The One Question You Should Never Ask a Single Person at Christmas by J. Hocking

The One Question You Should Never Ask a Single Person at Christmas by J. Hocking

(Link): The one question you should never ask a single person at Christmas

Excerpts:

by Jana Hocking
December 15, 2022

This time of year can put a shiver up the spine of most singletons.

Yes, it’s Christmastime, and oopsy daisy, you forgot to bag yourself a partner in time for dinner with the family.

You’re armoring up for the “Why haven’t you got yourself a partner yet?” question from annoying relatives with good hearts, and the idea of waking up by yourself instead of to a boisterous house full of children and a sexy husband can seem pretty darn crappy.

Except … it’s not.

You see, we focus so much on the traditional side of Christmas, we forget that this time of year as a singleton is actually ridiculously fun.

Don’t believe me? Let me point out a few reasons why you can thank the Lord he didn’t throw your soulmate into your direct path this year.

1. Sweet, sweet freedom

Unlike partnered-up couples who are arguing about who will be designated driver, and trying to figure out whose family gets Christmas and whose gets Boxing Day, you get the glorious gift of freedom to pick and choose to do whatever the heck you want for Christmas.

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

Divorcee Learns to Enjoy Life Again After 35 Year Marriage Ends by J. Ivey

I could not find a copy of this online, so I cannot link to it. I have a print copy.

Someone did upload a copy to Scribd, but you have to have a subscription or whatever to read past the first few paragraphs

Girlfriend Power

Excerpts:

February / March 2022

It was the first Valentine’s Day after my marriage ended. The last thing I wanted to do was go to a party with a bunch of single ladies

Girlfriend Power by Jennie Ivey

[The author opens the piece by explaining that she and her husband George were divorcing after 35 years of marriage.]

… For the first time in decades, I wasn’t part of a couple. For the first time in my life, I was living alone.

… Why oh why had I said I’d go to my friend Pat’s Valentine’s party? “Celebrate with other singles at a girls’ night in,” the invitation read. “Food! Music! Games! Fun!”

[Initially, she called her friend who was throwing the party to decline. The friend told her the reason for the party started years before, when her husband served her divorce papers on Valentine’s Day, and her father died on Valentine’s Day a few years prior. The friend replied,]

… “instead of moping around because we’re not coupled up, we get together to have a good time.” She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“And one more thing, Jennie – you have to wear pink or red. It’s a Valentine’s party rule!”

[She mentions that her ex husband George was a surgeon, and while he wasn’t the greatest husband, he did okay on Valentine’s – he’d bring her flowers or candy in heart shaped boxes and so on]

Before I left for Pat’s I said a quick prayer. I hadn’t done a whole lot of praying since the breakup of my marriage. Sometimes I felt mad at God. Furious even.

Did he care that I was suddenly single at 60, an age when most couples were looking forward to retirement and spending time with their kids and grandkids together?

My prayer that evening was short and to the point: God, please show me how to be single.

Singles: Don’t Let Valentine’s Day Wreck Your Life By Lisa Anderson

Singles: Don’t Let Valentine’s Day Wreck Your Life By Lisa Anderson

For a Christian-penned essay, this is pretty good (the link, with excerpts, is below).

I usually find most Christian- authored material about singleness to be off mark, but this was pretty good.

A word from me about Valentine’s Day, that echoes what the author below says:
If you’re single, want to be married, but still find yourself single into your 30s, 40s, or older, Valentine’s Day can be a painful and/or frustrating holiday.

With the passage of time, though, as I came to accept my singleness (I had wanted to be married for years, but it never came to pass), as more and more time went by, Valentine’s Day stopped bothering me.

Maybe the same will be true for you, if you’re single, don’t want to be single, and find Valentine’s to be a difficult holiday.

I initially found Valentine’s Day sad, then after a few years (as I was still single), I was annoyed or angered by it – then after a few more years (still single), it just stopped bothering me – I’d say this was some time around my mid or late 40s, age-wise.

I was kind of apathetic about this holiday by around my late 40s. These days, I actually kind of enjoy Valentine’s Day.

In my family, when I was growing up, Valentine’s Day was not just about romantic love; my Mom used to give us (my siblings and myself) Valentine’s (cards and candy), and as I got older, my Dad usually gives me a Valentine’s card, I send them either via snail mail or on social media to my sister, she sends them to me, and I sometimes give my Dad a card.

