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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Is it a crime to be single?
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
... I'd personally treat the Police denials with a pinch of salt until we are totally sure who tipped off the BBC. ....
EM, I'm afraid you're probably right there. First of all the official line was 'other people have come forward', i.e. the publicity has been useful to our investigation - and surely nobody might disagree with anything that might lead to wicked criminals being brought to justice.
It was only later as people began to express hesitation about the prematurity of the publicity that we began to hear official denials that either police force was involved.
So it's possible the leak may have been from somewhere else, but I think we need to have its source clearly and provenly demonstrated before we withdraw our suspicions from one or the other of the police forces involved.
After all, the same day, on our local news, as is not that unusual, the police had invited along television cameras to film a dawn raid on some ordinary criminals.
It now transpires that the S Yorks Police were in touch with the BBC prior to the raid on the house. They do though claim that they did so because the BBC would run the story anyway.
It's destroyed any credibility the police have left.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Chocoholic
Shipmate
# 4655
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Posted
In the UK the Equality Act defines a number of protected characteristics that people cannot be discriminated against including race and disability. The one for relationship status is 'marriage and civil partnership'. I note this is not just termed relationship status, so presumably we cannot be considered to be discriminated against if single?
Posts: 773 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2003
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Evangelicalism also strongly encourages marriage for everyone, regardless of orientation.
John Stott?
I know John Stott wasn't married - and I don't think he touches on this aspect of his life in his writings.
Did he though, encourage others to marry?
He does talk about it actually, in a really helpful interview in the book "The Single Issue" by Al Hsu.
I keep seeing it trotted out on the Ship that evangelicals are anti-singleness except for gay people. That hasn't been my experience at all - rather a lot of the grandees of conservative evangelicalism, including Stott, were/are single, and when I hung out in those circles there was an almost ascetic "single in order to do Gospel work" vibe going on that was almost anti-marriage. (Unhealthy in its own way.)
Increasing numbers of churches are forming community houses that, while not monastic, are Christian communities for single people, but sometimes including biological families as one component. The gay issue has brought the singeleness issue to the forefront, but I have never ever seen singleness derided in the evangelical churches I have been part of. Quite the opposite.
Edited for clarity.
It's honestly just my experience, but IME of evangelical churches single people are seen as 'left on the shelf' and pitied. It's seen as OK in widow/ers but seen as a bit weird otherwise. I think in John Stott's case it was seen as harmless eccentricity. IME marriage is heavily promoted to the exclusion of everything else because marriage = kids = having more ~soldiers for the Lord~. Singleness was definitely seen as something that happened if you weren't lucky enough to get married, rather than a calling. I know intentional communities would be seen as a bit weird at best and too Catholic at worst.
This is just my experience - I realise there are other evangelical experiences out there, but what I experienced definitely happened to me. This was in an extremely conservative corner of Anglicanism, so perhaps they were trying to distinguish themselves from celibacy in the more catholic end of Anglicanism.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Evangelicalism also strongly encourages marriage for everyone, regardless of orientation.
John Stott?
I know John Stott wasn't married - and I don't think he touches on this aspect of his life in his writings.
Did he though, encourage others to marry?
He does talk about it actually, in a really helpful interview in the book "The Single Issue" by Al Hsu.
I keep seeing it trotted out on the Ship that evangelicals are anti-singleness except for gay people. That hasn't been my experience at all - rather a lot of the grandees of conservative evangelicalism, including Stott, were/are single, and when I hung out in those circles there was an almost ascetic "single in order to do Gospel work" vibe going on that was almost anti-marriage. (Unhealthy in its own way.)
Increasing numbers of churches are forming community houses that, while not monastic, are Christian communities for single people, but sometimes including biological families as one component. The gay issue has brought the singeleness issue to the forefront, but I have never ever seen singleness derided in the evangelical churches I have been part of. Quite the opposite.
Edited for clarity.
It's honestly just my experience, but IME of evangelical churches single people are seen as 'left on the shelf' and pitied. It's seen as OK in widow/ers but seen as a bit weird otherwise. I think in John Stott's case it was seen as harmless eccentricity. IME marriage is heavily promoted to the exclusion of everything else because marriage = kids = having more ~soldiers for the Lord~. Singleness was definitely seen as something that happened if you weren't lucky enough to get married, rather than a calling. I know intentional communities would be seen as a bit weird at best and too Catholic at worst.
