Singles Shame, Continued

Iliza Schlesinger, Confirmed Kills: 

". . . The moral of that story is I was in a relationship and I wasn't happy so I left the relationship. I'm not advocating leaving the person you're with. What I am advocating for is this: If you're not happy, there's no reason to stay out of fear of being alone. 

"We like to scare women. And I'm sure there are men that feel this way. But we like to scare women when they're single and we like to be mean to them and we label them. We say mean things to them. She's a spinster. Old maid. 'Really involved with animal rescue.' We have names like that. 

"And we like to question them, as if there's something wrong. 'Why are you single?' 'Because the last one was a **** and I'm not stupid.' Like, that's why you do it. Nobody wakes up married. Nobody is born betrothed to someone. We have to be kinder to women and stop doing it. 

"And we have the audacity to have magazines, self-help books, articles, posing the question, 'You're single. Now what?' 'You're single. Now what?' What do you mean, 'Now what?' Now I shave off an eyebrow and take up with wolves. What do you mean, 'Now what?' What do you mean, 'Now what?' I got a mortgage! It's so stupid. 

"What upsets me is that women spend so much time and energy flogging themselves mentally for being single, and changing, and trying different methods, and looking for guys. And men don't have to do that. They have the luxury of relaxing because they don't have eggs. There are no articles in GQ like, 'You're single. Now what?' There's none of that."

Us frummies really do think, when it comes to the singles, that we are in a unique position. That the secular world doesn't have to put up with this hooey. That we are alone in our seemingly endless quest to find a good man to be a spouse, and if you don't put his ring on it, then there will be no one else for you.  

It happened to me often enough. "Well, you said yourself he's nice, so how can you say no?" But I feel nothing for him, except a burning need to to walk briskly away in the opposite direction. "But you're single and he won't beat you" is not a good enough reason to marry someone. 

Maybe that would have been sufficient reason to marry three hundred years ago, but hello, people, we ain't in the shtetl no mo'. We need more from our relationships, and that's not a bad thing. 

Browbeating a single girl into a yes isn't helping anyone. It doesn't solve anything. All she would know, going forward, was that she is not in this relationship because she wants to be. So why postpone the inevitable, when she finally can't go forward and breaks it off after the 15th date or an engagement? 

Singles aren't mental defectives, or children (for the most part). They don't need to be told ghost stories in order to get them to commit out of terror. 

They may just be waiting for what is right for them. 

(And by the way, Schlesinger married 2 years after this special, at the age of 35, and is now expecting.)