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| Image source: DHgate.com |
So here is what I am wondering about
these days: What is it about turning thirty that completely freaks out a single
woman [Well majority of them atleast]? However, before jumping into a sea of hazy
contemplation [or read as a disgruntled rant], I need to give a brief detail
about myself. So; I am a twenty nine year old woman on the verge of being
thirty [Or well! may be just a woman who has been ageing for 29 years but whose
body stopped the process of growing in size at what? Seventeen may be!
(fortunately or unfortunately)]. My facial skin, though, was not as lazy as my
stunted body [And hey! Please do not judge me too hard. My tiny frame did
manage to stretch up to four feet and dragged itself up to eleven more inches].
Coming back to my facial skin; it has been through that dark phase when zits
were stubborn to sit all over my cheeks leaving no space for my skin to
breathe. One fine day, clouds started to lift and the dark phase was over. But
the scars remained. All in all, I am not a hot looking chick, but I just get by.
May be you’ve already started wondering if I have got some brains as well inside my stunted body; then well, let me
tell you I have got a teeny-weeny bit which enables me to earn a decent living
on my own and be financially independent. So again, I am not an intellectual
catch, but I just get by. The crux of the whole story is that I am an average
woman; average looks [Though my height and frame is less than average and
haven’t I been judged for that? Hell Yeah!], average intelligence, average
nature, average charisma, average earning and add some more averages from your
side in this list of averages. I live in a very small town which does not show
up in the auto drop down list in most of the online form filling sites. Ahem! I
suppose in my attempt to give brief details about myself, I have derailed a
little too much. So let me get back to the subject of my contemplation mentioned
in the very beginning. Why turning thirty and being single is such a huge deal?
Is it just a society thing and the peer pressure of getting married at the
right age and right time?
Is getting married at the right time
more important than getting married to the right man? Or are we [Read the clan
of single women touching thirty] actually deluded in our concept of what we
call as the ‘right man’? What is it about ‘thirty’ that puts us all on our toes
and a long ongoing search of the ‘right man’, the ‘true love of our lives’
almost comes to a sudden halt as if we are being jolted out of our senses by
the emergency brake hit right on time by the super dictator analytical brain to
save us the damage of being forlorn and alone? Were we deluded before or do we
get deluded just near that milestone of thirty? It is like until reaching thirty
we had been in an expedition to find a lake of soul mate love, a natural one,
just out there waiting for us to take a dip; on hitting thirty, however, we
start opening up to the new option of rather creating an artificial one. There
is a gradual acceptance to building dams to harness love against the walls of
resistance to loneliness and insecurity.
Why is it that a single woman at
twenty nine years, eleven months and thirty days is still an alright kind of
marriage material and yet things change in a single day? Is there an invisible
expiry date imprinted on us that renders us not as good for nuptial ties [or is
it nuptial consummation] after we hit thirty? And if this is not the case, why
is there so much pressure about marrying by the age of thirty? There is
pressure of family, relatives, society and all sorts but the real pressure is
when we start feeling it too. This is
just how our mental conditioning is. We want to be with Mr. right and at the
same time we don’t want to risk being alone waiting for Mr. right when [for god
sake] that Mr. right has not shown up in thirty long years. Even though social
pressure is there, the fact is we become insecure as well. There is insecurity
of being left out alone in the world while all your friends are busy having
pompous weddings, elaborate pre-wedding and post-wedding photo shoots, crowding
their facebook and insta walls with wonderful honeymoon destinations,
procreating and kicking out babies. Also, there is insecurity of decent men
already having been taken or being taken as we are waiting for some in
comprehendible definition of ‘right man’ to fructify into an actual physical
creation. Surely, this insecurity then becomes a contributing factor in our
decision to take a blind plunge into the sea of matrimony hoping to keep afloat
on the live jacket of adjustment and compromise. They say life is a gamble. Perhaps
the adage would be truer in context of arranged marriages.
Why is marriage so important to
validate our existence? Why can’t we live peacefully without getting fanatic
about this marriage stuff? Why is there so much hysteria surrounding this one subject?
It is strange that a single woman’s achievements seem all pale to the society
in comparison to a married one [ true for the average achievers at least if not
the ones on top notch] We can be average and still choose to be single; or
can’t we [ without inviting some derogatory or demeaning glances sending our
fragile average self esteem down the drain]? If an average woman is approaching
thirty, the gates of matrimony start shrinking to accommodate her less and
lesser each day despite her willingness to go past someday. Yet she’s not
spared the verbatims people have been using since ages to enquire about single
womens’ future wedding plans and even though she’s mortified at such queries,
the average single woman doesn’t mutter a word about her dashed hopes. She
keeps fighting a vicious circle of hope and hopelessness in the battlefield of
her mind. An average single woman approaching thirty is no less than a warrior.
A single woman turning thirty is not a
shiny glossy building but it is definitely the kind of building which has
survived many storms and bad seasons. She is strong willed and special despite
all the averages she has got in her person. There are multitude of factors
which might have led her to be still single but there is no reason she should
be out casted as a specter just because she does not have that one tag of
married on her advantage. She becomes upset and depressed sometimes; but she
knows how to pick herself up. She knows that the red color of her much awaited
bridal dress is leaking out of the corners of her mind, becoming faint each
day, but she knows one day will be her day and she is strong enough to wait for
that day.
To all the women who are single and
approaching thirty, cheers and a thumbs up!