This is just my experience - I realise there are other evangelical experiences out there, but what I experienced definitely happened to me. This was in an extremely conservative corner of Anglicanism, so perhaps they were trying to distinguish themselves from celibacy in the more catholic end of Anglicanism.
Jade, I think we are talking about the same corner of Anglicanism! But John Stott, Dick Lucas, even Bash of the Bash camps who was the biggest influence on all that crowd AFAICT - all single. I wonder if it had to do with where you were - was it somewhere suburban - so by default most of the people in the church were nuclear families? Certainly as I moved out of those circles, it was a surprise to me that so many of the people in it of my age got married, and, when I read the Bible, how positive it is about marriage. YMMV of course.
I certainly never heard the "more children to make more Christians line."
Posts: 3097 | From: England - far from home... | Registered: Jan 2004
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
It's honestly just my experience, but IME of evangelical churches single people are seen as 'left on the shelf' and pitied. It's seen as OK in widow/ers but seen as a bit weird otherwise. I think in John Stott's case it was seen as harmless eccentricity. IME marriage is heavily promoted to the exclusion of everything else because marriage = kids = having more ~soldiers for the Lord~. Singleness was definitely seen as something that happened if you weren't lucky enough to get married, rather than a calling. I know intentional communities would be seen as a bit weird at best and too Catholic at worst.
I think that location and demographics probably do make a big difference on perspective. St Helen's evening congregation was made up of about 400 people, mostly young professionals or post-grads, many of whom worked in the City, and almost all of them were single. There were some married couples but they tended to move to the morning service when they had families as there was a Sunday school there. There was no pressure to get married or date, I'd say it was the other way, dating someone in your study group was seen as not the done thing (our study groups lasted a year and were based around terms). As I said, I knew several people who had chosen to be 'single for God' and this was considered quite normal as most of the evening congregation were single anyway.
Admittedly most of the evening congregation were in their 20s but I would expect the more 'older' morning service to be equally accepting as their bible study groups were single sex (the church originally started with a few Christian men meeting together in the City in the 1960s, and it was felt that it would not be helpful for businessmen and their secretaries to be meeting up to pray together in the morning!). During my time there St H did not have house groups, bible groups met in church, so bible study groups actually tended to favour singles with no childcare commitments; none of the congregation actually live in the parish as it is in the City.
[ 20. August 2014, 09:45: Message edited by: Heavenly Anarchist ]
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
Something I notice in church environments and elsewhere is that finding a partner is seen as the indicator of having achieved a healthy, fulfilled, 'normal' life. It's seen as the ultimate sign of a happy ending if someone who is 'abnormal' in other ways (particularly disabled in some way - mentally or phsyically - or just an outsider for whatever reason, or even just considered unattractive) is able to find a partner.
Often novels and movies about people on the autism spectrum focus on a character who is terribly lonely because of being unable to find a partner, and this is seen as the major disability of being autistic. As someone who is on the autism spectrum and is also asexual, with no desire for a partner, I find it really odd. People speculate about my singleness in all kinds of ways. People often think I'm a repressed lesbian. I don't bother to correct them unless they ask me outright - it's one of those things that if you deny it, it's seen as further evidence of it! Sometimes people want to help me 'find someone', and can be disbelieving that I really don't want to find someone. Some people don't believe that asexuality exists - they say that sexuality is a human trait that everyone shares (the implication being that I'm not human if I don't have it!).
I don't think it's actually seen as a crime in a female though - I haven't experienced that. In a female it's seen more as something being wrong with her, or that she is secretly a lesbian. It's men who tend to be regarded with suspicion for something more sinister.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Chocoholic: quote:
In the article David Cameron is quoted as saying that parents and children are often overlooked. I was amazed at this, I thought this was the group most often considered in society.
Oddly enough, although all politicians talk a lot about 'hard-working families' and pay lip-service to the idea that they should get special consideration, this isn't followed up with action. Many of the people affected by the so-called bedroom tax are members of hard-working families (yes, Mr Cameron, because the minimum wage is so low that a lot of people in low-paid jobs have to claim benefits as well to make ends meet). This is the same government that cut funding for children's centres and axed the (admittedly very expensive) Schools for the Future programme. And what did we get in return? "Free" schools, which can be opened anywhere, regardless of whether the extra school places are actually needed in that area, and divert funding from the rest of the school system. A sop to the urban middle classes, in other words.
quote:
I am also wondering what they will class as a "family" for this.
