The Cloying Annoying Nauseating G-Rated Wholesome Saccharin Sweet Tone of Articles by Christians For Christian Singles – Christian Material For Singles is LAME

The Cloying Annoying Nauseating G-Rated Wholesome Saccharin Sweet Tone of Articles by Christians For Christian Singles

This post was first published in December 2013

(Edit months after the fact: this blog post may contain adult language, as in cuss words. Or not. I don’t remember. But it’s a possibility.)

(Edit 2: Near the bottom, the post was edited in March 2023 with updated perspectives)

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I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me to post about this before.

If you are looking for a positive, happy-happy blog to cheer you up about being single, this is not the blog for you.

I don’t aim to give people the warm and fuzzies about being single. I’m not trying to make you feel rotten about being single, either, though.

I am trying to Keep It Real.

I just told a blog visitor in a comment (in the blog post about the 34 year old single woman who is tired of being asked when she will marry), who seems to find this blog depressing, or too negative for her tastes, or something, because I am seldom upbeat and happy:

…I actually had a visitor here about a week ago who says she really likes this blog because it is “raw.”

I know what she means.

Personally, I tired of the saccharin sweet tone of Christian blogs for singles, and there are many of them out there, if you are looking for upbeat and encouraging conversations about being a Christian single when you feel down about it.

I got turned off by those sites after having looked at them over a period of years.

Sites such as “Christianity Today,” “Boundless,” and “Her.meneutics” (and other Christian sites/ blogs) strive to be G-rated and clean at all times. They are usually afraid to be blunt and real about life, about marriage, about singlehood.

Many Christian sites and blogs (even the ones run by lay persons) are deathly afraid of using rough language, being negative, everything always has to be sunny- sunny, sweet, upbeat, and paint a rosy picture of being a Christian single. In my opinion, that is not real. That is not reality, not to me.

I never got anything out of the sweet, G-rated, prim and proper, super nice blogs for Christians that tell singles to “serve Jesus,” “find contentment in Jesus,” and so forth. These little platitudes don’t convey the deep loneliness and pain some singles who desire marriage contend with.

And that is all very true.

I like that I can come to my little blog here and cuss and rant and be negative (you too can start your own blog. These Word Pres blogs are free).

Here on my own blog, I don’t have to be fakey smiley and act like it’s always hunky dory being single (sometimes I’m fine with being single, sometimes not), I like how I don’t have to pretend on my own blog that I’m okay with how churches marginalize singlehood, or that I’m fine with the fact that my heartfelt prayers for various things have been IGNORED by God for YEARS.

I don’t have to worry about being G-rated. (Not that I’m out to be constantly R rated or X rated, but lord almighty, even when I was at the pinnacle of my most Christian-y, I would get annoyed at the fake – or even genuine, yet unrelenting, overwhelming – nicey niceness of Christian blogs, forums, and sites.)

Most Christian blogs and articles for the unmarried are too sweet, they are nauseatingly sweet, filled with platitudes which help nobody, and are typically written for 20 to 25 year old kids.

Seldom do I see anything from or by Christians that seriously grapples with what it’s like to desire marriage but to find yourself unmarried past your mid 30s.

Even the small number of Christian blogs I’ve seen that have made a mild effort to seriously address the situation are too lukewarm, tend to wallpaper over the real pain and anger with sweet-sounding talk and cliches and quotes from Romans 8.28, and how ‘singleness is a gift.’

There don’t seem to be very many voices that honestly – and I mean honestly, not sugar coating things – speaking up on behalf of middle aged, never married adults.

The vast majority of articles I see by Christian lay persons and professionals about singleness sound very naive, too simplistic-sweet.

(The blog pages about singlehood by Christian lay persons almost always have soft pastel-colored backgrounds with GIFs of cutey angels flying around. What the hell is up with the uber cliched femininity of those sites? I’ve never been a total girly girl, so I don’t care for the super duper cutey pie pinkness chubby angels of it all.)

What’s even more sad and creepy is that if you Google around to find blogs and forums about Christian singleness (like I used to do, looking for hope or support), you are more than likely to come across blogs/ sites/ forums backed by GCs – gender comps (“biblical gender complementarians”).

