Still Single When Everyone Else is Getting Married

At a certain point in a young woman’s life, she begins to think about marriage and family. She plans the big day, dreams of her future husband, and wants to settle down. Unfortunately for many women, that day arrives when she’s fourteen. I mean, let’s be honest, ladies. Some of us have been planning our weddings for a loooooong time.

More and more, I cannot seem to travel around the city without running into someone I went to High School with. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but it seems that every girl I run into is now married. Many have already got children. Yet here I sit, no husband (no boyfriend, even), and no kids. A friend of mine and I were talking the other night, and we both admitted that we feel like old maids.

Are we old maids? A hundred years ago, no one would even hesitate to answer yes. Women in their twenties would already have a husband and more than one child, even as recently as 1940 – for the most part, anyway. More and more women these days are focusing on their careers, but the stigma still remains. Can we safely make it into thirty and beyond, retain our single status, and not be considered old maids?

While a pint of ice cream and a big ole chocolate bar can ease a broken heart for the short-term, in the long-run it’s only going to produce big hips. This, of course, will only compound all the insecurities that arise when a woman finds herself without a regular companion. The longer we remain single and the less we date, the more things we can find that are “wrong” with us. Suddenly we’re unattractive, fat, overbearing, or wrong in some other way. Suddenly, there is no solace in the chocolate and the ice cream.

U. S. Census Bureau 2000 statistics show that ten percent of all adults will never marry. In 1970, 72% of Americans were married, according to U. S. Divorce Statistics. The number dropped to 62% in 1990. In 2002, it was down to 59%. On the other side, the percentage of divorces among Americans rises just a little bit every year. The median rage of first marriages? Mid-twenties, for both men and women, and I mean 25-26. Also, most first marriages break up during the seventh year and most people wait for three years before their second marriage.

So, most of them will probably be split by the ten-year reunion, or close to it – right? In 2000, one-fourth of the population was living alone; occupying a single space in a single dwelling. The single population is only growing. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 52% of American households contain married couples. In fact, Washington, D. C., New York, and six other states contain more singles than couples. In Kentucky in 2002, almost half a million people were living alone. Eventually, we’ll simply outnumber them.

Or get married, and join the rest of them. But sometimes we hear really scary “statistics”, these horrible urban-myth-type, factual-sounding warnings, or someone says “it’s easier to get hit by a car than to find a husband in your thirties.” The heartening news is that, according to Divorce Statistics 2002, 95% of the population has been married at least once by the age of 55. The numbers actually increase on the way up, presumably because so many people are getting divorced. Between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, 50% of women have been married at least once, compared to 84% for the older ladies. Your chances actually get better with age.

No, we are not old maids. We are just taking our time, trying to pick the right one. Besides, being single can just be so much fun you don’t want to quit. And in the end, it’s probably best to wait, anyway. After looking at Divorce Statistics from 1997, 2000, and 2002, no fantasy relationship or wedding could possibly look better than a chocolate bar and a pint of ice cream.