I'm guessing 2 parents with 2.4 children aged under 18 is a given, but what about childless couples, adult children living with one or both parents? Are they going to be saying one version of family is more valued than another?
Two *working* parents (or one working in a job lucrative enough to support a family, one stay-at-home) with no more than three children. Single-parent familes, anyone with more than three children and any parents unfortunate enough to be out of work are reviled as benefit scroungers.
Of course, if you apply the term 'hard-working families' narrowly enough hardly anyone will qualify. I don't; I only have one child.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
I have been single for most of my adult life and as far as I can see I will remain so. I occasionally get spurts of 'partner-itis' and make half hearted attempts but genuinely I am just not that interested. I think I might be at the point now where if someone else came along and butted into my life I'd see it as an intrusion.
I see myself as lucky, I am well educated and have the finanical freedom (as a result of my situation) to travel and move freely around the world. I don't regret this at all.
The pain for me comes when I let myself get talked into the 'everyone must have a partner to be happy' trap. I see people in my line of work whose lives have been wrecked by drugs, alcohol and abuse and who still have partners and long term relationships. I look at myself with my degree, my secure professional job and general stability and freedom and then at them and think 'well what is so terribly wrong with me that they have partners and I don't?'
I feel well adjusted I have plenty of friendships and interests. I don't feel particularly weird and unloveable except when I am made to feel that way by the general treatment and perception of singleness.
Hard working families annoys the heck out of me too, as does everyone everywhere assuming at ALL TIMES that there must be a second person attached to my hip in order to allow me to eat out, go to movies, go on holiday or go to any events. Although the person in the shop the other day did say 'and is it Miss?' rather than making me AGAIN explain I am not married and not a Mrs.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
I sometimes try to get people asking for my contact details to put me down as Ms, just for the fun of watching them try to cope with the idea of a married woman who does not wish to advertise her relationship status to the world... they ALWAYS assume you're single if you say Ms.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
I'm one of those people who would like to be married but for various reasons, mainly acute shyness around women, I never has been. To be honest, the future doesn't hold much prospect for hope. The thing I find hardest is trying to discern God's will in it all: is it his desire that I remain single? Being single does have its advantages but it doesn't stop the feelings of loneliness that I sometimes get. I don't, however, begrudge the attention families get.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
I will acknowledge that I think whatever group or demographic you fall into you can easily think that you're overlooked or that other groups get more resources.
Of course sometimes this is true (notable historical cases of injustice) but other times it is just a cognitive bias that we have.
I'd be interested to know how being single vs being partnered works out for people financially when the chips are down.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
I sometimes try to get people asking for my contact details to put me down as Ms, just for the fun of watching them try to cope with the idea of a married woman who does not wish to advertise her relationship status to the world... they ALWAYS assume you're single if you say Ms.
I am "Ms" on everything official, and the assumption I've come across most is that "Ms" = divorced or co-habiting. My left hand is prone to random tendonitis related swelling, so I don't wear my wedding ring any more, though my tendonitis-free husband wears one. That creates interesting assumptions, too.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Leprechaun and Heavenly Anarchist - oh yes, this was very much a church made up of nuclear families, very suburban. It also had a huge youth and children programme, and girls in particular were encouraged to help with the kids and then (ideally) train in youth work. Only one couple who married and didn't have kids that I can think of, I think the having children aspect was probably the more heavily emphasised thing.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Re assumptions - I obviously meet a different range of people from most. I sometimes call myself 'Ms' (although more often 'Mrs', I suppose); I sometimes wear a wedding ring, more often not (I very often get excema if I do). Macarius wears a wedding ring.
I have no idea whether anyone makes assumptions or not - they don't tell me. I did have one work colleague, with apologies for asking a personal question, ask me if I minded telling him why I often don't wear a ring. But that's all.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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To The Pain
Shipmate
# 12235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
I sometimes try to get people asking for my contact details to put me down as Ms, just for the fun of watching them try to cope with the idea of a married woman who does not wish to advertise her relationship status to the world... they ALWAYS assume you're single if you say Ms.
I am "Ms" on everything official, and the assumption I've come across most is that "Ms" = divorced or co-habiting. My left hand is prone to random tendonitis related swelling, so I don't wear my wedding ring any more, though my tendonitis-free husband wears one. That creates interesting assumptions, too.