These are the people, these GCs, that will, on one level, sure, leave you feeling warm and fuzzy with their warm and fuzzy chats about being single, and how Jesus loves you just as you are in your singlehood, but gender complementarians ultimately teach that a woman’s greatest, or only calling, or Godly function in life, is to marry and have babies.

I am not going to link to it in this post (though I did once in the past, in a review of it), or to ones like it, but one such blog is run by biblical gender complementarian females, and it’s called “Girl Talk.”

It’s one of those super dupery, nice, sweet, Church-i-anity blogs that tells you in half its content how to be a good wife and mommy, and how noble mommyhood and wifeyhood is, with borders of pink, feminine flowers on the pages, with butterflies and photos of gurgling babies in some blog posts.

Then there are the posts for “singles” on that very same blog (or ones hosted by the same folks of ‘Girl Talk’) that reassure you in the Christian-ese, cloying, sweet talk, that yes, Jesus still loves you, even though you have not achieved Evangelical, Gender Complementarian Earthly Nirvana of Getting Married and Having a Child.

Maybe I’m just kind of weird, but do you know what my idea of encouragement is?

It’s coming across blogs just like mine here, by some lady (or guy) who has been where I am, who tells it like it is and says:
“Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes you don’t always get what you want.”

And like those people on those other sites, I don’t then go on to paper that bluntness over by quoting Romans 8.28, or telling you “God has a purpose, fret not” or “life here does not matter, think of eternity” or some other Christian bullshit that’s supposed to make it all better.

And I find it comforting to know other people “get it.”

Not those sappy blogs that tell you the little platitudes about how “the LORD is your husband” and “find your meaning in Jesus” type pages.

I mean, I don’t mean to knock it if you personally get through the night reading sappy blog pages with sentimental stuff about “finding your meaning in Jesus,” but at my age, that kind of crud just falls flat and rings hollow. (I am also not opposed to the person of Jesus.)

I’d have to say at this stage in life, I have developed a sense of humor (granted, it is cutting and dark) about this singleness stuff.

So I’m not actually always angry-ranty at this blog but smirking and laughing when I post reviews to the latest lame editorial I find about singleness by Christians. I’m sometimes angry but usually sarcastic. I’m afraid some blog visitors are misreading my sarcasm and droll humor for bitterness or hate or something.

Some of my favorite forums or blogs lately are by Christians that were “burned” by their church, and they’re either in the process of thinking of leaving Christianity, almost left it at one point, or are still in the faith but recognize how SCREWED UP present day Christianity is.

They get it. They understand the anger and frustration and sarcasm. They don’t try to gloss over difficult subjects and pain by tossing out Romans 8.28 at everything or “find your meaning in Jesus” and other cliches. They are, ironically, sweet people but don’t go out of their way to act sweet, put on a G-rated front, and don’t have a “sweet sugar” tone to their writing. I appreciate their down to earth realness.

March 2023 Edit

It’s been a few years since I wrote this post.

I’ve been on a journey, and I’ve come out on the other side.

Being single doesn’t bother me so much now as it did years ago when I was still struggling with the disappointments, frustrations, and sadness of being single when I had hoped to be married and had expected to be by my mid-30s at the latest.

I understand if you’re in a good mental space how a blog like mine, that can veer negative at times, can seem toxic or like a downer for you, so you want to avoid it (or me). I get that.

I’m out on the other side now.

This blog is one of the few places I have to come and to rant and vent, but I am not a constantly angry person when I’m not on this blog (or its Twitter account).

I do think that people who are currently in a hurting, angry phase over being single should be permitted to have room to grieve, scream, rant, and express anger or sadness without being criticized, told they’re not jolly enough, or are too bitter.

Also, I’m not going to spiritualize singleness or shame any over- age- 30 adult who’d like to marry for them wanting to be married.

It’s perfectly fine to be age 30, 40, 50 or older and still have a desire and hope to be married. I have seen Christian authors, in their books or blog posts, shame older adults for still holding a desire for marriage, which is awful.

It’s okay and even normal to still want to be married even when you’re in your 40s or older.

No, you don’t have to stuff down that desire for marriage to focus only on how you can serve God and others. You don’t have to pretend like it’s wrong, weird, unrealistic, or selfish, to want to be married when you hit 35, 40, or older.

After having come out of the years of hurt or disappointment of being single when I had wanted to be married, and due to other life experiences and experiences I’ve had with other people over my life, I have to give the flip perspective on this, though.

