Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Why Aren’t You Married?



If I had a hundred dollars for every time I’ve been asked that question I would be a very wealthy woman. It’s not that I mind being asked the question but how does one answer?


I’ve never been asked.


Just lucky I guess.


I’ve never found the right one.


The right one has never found me.


We moved a lot.


I don’t know.


Sometimes I just shrug my shoulders. I never say the one that I think about the most. That there is something wrong with me. That I am unattractive. That I am too forceful a character. That I am too wishy-washy. That I am too reserved. All the negative things that a single woman is bound to think about when she is left on the shelf (what I nice old-fashioned saying). In nature, when a mare is taken out of the herd because she cannot breed that is called “culling”. I’ve been culled. That always makes me depressed but I used to think about that quite a lot, particularly when I was in my forties.


Just in the last month I’ve been asked this question by four different people. I know they are sincerely interested in the answer. All four persons said they didn’t understand why I was single because I was such a beautiful person. What a lovely thing to say, and I knew they meant it. I suppose that is why they are curious. I don’t seem the kind of person one would normally expect to stay single. I’m not ugly, or stupid, or unkind.


It’s a mystery.


But I like my aunt’s question better. She asks “Are Canadian men stupid?”


I tell her yes. J



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