I’ve been here too many times: when your friends have all started getting married or having babies. Your calendar is littered with baby showers, and your Facebook cluttered with happy couples’ pictures, and everyone ooh’ing and aah’ing at them. It’s the trauma of feeling left out when single.
At some point, you notice them getting into cliques and starting to cut you off. No more lunches and dinners with your girlfriends, and no more drinking with the boys. This leads to the feeling of the trauma of isolation.
After all, you’re a ‘bad influence’ on your married friends. You are filling their minds with singlehood toxic tales of clubbing and drinking everyone under the table. It’s part of the trauma single individuals face and feel.
Soon enough, the judging begins especially when you hit another milestone, aka a birthday. Woe unto you if you hit 30. Your parents’ nagging goes a notch higher. Additionally, the aunts join in, and you stop bringing any of your male friends to the parties. They’re considered potential husbands. Hence, this adds to your trauma of being single.
Your friends start hooking you up with their friends’ single friends. They think they know what you want. And then everyone judges you further if you reject all their offerings of single men. They don’t know that they don’t fit into your criteria. This is how isolation and the associated trauma can manifest.
However many times you explain, they don’t understand why your just-ended relationship lasted only 2 weeks. They don't see why you should turn down an ‘eligible’ bachelor. This misunderstanding is indeed a common experience in the trauma experienced by single individuals.
They consider you stubborn and petty, and too picky. Yeah, that word picky – can’t a woman have standards and hold herself to them? These standards often add to the feeling of singlehood trauma.
Eventually you lose your friends, even some close ones – after all, the single women are the ones who snatch their husbands. This deepens the feeling of trauma associated with being single.
They can never trust you to be alone with their husbands. Yet, when you were both single, hanging out as a third wheel was never a problem. Such situations contribute to the perception of trauma while feeling single.
Others start diagnosing you with conditions you never had. They call you difficult, immature, too independent, too strong a woman, too hard-headed. And therein lays the malaise that will forever be the curse by which men find you unsuitable wife material. It amplifies the single trauma you endure.
When you withdraw from their friendship circle by choice, as they always make you feel uncomfortable, then everyone decides that you have become a recluse. They think you no longer want to be their friend. This withdrawal is a natural reaction to the trauma caused by feeling isolated when single.
Yet all you’re doing is giving them the space they seemingly need, while ridding yourself of the malice and negativity that they bring into your life. This act highlights your resilience in facing the single trauma.
Being single might not be a choice for most women, but it is something that we have to face. Why won’t everyone just leave us alone and let us enjoy the singlehood? After all, isn’t the female population twice as much as that of the men? Someone has to fill in that percentile, and it might as well be us! Accepting the trauma and associated feelings can be a step toward more positive self-reflection.
Source:http://www.standardmedia.co.ke