I’ve known people over my life, whether over being single much longer than they had expected, or whatever other issue they’re facing, who do remain stuck in anger, bitterness, hurt or frustration, and I don’t want to end up like them. I’ve seen what that unwillingness to accept one’s reality, be happy in spite of it, and move on, does to people, and it’s not pretty.

Year after year of their life goes by, and they’re just as angry and miserable now, blaming God, life, their childhood, their church, and whomever else, for something bad that happened to them 10, 20, 40, or 50 years ago, as they were when I first met them 5 to 10 years ago and started complaining to me about what and why they believe their life went wrong, or why their life is unfair.

This may not be what you want to hear if you’re single in your mid-to-late 30s, or even up to your mid-40s, as you read this post, but I’m going to say it anyway (out of good motives, not to shame, and no, I don’t mean to sound naive, or cloyingly pollyanna about things, but here’s the truth):

If you do maintain an attitude that you cannot or will not be content or happy with yourself or your life unless you marry, and you do not choose at some point to practice self discipline and enjoy your life as it is, rather than on what you had hoped for it to be, you are keeping yourself trapped in misery and will stay in misery for years – and you’ll end up wasting years of your life, when you could’ve been enjoying it in spite of being single.

And that is a choice you have to make.

I’m not saying you have to suppress a desire to marry.

You shouldn’t skip over your anger / confusion / mourning phase, either.

Give yourself months to several years to accept your singleness, which means in part acknowledging any negative feelings you have about it. It’s a gradual process.

But please do honestly work on accepting your life as it is, even if means you may never marry, because the horrible reality of it is that you may go to your grave trapped in a prison of misery of your own making.

And I understand if you’re not there yet – and yes, if you’re still in shock, anger, hurt, or disappointment over being single at age 38 or 43 when you thought you’d be married by now – I am sorry, and it sucks to be there. It hurts.

And yes, most Christians don’t understand how frustrating, painful, and hurtful it is to be single into your 30s and older when you had hoped to be married but it didn’t come to pass.

Most of the Christian blog posts, podcasts, You Tube videos, books, sermons, and magazine articles are out of touch of what it’s really like to be over the age of 29 and still single, and I still stand by my criticisms of that.

Most Christian content is oblivious and too perky about this topic, and they fail to fully affirm how painful and disillusioning it is to find yourself single at 35 or older when you thought you’d be married by now. And I’m sorry about that, too.

Christians need to drop the super sweet, nauseatingly chipper “being single is great” type verbiage (which appears in almost every single article I’ve seen them put out) to at least occasionally publish material that meets the hurting singles where they are and acknowledges that you may be in a phase where being single hurts, it’s scary, or frustrating.

And those Christian publications need to acknowledge maybe you’re deeply hurt or infuriated at God for not sending you a spouse (a spouse who Christians told you that God would send you one day, and that “one day” never has arrived).

And those Christian publications need to say, “it’s okay to be angry or disappointed in God and in other Christians on this topic, and it’s okay to still want to be married even if you’re 40 or older.”

Christians continually fail and let down adult singles who are over 30; they don’t provide meaningful, relatable content for older singles that isn’t fakey sweet, filled with vomit worthy platitudes, or else that is victim blaming and shaming. That point still remains, even though I personally have moved on and made peace with my singleness.

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Related:

(Link): The Types of Christian Singles Who Annoy Me

(Link): Acceptance (vs. Denial, Anger, or Should-ing) – Helps in Healing and Getting Through Painful Events and Dealing With Things You Cannot Change

(Link): I Blog For Me, Myself, And I – Not For You. Not to get your approval.

(Link): Are Marriage and Family A Woman’s Highest Calling? by Marcia Wolf – and other links that address the Christian fallacy that a woman’s most godly or only proper role is as wife and mother

(Link):  A New Start After Age 60: ‘Alone for the First Time in My Life, I Learned How To Be Happy’ (A Woman’s Husband Divorces Her After 40 Years of Marriage) by Paula Cocozza

(Link):  Craigslist confessional: I’m in my 40s, never married, and a virgin—but I’m happy by Abigail

(Link): The Bizarre, Misguided Shaming of Single and Childless or Childfree Women by Pro-Lifer Abby Johnson – (Not All Single, Childless Women are Liberal, Pro-Choice Feminists)