Oh the assumptions! It is handy (and amusing) when someone asks 'is that Miss or Mrs?' to be able to respond with 'Actually, it's Doctor.' Not that I went and slogged my way through that blessed PhD just in order to have a title that didn't announce my marital status.
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Now occasionally blogging.
Hire Bell Tents and camping equipment in Scotland
Posts: 1183 | From: The Granite City | Registered: Jan 2007
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Chocoholic
Shipmate
# 4655
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Posted
A friend once handed over her credit card in Sainsburys (in the days when cards were still handed over) and the cashier clocked dr on it and asked " are you a real doctor or have you just got a PhD?" she was so shocked she said "just a PhD".
Posts: 773 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2003
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
When I got mine certain obnoxious people (who were also poor readers) insisted on addressing us as "Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Lamb".
My husband, of course, loved it. He got a doctoral degree without having to study!
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chocoholic:
A friend once handed over her credit card in Sainsburys (in the days when cards were still handed over) and the cashier clocked dr on it and asked " are you a real doctor or have you just got a PhD?" she was so shocked she said "just a PhD".
A friend told me that ever since he had got his PhD, he had found he was looked after much better, and quicker, when he had the misfortune to visit the out-patients'.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Heavenly Anarchist
Shipmate
# 13313
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Posted
The attitude towards doctorates does vary according to the circles you mix in though: in Cambridge it is pretty much assumed that Doctor means PhD. I (nurse) once went to a friend's (with PhD) wedding with my husband (PhD). We sat on a table with 8 others, 7 of whom were Doctors and within a few minutes I turned to the health care assistant on the table and said 'are we the only two on here with any medical knowledge?'.
(As an aside, my Waitrose card appears to have confused myself and my husband, as it says I am a Doctor but he is Mr ![[Confused]](confused.gif) ).
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'I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.' Douglas Adams
Dog Activity Monitor
My shop
Posts: 2831 | From: Trumpington | Registered: Jan 2008
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To The Pain
Shipmate
# 12235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chocoholic:
A friend once handed over her credit card in Sainsburys (in the days when cards were still handed over) and the cashier clocked dr on it and asked " are you a real doctor or have you just got a PhD?" she was so shocked she said "just a PhD".
I am mostly careful not to suggest too frequently that all those MBChBs running around the hospitals are merely honorary, and I am the 'real' sort. Of course, I'm only any use if you want me to count you, although in the past I'd have been able to dissect you.
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Now occasionally blogging.
Hire Bell Tents and camping equipment in Scotland
Posts: 1183 | From: The Granite City | Registered: Jan 2007
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Single women vs single men - my grandmother (born before the old turn of the century) insisted a woman must "marry and settle down" but a man who does not marry is admirable. How every woman could find a husband if some men didn't marry was irrelevant. When I told her she wouldn't approve of the men who had proposed marriage to me she said "you don't have to liked him, you do have to marry."
For a woman, failure to marry was not criminal, but it was immoral.
The church I was going to a few years ago, the social atmosphere was similar. Couples socialized with other couples, their monthly supper club allowed a widower to stay with the group but instantly kicked out any woman who became widowed. Single men are OK, single women are not. (When I protested to the pastor I was told they believe single women are a threat to marriages and he didn't want to threaten the group's existence by insisting they change. Mainline church.)
Years ago I read a "Christian book" about dating and marriage that said anyone not married by age 30 obviously has psychological problems.
So yes there is a lot of belief "there's something wrong with her"; and my male single friends say they get similar social rejection these days.
There's also a lot of cultural assumption everyone is sexually active, so a single person must be actively gay - or a pervert, which can lead to suspicion of singles if there's an unsolved sexual crime.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Chamois
Shipmate
# 16204
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Posted
I don't think this is a new problem. Think of all those witch trials - if you were a mature/old woman living alone you were automatically suspected of being up to no good.
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The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases
Posts: 978 | From: Hill of roses | Registered: Feb 2011
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Any psychological problems in a single person over 30 would probably be due to the effects of all the people around making remarks.
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
...and who says married people are immune to psychological problems anyway?
<wanders off sticking straws in hair>
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
...and who says married people are immune to psychological problems anyway?
<wanders off sticking straws in hair>
Just different problems.
