Anyone who knows me well (or has read my book – buy and/or review it here) knows I’ve been single my whole life, and that fact used to depress me a lot. When I was younger, I was obsessed with being married, and I thought my happiness was contingent on it. For many reasons, though, that hasn’t worked out for me, but over the last several years, I’ve been able to arrive at an unexpected place – I’m genuinely happy being single.
I’ve come to appreciate the many benefits associated with it, and I also now recognize that some of my personality traits (in particular my depression) would be challenging for another person to navigate, so in some ways it’s likely for the best that I’m by myself. That reality, however, doesn’t mean that there aren’t some serious challenges to being single.
I don’t like writing about this topic much, and one reason is I don’t like the ways in which we often talk about being single in our society. We assume if someone isn’t married or in a committed relationship that something’s wrong with them. Sometimes that can be true, but my lack of a partner is not for want of trying or – as far as I can tell – specifically about any of my weaknesses or shortcomings. I’ve been in a variety of relationships that just didn’t work for a number of reasons.
Unless you’ve been divorced, there are a small number of single people when you get to my stage in life. Almost every aspect of society and institutions like churches either cater to couples or to young singles with the idea of hooking them up. Personally, nearly all my friends are married, and I’m sure it’s awkward for them to figure out how to spend time with me as a kind of third wheel instead of spending time with other couples.
That’s proven to be the largest challenge of being single and, in my case, an introvert – it’s lonely. My daughter will be heading off to college in a couple years, and I’m mindful of how quiet my house is now when she’s away for the summer with her mom. As an introvert, I don’t do a great job routinely connecting with my friends and, as mentioned above, I often feel awkward when I do because they’re married and most have young children.
So, basically, it’s easy to feel forgotten. And I hate saying that, because I’m not writing this to drum up sympathy, but rather to show a side of life most people don’t even think about (because, well, most are married, or at least extroverted). It’s unfortunate many of our institutions are crumbling in America, because this should be exactly where a church should be integral in my life. But I had some unfortunate experiences that made me feel awkward in one church I was a part of; my family more or less was pushed out of their home church; and my attempt to start a church for folks who have felt left out or dissatisfied with churches has, ironically, been mostly ignored.
And, again, churches have bought into the social reality of America, which is that romantic relationships have become our national religion. We’re obsessed with sex, and consequently, we push romance through all social mediums – most of our music, movies, television, social media, and advertisements center on partnering up. Facebook has become nearly unbearable because it’s either about people’s insane political beliefs or folk’s pictures of How Happy We Are That We Found Each Other™. And like I said, church has become pretty much the same – they don’t know how to handle people who aren’t married (singles groups are effectively for those in their 20s and 30s and without fail serve as a place for those people to find someone else to marry).
The sadly ironic thing for the church, however, is that’s the opposite of how we’re supposed to be. Scripture actually encourages us to be single – it’s better than being married! Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:
“Now for the matters you wrote about: ‘It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman’…I wish that all of you were as I am…to the unmarried and the widows I say: it is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do…Because of the present crisis, I think that it is good for a man to remain as he is. Are you pledged to a woman? Do not seek to be released. Are you free from such a commitment? Do not look for a wife…
What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not…For this world in its present form is passing away. I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs – how he can please the Lord. But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world – how he can please his wife – and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world – how she can please her husband. I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord” (1, 7, 8, 26-27, 29-35, NRSV).
Add to that the fact that our Lord, Jesus himself, was never married, nor were many of the disciples. Singleness is thus the example left to us by Christ and his most prolific early evangelist: why does the American church seemingly despise their direction?
Because we have allowed our sex-obsessed culture to influence us more than we’d like to admit, in more ways than we like to recognize (we’ll – sometimes – decry pornography or the ubiquitousness of sex in the media, but don’t dare suggest I don’t [effectively] have the right to go buck wild in my marriage). There’s of course absolutely nothing wrong with marriage or sex, but there’s something very wrong with the church effectively encouraging the basest sexual impulses of society to be relocated to the marriage bed instead of questioning society’s vision of sex to begin with. This is why so many very young Christians get married way too soon – we’ve given a nod and wink to society’s (hetero)sexual paradigm lock, stock, and barrel, so we’ve allowed our young people to be even more susceptible to society’s influence than they should be.
The Church has turned sex (within marriage) into a right, just as society has embraced sex (in general) as a right – no wonder our Christian brothers and sisters who have same-sex attractions are insistent that the Church fully recognize same-sex marriage: they want the same (misplaced) “rights” for themselves that the Church has granted for those in heterosexual marriages.
Instead, we should be leaning into Christ and Paul’s examples and questioning just how much control over our lives we should be granting sex – yes, it’s a great and awesome thing, but man, it’s not a truly, ultimately, at the end of the day (world) important thing. We’ve royally messed up our priorities.
If I were a betting man, I’d wager more Christians than not don’t realize that there will be no marriage in the world to come. Did you know that? Jesus himself says so: “In the resurrection people neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like angels of God in heaven” (Matt. 22:30, NRSV). So marriage won’t exist in eternity – we’ll all be single. Why, then, has the Church not placed more emphasis both on this reality and on its implications for our relationships here and now? “Kudos to you, those who are single – you’re living out now the eternal reality for all of us and getting a head start.”
So give more affirmation to those people in your lives who are single – we’re in very real ways doing God’s work and living the prime sort of life Christ and Paul demonstrated and advocated, respectively. Don’t try to “fix” us – we’re not broken, and, actually, it might be you with your (potentially) misguided understanding of relationships who needs more help. But don’t forget that we’re here, we’re easier to forget because we don’t come as a packaged deal in a social landscape that is geared that way, and we need community as much as anyone.
David S. Wisener 