy too.

Judge me on what I have achieved, not on what I haven't.