being single

But I wish everyone were single, just as I am. Yet each person has a special gift from God, of one kind or another. (1 Corinthians 7:7)

Whenever I check my mail on yahoo.com, I always get a chance to check out all the 50+ singles in the Boonville area. According to the window, there is a plentitude and they are all dying to meet me.

And I seem to be getting a lot of this. Not long ago, I got a message in my mailbox to meet other young, Christian, black singles. My thought was: I am only one out of four. I am neither young nor black nor single. Other than that, I guess they hit it.

As I read about our culture, and I do a lot, it strikes me that the singles world is totally different than when I was single – somewhere in the late 1800’s, I think. When I was single, the guy asked a girl for a date and they went out for usually a dinner and movie. There were few if any complications. Of course, that was assuming (if you were a guy) you had a car and gas and money for a dinner and movie (and a girlfriend) or (if you were a girl) a guy called you.

The onus in such a situation was totally on the guy. The girl may pace the floor waiting for the stupid idiot to call (and when he did, he was beautiful and she was glad), but the pressure was on the guy.

Now dating (or whatever it may be called today) seems to be a minefield. All of the social constructions are gone and nobody knows quite what to do.

I cannot imagine getting to know someone on a dating service, nor can I imagine speed dating (a bunch of women and a bunch of men who spend three minutes talking, then number the ones that they are interested in afterwards).

Nor can I imagine meeting a person like that over the internet. My brother found a girl from Russia and met her, courted her and finally went over and got her – all off the internet. We, of course, were excited (that was sarcasm). She turned out okay, but we were worried.

I have not been single for forty-one years and cannot imagine being so. Having to meet a girl (or woman, that is. I am 62), getting to know her, going through the aforementioned minefield that is dating even in a normal situation, and then taking the plunge. Quite frankly, I was hyper-fortunate the first time. The flaming lightning of love (cool phrase, huh?) will probably not strike twice.

And I would hate dating. And older singles have it even worse. Many times they have kids, so the one thing they do not want is the wicked stepmother or the pedophile or something like that feared by all daters.

And who really wants to be single? Alone? People get used to it, but almost all single people admit that if the right person comes along they will jump at them.

The apostle Paul was single, for whatever reason, and he knew it was fine for a preacher who got beat up everywhere he went. He had no room for a wife in his life.

But I am grateful that I met my wife and she loved me. But man, it would be a stone bummer, a real drag to try to score a chick like that again. I would freak out, man (that was the way we all talked when last I was single. Heavy, huh?). Groovy.