That's the Thing About this Love Business...

A friend’s recent engagement really moved me. It wasn’t the actual proposal; however, it was the back story. Prior to meeting her now fiancé, my friend had shared with me countless times about her struggle to believe that she was going to find a husband. Like most single women, especially in their thirties, this becomes a regular topic of conversation. 

Will it ever happen? How will I know? Am I desirable enough? As any good friend will say, the answer to those questions is “Yes, you just will, and of course you are.” But to truly believe those things is a much harder task. We’d spent hours discussing dating, where to meet the right kind of man and how to avoid getting stuck thinking you’ll one day be a cat lady who will cuddle up to Fluffy and Snowball for love each night. Yes, these thoughts do come up regularly. 

My friend is beautiful, smart, incredibly talented and has a really great personality. She was always talked about in the highest regard and men were always attracted to her. Yet, she still found that no one ever seemed to fit. This caused a lot of hurt and self-deprecating talk usually followed. I hear these same thoughts in many of my friends as well as myself at times. 

But then, she met him. You never know where these things will go when you start them and it’s always a risk to get your heart broken. Yet, as the months passed it was hard to remember her ever being single, they worked so well together.

After her engagement we were able to talk about those earlier days where she’d say she was never going to find Mr. Right. Or how, like many of us, she was blaming God for her singleness. One thing that stood out was how she realized now that had she met her fiancé earlier in her life, she wouldn’t have been ready. They met at the perfect time and while the waiting was hard, she is confident that it happened exactly when it should have.  That’s the thing about all this love business. If it’s going to happen, it’ll happen and we don’t need to rush it.

These days stories like this make me wonder why we place so much value on finding a husband. Don’t get me wrong, marriage is a beautiful thing and I want it as much as the next person. But how are our identities so caught up in who we are dating in the moment or who we’re not dating? We’re not all going to get married or find someone, that’s just the facts. Is this really how we want to live our lives though? Waiting for someone to define us while we waste our days away, forgetting that we’re pretty cool just as we are. 

Her story moved me because I could almost hear a collective sigh of relief from friends who knew her story thinking, “Maybe there is hope for me too.” Which is almost silly, in a way. Of course there is hope, but let’s not forget that our end goal in life shouldn’t be focused around one person. There are way too many exciting things out there to explore, new restaurants to try and new hobbies to pick up. Travel through South America, take up acroyoga, read Dostoevsky and Faulkner. Be interesting.

Sitting around all day worrying when he’ll fall into your lap is only going to bring you wrinkles and probably a sore booty. If our purpose in life is to be the best version of ourselves and not the girl with the boyfriend/husband it seems like life could be much more fun. If and when love happens we will already be content with our lives and that person will be a bonus to the awesome life we have already been living.

(I’m reminding myself of this as much as any person.)