Why are you praying for a romantic relationship?

On conformity, marriage, and child birth.

Have I mentioned that I don't date?

Because I feel like I've said this before.

But apparently my non participation in romance produces anxiety so grand in the hearts of my loved ones that the feeling can only be dealt with through prayer. And not prayers about that anxiety, no, prayers for me, and for a change of heart, that through hymn and verse, a husband, three kids, and a house in suburban hell for the rest of my life until those three kids reproduce and continue the cycle all the way over will be delivered.

Amen.

This is what the world has come to? Prayers that I will get a man? This is what the people are worried about right now!

My people, I'm sure that divine intervention can be used elsewhere, say...ending poverty? Homelessness? Any of the countless unnecessary wars happening at the moment?

Or if I get to appropriate those prayer funds like Cashapp deposits, I would even take a years worth of free rent, please oh!

This all began because I was talking to someone, let's say an elder in the family, who while discuss a wedding we're attending this weekend, cheekily expressed that our attendance could prove doubly beneficial both for celebrating the couple, of course, but more importantly, because there was potential for me to find somebody there to become affianced with. I could not help but to laugh!

So I did.

And then calmly, I explained, the same thing that I've been explaining for the last decade: "I am not getting married." Now, maybe I took it too far when I immediately added "I'm also not having kids." I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself!

As you would expect, it went the way it always goes. My, my, my.

I wonder if there's some secret group chat that we aromantics and single at heart people have not been added to. Because the talking points are all the same no matter who you talk to. I mean if I took a retroactive shot for every time I've heard any of the following statements when a person asks me why I don't want to have kids or be married, I would be either be in somebodies hospital gown getting my stomach pumped, or performing karaoke at a karaoke bar that has no karaoke, music, mics, drinks, or walls. On one!

It usually starts with the most innocuous question: "Why?" And being the patient person that I am, I give them a very nice and professional response, and even more nicely, I cater the intensity of the response to the temperament of that person. So it always stings when the first rebuttal goes: "You're selfish." Me, selfish? After all I did for you, catering nice responses to make you feel better? Selfish!

What!?

This is usually followed by flattery. "Oh but you're so [insert literally any synonym for pretty, smart, caring, I mean any of your favorite compliments]." Now, I don't go fishing for compliments, but if you all are just handing them out so freely, I will gladly take them, thank ya -- but I still haven't changed my mind. I mean what do the people expect, they'll call us motherly, and by immaculate conception a child will be ejected from uterus?

Sensing my vehement apprehension, or what the kids are now calling, "standing on business," what follows is always a dismissive and all knowing, "You'll change your mind." That's one of my favorites. Then before the conversation can settle, there's the dreaded turn when the conversation becomes one of those where the opposing party is not actually listening to what you're saying, but merely interested in giving their side of the story. Which in a conversation about MY life and MY choices, seems...odd...but I'll save that for unpacking in the shower later.

A barrage of statements come quickly in succession.

"Just have one."

"Imagine if we'd thought that way, you wouldn't be here right now."

"You just haven't met the one yet."

"Selfish"

"You're avoidant."

"Scared of commitment."

"Selfish."

But what is never said plainly, what's really at the core of what everyone is getting at is: "You need to fall in line."

The greatest victory of capitalism, colonialism, and all of the other isms in this world, is that we now have a society where the people do not question, do not reflect, and most puzzlingly, do not believe that they can create their own realities. For what else but successful indoctrination could have created a population that is so determined to not exercise their right, by virtue of being alive, to freedom? Marriage, children, and all of the other ideas that have been generated by humans and given the tag of "tradition" are not in and of themselves, a given. It is not because I am born, that I must do any of the things that the dominant society tells me that I need to do. It is such thinking that creates rampant homophobia, transphobia, all other phobias -- because people are disturbed by freedom. You watch someone be unplugged from the Matrix, but instead of asking them how they did it, you clamor to plug them back in, not because you like the Matrix yourself, but because you have never questioned why you like the Matrix, why you were taught to like it, and even more so why your teachers seem to be unplugged! See, there is no need to force your entire population into submission if they will maintain the order and live within your boundaries by virtue of policing one another. It's a tactic as old as time.

Divine feminine fantasies tied to marriage and children are reproduced by mothers to their daughters, cultural masculinity tied to valor from fathers to their sons, and all of these things from children to their friends. There is a Hollywood machine that has been heavily funded not only for their creative merits but because of their cunning ability to send the right kind of messages in the right kinds of ways to consumers. You dare speak to me about “the one!” Book industries, music, and now social media, for centuries have been hypnotizing us into beliefs that were never our own.

So it makes sense that I get glazed over eyes, emphatic confusion, pity, and sometimes anger, when I exercise my right to be free.

You do not need to pray for me to get a man. You do not need to pray for me to have children. Matter fact, you do not need to pray for me to conform at all simply because coming to this decision required reflection that we’re not ever expected to give to such decisions. (In fact, I've created a force field, it's bouncing right back to sender, thank ya!) I've poured years of my time into books and podcasts, writing exercises, mediations, walks, journal entries, to arrive to this point. I have never been more sure of anything else than this. How much time have you (metaphorical you) spent reflecting on your desire for marriage and the nuclear family?

And if I were ever to change my mind, do not believe that it was bended knee that made it happen, but more so that another phase of deep reflection occurred, and I felt that the new direction fit me at that moment in time. Because I am free, I operate within the schematics of that freedom, and there is no reality that I cannot comprehend or claim for myself. (But don't hold your breath, it'll take miracle for me to push any baby's giant head out of me.)

Regardless.

I'm in a new phase of my journey, and what a treacherous journey it was to get here.

Today, I leave you all with this, which is what I will begin to unpack next time. What is it that you're hoping to get from a partner in a romantic relationship, and why are these things unattainable in your life right now?

Peace,

Analog Gurl