Single people go mad wondering why they cannot find a relationship and married people go mad wondering why they did.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Avila
Shipmate
# 15541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
I'd be interested to know how being single vs being partnered works out for people financially when the chips are down.
Well a single person household costs more per head than coupled. eg heating is the same however many people are there. Rent/mortgage (if any chance of one of those) - well single to couple comparison would be a similar size space as both could live in 1 bed flats at equivalent rent but only one income.
But having a brood of dependants tips it the other way as they cost so much (how dare they grow out of clothes etc) Having a brood of dependents whilst a single adult....
I found that I was treated weird when younger for being single (proper single as opposed to a few months between relationships)but now I am older and arrive somewhere as a single people are more accepting. I think there is an assumption of some sad and difficult relationship in the past that I must have had, because all do right? The news that I never have had a relationship beyond a couple of dates would be profoundly shocking to them.
I was actually advised by a former minister (when I was about 22) that my lack of any relationships would go against me in offering for ordained ministry - as a sign of my lack of maturity!! Quite frankly I am happy to have missed the maturity of lots of the late teen early twenties attempts at relationships that I saw around me.
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http://aweebleswonderings.blogspot.com/
Posts: 1305 | From: west midlands | Registered: Mar 2010
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Avila:
I was actually advised by a former minister (when I was about 22) that my lack of any relationships would go against me in offering for ordained ministry - as a sign of my lack of maturity!! Quite frankly I am happy to have missed the maturity of lots of the late teen early twenties attempts at relationships that I saw around me.
When I applied for the ministry, in my reference my then-minister put under 'Weaknesses', "Cottontail is single."
To be fair to the man, he apologised profusely when I challenged him. He had meant, he said, that I didn't have the 'in-built' support structure of a spouse.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Well, Cottontail, did you remind him that you didn't have the inbuilt ripe condition for marital problems, arguments, sleepless nights, potential divorce trauma and infidelity issues? I see marriage as a need for support as often as a source of.
I'm glad to see asexuality mentioned here. I think it's going to be the last accepted preference, long after gays and lesbians are fully understood people will still be trying to fix-up their asexual friends. It was a sad day for me when Amy Farrah Fowler kissed Sheldon and he liked it.
I know a man who has hypogonadism and the zero interest in sex that goes with it. He is tall handsome and looks twenty years younger than his age due to his barely detectable T-scores. Several times a year some young, straight woman or gay man gets a crush on him and makes his life uncomfortable until the day they give up in anger and go away muttering ugly insinuations.
Even his doctor finds him fairly unacceptable the way he is and is constantly pushing testosterone injections to make him "normal," in spite of all the side effects to the treatments. No one can believe he's happy the way he is.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Tulfes
Shipmate
# 18000
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Posted
I always thought John Stott was lacking in the maturity stakes. Why does marriage equal maturity?
Posts: 175 | Registered: Feb 2014
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Any psychological problems in a single person over 30 would probably be due to the effects of all the people around making remarks.
Yup exactly. I feel entirely happy until made to feel strange and odd, then I start looking for evidence of my being strange and odd.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
I have been single almost my entire adult life, and I am nearly forty.
I can not recall anyone ever making any unsolicited comment on the subject. I recall a couple of occasions in the last twenty years when people have simply assumed I am married - but that is about it.
Who is saying these things to you ?
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Tulfes
Shipmate
# 18000
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Posted
Doublethink, you obviously feel good about yourself, which is great and how it should be. The secular world doesn't make judgements on your character, worth etc as an older single. The Christian world does. That's my experience.
Posts: 175 | Registered: Feb 2014
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
I have been single almost my entire adult life, and I am nearly forty.
I can not recall anyone ever making any unsolicited comment on the subject. I recall a couple of occasions in the last twenty years when people have simply assumed I am married - but that is about it.
Who is saying these things to you ?
- my minister (see above)
- my mother (she stopped when I hit 38 - gave up hope, I think)
- the man who came to service the Aga
- the psychologist when I applied for the ministry
- my second cousin
- my uncle
- the father of the groom I sat next to at a wedding last month
- it comes up every other parish visit I do, especially if it is a first 'getting to know you' visit.
- acquaintances and colleagues trying to work out if I am a lesbian or not. (My best friend is, so this comes up quite a lot.)
