"This might be hard for you to hear"

The other day my mother sent me an email that started like this “I know this might be very hard for you to hear, but I would rather it come from me.”

Attention grabbing, right?  An opening like that makes you think someone is going to tell you they have cancer, or that you were really adopted, or that you were born a boy.  An opening like that creates anxiety.  So what was my mother emailing to tell me?  Before I answer, let me give you some background information.

I have a large extended family.  My mother is the oldest of six and there are 14 grandchildren.  My brother is oldest grandchild and I am the second.  Being one of the oldest there are a lot of things that I got to do first and I imagine the expectation was that I would get married first as well.  A logical assumption.  So let’s go through the list of granchildren and see where I come in.

My brother - Married
Me - Single (of course)
Cousin B: Engaged
Cousin K: Engaged
Cousin J: Engaged and has a baby
Cousin T: Lives with long term boyfriend
Cousin L: Engaged

The rest of my cousins are still college age or younger.  If you're keeping track, the best I can probably do in the race to marital bliss, in my family, is seventh.  Seventh.  Middle of the pack.  Well, unless I get serious and make some pretty big moves in the coming months.  For those of you who have been paying attention, this seems pretty unlikely.  You don't often move quickly from cock shots to engagement rings, I expect.

Ok, so now that you have some background, let’s talk about the email.  My mother emailed me not to give me some horrible news or to reveal a dark family secret, but instead, to tell me about one of the above listed engagements.  The email was meant to deliver, what most of us would consider to be, happy news.  So why begin an otherwise happy email in such a dark way?

After my mother sent me this personalized "step away from the ledge" email, she sent another email that also included my brother and sister-in-law to officially report the engagement news.  It felt like my mother wanted to make sure I didn’t completely lose my mind upon receiving the news before she made the rest of the family aware in a group email.  Why else would she feel like she had to email me a private pre-announcement email with the news?  

Do I seem like the kind of person who is so wrapped up in my own relationship status that I can’t be happy for others?  

Here's the thing, I don't consider myself to be a very jealous person.  I actually really do feel genuinely happy for other people when they have success, or good fortune, or happy news.  Of course there are definitely times when I think “damn, I wish I had that,” but never in a way that overshadows my happiness for them.  Never in way that makes me want it so much that I wish they didn’t have it.

When someone reports happy relationship news, it’s not the actual news that upsets me it’s the way the news is delivered.  People deliver happy relationship news to single people like their giving a death sentence.  I didn’t feel bad about myself before, but now that you’ve prefaced your news with “I know this might be hard for you to hear” and ended it with “don’t worry you’ll find someone” I feel somehow defective.

It actually wasn't hard for me to hear the news that another one of my cousin was engaged.  In fact, I was happy about it!  It was hard to feel like maybe I wasn't supposed to be happy about it though.  It was, and is, hard to realize that people think I'm tragic; to realize that people imagine that I feel so devastated by me single status that I have lost the ability to feel happy for other people.   My mother's email is just one example of how people talk to single people, but it happens all the time.   

I think sometimes parents see their kids a reflection of them, and so, on some level, it makes sense that our parents care so much about what kind of lives we are leading.  Maybe it's embarrassing for my mother to have a single daughter in her 30's?  Maybe my single status doesn't only make me seem defective but her as well? 

Of course there are other things that might embarrass parents when it comes to their adult children, but being single is the one I'm most familiar with.  In my case, it's a somewhat interesting phenomenon, because it seemed to come out of nowhere.  My mother never pushed me to be in a relationship, in fact very much the opposite, but something happened when I turned 30.   

I think my parents always felt proud that, generally speaking, I was a pretty successful kid.  I was a decent athlete, a pretty good student, stayed out of trouble, went to college and grad school, and was a pretty likeable kid who, for the most part, did the right thing.  They probably assumed that I would continue in this fashion- get married, buy a house, have kids, etc.  I'm sure they never imagined that I would become a cautionary tale, that I would embarrass them, or that I would become an "old maid."     

Sometimes I wonder how things might change if I were to suddenly get married.  Not so much how they would change for me and the way I feel about myself, but how being married would change the way other people see and treat me.  It almost feels like it's better to be married to someone terrible than to be single in your 30's.  Is that true?  To me, that's some fucked up logic, but it certainly does feel true, at least sometimes.  

When I first started blogging I posted a review of my dating history for the past year, Dating: A brief year in review.  I'm curious, was it a mistake to leave those guys behind?  If I should be married who should I be married to?  

I realize my list only includes men from the past year and it doesn't even include all of them, so it's not a perfect list, but I'm wondering if maybe I missed something.... maybe one of those guys should be my husband.... but which one??  Any thoughts? I'm  really not opposed to help.

In closing today, I would like to congratulate all my engaged younger cousins, and also my brother and sister-in-law who are celebrating their 6th wedding anniversary today.  I love you all and I'm so happy that you have found love.  Please never hesitate to share your happy news with me, because no matter what, this old maid is behind you!  I may not have found love, but I am definitely a supporter of it.    
   
Side note: I would like clarification as to when "old maid" status officially begins, because there seems to be some disagreement.   Also, is it possible to find another name? I'm not particularly fond of "old maid." Let me know your thoughts.