(Link): Avoid Getting Entangled with Covert (a.k.a. “Vulnerable”) Narcissists – You Can Waste Your Time, Effort, Money or Giving that Exhausting Emotional Support and It Won’t Make A Difference to the Recipient

(Link): Forget His Roses—You’re Better Off Single (Some Relationships are Abusive or Neglectful)

(Link):  Why Stay-at-Home Moms Are More Depressed Than Working Moms (article) -Intersting- yet Christians hold up Motherhood as Being a Woman’s Only Godly Calling In Life

(Link): Mommy Blogger Confesses in Blog Post that Mommy Blogging is a Bunch of Fake, Happy-Clappy B.S. – Kind of Like Most Christian Adult Singleness Blogs

(Link): Are Single Women – and specifically Never Married Women – More Likely To Be Victims of Abuse? Rebuttals to this view

(Link): The Irrelevancy To Single or Childless or Childfree Christian Women of Biblical Gender Complementarian Roles / Biblical Womanhood Teachings

(Link): Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

(Link): A New Start After Age 60: ‘Alone for the First Time in My Life, I Learned How To Be Happy’ (A Woman’s Husband Divorces Her After 40 Years of Marriage) by P Cocozza

(Link):  Why Do Churches Treat Singleness Like a Problem? via Relevant Magazine

(Link): Dear Abby – She Wants A Divorce From the Husband Who Hid His Vulnerable Narcissism (Emotional Abuse, Extreme Pessimism, Victim Mentality, etc) While They Were Dating

(Link): I’m 37, I Might Be Single For Ever — and I’m Happy With That by Aimée Lutkin

(Link): Top 13 Reasons Why People Don’t Want to Get Married Any More – and Why Staying Single Makes You Happier

(Link): Survey Reveals Singles Over 50s Can Still Be A Good Catch

(Link): Why Making Friends in Midlife Is So Hard By Katharine Smyth

(Link):  There Are Ways to Deal With the Sting of Unrequited Friendship by K. Sackville

(Link): People Who Get Divorced Are More Likely To Die Early Than Those …  Who Never Got Married In the First Place, Study Shows

(Link): An Assessment of the Article “Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness” – Christian Author is Indirectly Promoting Codependency, Which is Harmful

(Link): Do You Feel Shame About Being Single? By John Amodeo, PhD

(Link): Dear Prudence: Help! I’m Glad My Awful Husband Is Dead.

(Link):  Husband-Hunting is the Worst Part of a Christian Upbringing – Christianity Made Me Obsessed with Finding a Husband – by B. Ramos

(Link): Debunking Eros: Why Romantic Love Isn’t the Only Love Worth Having by Mimi Haddard

(Link): Research: Being Single [or Fear of Being Single] is a Meaningful Predictor of Settling for Less in Relationships 

(Link): Single Adult Christian Pressured Into Marriage by Her Church – And Regrets It

(Link): Number of ‘Lonely, Single’ Men is on the Rise as Women with Higher Dating Standards Look for Partners Who are ‘Emotionally Available, Good Communicators, and Share Similar Values’, Says Psychologist

(Link): The Chelsea Handler Childless Woman Upset: Other Conservatives and Pro Life Advocates Wrongly Conflating Married Motherhood with Womanhood or with Happiness

(Link):  Your Church’s Mother’s Day Carnation is Not Worth Any Woman’s Broken Heart – A Critique of ‘When Mother’s Day Feels Like a Minefield’ by L. L. Fields

(Link): Critique of Federalist Editorial “There Is One Pro-Women Camp In American Politics, And It’s The Right by Elle Reynolds” – Do Federalist Magazine Members Realize There Are Single, Childless Conservative Women?

(Link): Authors at The Federalist Keep Bashing Singleness in the Service of Promoting Marriage – Which Is Not Okay

(Link): Mother Kills Six Year Old, Austistic Son By Throwing Him Off A Bridge – Mothers Admit in Comments on News Articles They Wish They Could Murder Their Own Kid, or Have Aborted Kid 

(Link): BreakPoint Unfortunately Pushing the False and Un-Biblical “Society Needs Marriage and the Nuclear Family” Rhetoric (and I say this as a Conservative)

(Link): Why We Thought Marriage Made Us Healthier, and Why We Were Wrong by Bella DePaulo