On being 30 and Unmarried

Every little girl has dreams and hopes. 

She enters the world thinking life is a fairytale filled with lyrical sounds, ideas to be put into action, dreams to be attained, unconditional love to be felt and a prince to put that little happy ending into play. But life is anything but a fairytale. You wake up one day and expectation after expectation is lined up all along our path. You place expectations on yourself to achieve and plan your life out as if you are living in a cookie cutter world. And then comes society with its unrealistic expectations that throws every girl  into the same pot regardless of her life story. An endless cycle is created where certain accomplishments in life need to be achieved by a certain age, and God forbid if by a certain age those goals are not achieved.

Enter turning 30, enter not being married.

I had a dream to be married before turning 30, I surely thought it would have happened a long time ago. I love weddings. I love weddings a lot. I used to be so eager to get married when I was younger, but as the years progress that eagerness has faded to the point where you develop a sense of indifference and you drift further and further from the idea that maybe you don’t want to get married after all. Marriage becomes more of a need that society has placed upon you rather than a want of your own.

Let’s be real. It does suck to be 30 and unmarried. 

It sucks because society makes you feel as if you have failed as a person to make someone want to marry you. And it sucks because you start to question your own self. Is there something wrong with you? So why do you do this to yourself? It is unfortunate that there is a stigma that comes with being 30 and unmarried. Instead of asking yourself where did I go wrong, ask yourself where did our society go wrong to place such expectations on women? I’ve never heard a guy say “I’m 30 and single” but women, I hear them all the time. It’s not even desperation, I would just call it a mere need to feel sought after. Expectations implanted into our minds, must do this must do that.

And then you have the married friends.

…that are always asking “So when are you guys getting married?”, “It should happen soon, you guys have been together for so long”  I don’t know when I’m getting married, can I just eat my cupcake without being asked about my future wedding? It’s like as soon as your friends get married they turn into marriage vultures lurking around and trying to find the right time to attack with the marriage questions. And then when you have no answer because you really don’t know if and when it’s going to happen, the pity sentence follows “Don’t worry I am sure it will happen soon”, “He loves you, he must be thinking about it”. Well, I was not worried until you made me worried with all your questioning and anticipation of me getting married. And then you fall into another trap where somehow now you are asking yourself “Is he thinking about it?” Or my all-time favourite is when you go away on a trip and your friends will always assume this is the time he will propose.  It MUST happen. Obviously, friends mean well, but they are in no way  helping the situation.

So what does this all mean?

As I turn 30 with a basket full of societal expectations placed at hand, I say to all of you and most importantly to myself that is unmarried, who cares? Put that biological clock aside, put expectations aside and just be content with your unmarried life. Does being 30 and unmarried make you less of a person? Or does it cancel out all the accomplishments you have realized by simply being your fabulous unmarried self?

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