Don't get me wrong - they haven't all been rude about it (though some of them have been - Aga man, I'm looking at you!). But curious, yes, and puzzled, and looking for an explanation.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Looking at Cottontail's list, I have to mention that the window fitters, the plumbers, the electrician and the roofer, the people at the Art club and the local residents' association have all shown absolutely no interest at all in my singleness, not even commenting on my occupying a property that the government would consider much too big for one if I were renting on benefits. I must have got past the age of comments. That must be worth knowing.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
When you say it comes up every other parish visit - do you mean people ask you if you have a partner ?
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
When you say it comes up every other parish visit - do you mean people ask you if you have a partner ?
Sometimes. Obviously, they know I'm not living with anyone, but they wonder if there is anyone in my life. Alternatively, they ask me why I don't have one. I'm still pretty new in this parish, and we are still all getting to know each other.
Pastorally, what happens is that I go into their houses and they talk to me about their relationships. The dog collar means that people sometimes go very deep very quickly in conversation. But conversation is usually a two-way thing. So if they are telling me about how they miss their husband who died last year, it is natural enough to ask if there is anyone special in my life. It's an attempt at establishing common ground, and making things a bit less one-sided from their point of view.
I can fence off much of my life, and obviously I don't give out details. But I don't resent the questions in that context. Sometimes it is funny too, as when the father of the groom was simply very curious about what was 'allowed' for women ministers. But people do see it as odd to be single, and they do look for an explanation: "Oh, she is single because ..."
The thing is, in this job there isn't really such a thing as a private life. If I were suddenly to produce a partner, that would change the whole dynamic of the pastoral relationship - especially if there was a chance that partner might be same-sex. I also couldn't move any partner into the Manse without marrying them first - there would be serious repercussions, including in terms of church discipline. And even were I to marry an 'ideal' Christian man in the conventional way, that would still introduce a new set of loyalties for them (and me) to negotiate.
From their point of view, an already-married minister is a lot more 'stable', whereas a singleton is a potential loose cannon. So yes, they are interested. They are not prurient, and I am good at drawing the line, but they are interested. There is a lot at stake for them.
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"I don't think you ought to read so much theology," said Lord Peter. "It has a brutalizing influence."
Posts: 2377 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2007
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Avila
Shipmate
# 15541
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Posted
On arriving in post I was informed with deep solemnity (and a hint of threat) that they had married off all the ones who arrived single.... Well they have only 1 yr left so better get moving
And yes like Cottontail in the pastoral conversations.
In general community helps that local vicar also female single and collared, and here a few years ahead of me.
I live with depression and every so often I am 'encouraged' that settling down and having a husband would reduce my stress levels Didn't work for my sister!
As I said in general circulation I am also now old enough that I could have all sorts in the history and can blend in with the 'singles again' demographic where no-one asks about the past
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http://aweebleswonderings.blogspot.com/
Posts: 1305 | From: west midlands | Registered: Mar 2010
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Single vs partnered cost of living? Kids cost money.
But my friends with grown kids get free help in fixing up the house, lots of automatic party invitations (birthdays, Christmas), places to go visit and stay for free, rides to the doctor when needed, help balancing the checkbook and figuring out the confusing medical bills, a place to live for the years between complete independence and needing constant care, visits to the assisted living and being taken out for a movie or meal.
Meanwhile, the many years when there are no kids at home, two incomes instead of one to pay for one house, one hotel room, two-for-one meals, two people to divide the labor of house and yard upkeep instead of one person doing it all, and some money still coming in when one loses a job.
My married older friends do a lot more traveling and expensive hobbies than my single older friends.
Marriage and singledom both have problems. But being single is not the road to a wealthy carefree life some married assume!
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Any psychological problems in a single person over 30 would probably be due to the effects of all the people around making remarks.
Yup exactly. I feel entirely happy until made to feel strange and odd, then I start looking for evidence of my being strange and odd.
I really appreciate your remarks on this thread. They reflect broadly my own experience. Any time I've stopped to think 'well, I MUST be odd, or there MUST be something wrong with me, because I'm not married or living with someone/in a relationship', has been because of discussions or environmental or social factors reflecting on the 'oddity' of maturing people (in particular) who aren't partnered.
It's worth bearing in mind, however, that even in Victorian times - when female population fairly far exceeded male population - (by a third, at its height, I think?) it was still expected that every 'normal' female would be married and popping out babies. Crusty bachelors were quite permitted their bachelordom, nevertheless!
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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