You don’t have to have a boyfriend or a husband to celebrate the holiday. You can still send cards or candy to family or friends.

My point being, as time goes by, the holiday loses its sting – at least it did for me. You may even come to enjoy it, the more you accept the fact that marriage hasn’t happened for you. I’ve actually come to enjoy Valentine’s.

This year, I bought a couple of bags of chocolate candy on sale prior to the holiday; they are heart-shaped chocolates in red- colored wrappers, and I had a handful on Valentine’s Day. I treated myself, and it felt good.

I don’t know where you are in acceptance of your singles status, but if you’re still struggling, know that with the passage of time, it will probably get easier for you.

(Link): Singles: Don’t Let Valentine’s Day Wreck Your Life By Lisa Anderson

Excerpts:

….I chose long ago to face February 14th without fear. If you’re single with no romantic prospects in sight, here are a few ideas for how to do the same.

It’s OK to be sad. Valentine’s Day is marketed for couples, and if you don’t have a plus-one, it’s easy to feel left out. Whether you’ve been overlooked in love, you’ve recently walked through a breakup or divorce, or perhaps the love of your life has died, love lost is something to be grieved.

Don’t be ashamed to give yourself the time and space you need.

God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field (Churches Need To Reach Out More to the Singles In Their Communities)

God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field (Churches Need To Reach Out More to the Singles In Their Communities)

I have mixed feelings about posting a link to this (way below).

I know if you are literally alone – if you are a never married, divorced, or widowed adult, and you either don’t have children, or you are not on good terms with your biological family (or many of them are deceased or out of state), that it may be hard to feel positive about the message below.

Snowman

I  know it can be difficult to hear Christians writing “you’re not alone, God is with you” if you are, as I said, literally, physically alone in your apartment or home.

It would be nice to have an actual, breathing human sitting across from you, rather than have to rest in the idea that there’s this God in Heaven who cares about you, and have to take that on faith.

I do think Christians (churches especially) need to step up to the plate more and make more of an effort to include those adults who live alone, who aren’t married, who don’t have a nuclear family of their own…

Rather than doing things like over-focusing on nuclear families, and closing churches down on Christmas Day (yes, some churches have been known to (Link):  withhold services on Christmas Day, because they assume every one is at home watching their biological child and spouse opening presents under the tree).

Never mind that some sites say that (Link): half or over half of the American population is now single – singles out-number married couples, and that stat won’t be changing any time soon, all the focus on Nuclear Families is excluding about half the American population.

So, what are you members of churches out there doing to reach out to the lonely and single in your areas?

Churches, you can stop it any time now with slobbering all over the married- with- children couples already. The “Nuclear Family” has received the “lion’s share” of affection and attention from churches and Christian culture for far too long now.

Time to start acknowledging the single and childless among you.

Churches have been losing in attendance in the last so many years – if they want to increase attendance, it might help if they start focusing on single adults.

(Link):  God’s Big Message at Christmas: You Are Not Alone, by Chris Field

Dec 25, 2021

Loneliness a terrible thing.

And as is often pointed out, at no time is loneliness more poignantly felt by scores of people than at Christmas.

If there’s an upside to the whole COVID fiasco, it’s that many of us had the opportunity last Christmas to experience a little bit of what that’s like. Millions of people had to stay separated from family — and we quickly realized that it’s not so great.

And it should have served as a wake-up call for those who call themselves followers of Jesus.

Being Single Was Just a Part of Their Lives Before the Pandemic. Then It Became the Defining One by B. Luscombe

Being Single Was Just a Part of Their Lives Before the Pandemic. Then It Became the Defining One by B. Luscombe

(Link): Being Single Was Just a Part of Their Lives Before the Pandemic. Then It Became the Defining One

Excerpts:

[Article opens with interviews with single adults who are living alone in the Covid pandemic]

….At the dawn of 2020, about a quarter of American households were made up of people who lived alone. According to the U.S. Census, the number of households consisting of only one person has jumped 10% in the past 20 years to an all-time high of 28.4% in 2019.

Partly this is because people are marrying later in life (the average age of first marriage is nearing 30).

And partly, sociologists believe, it has to do with money. Wealthy countries generally have a higher proportion of people who can afford to live solo. At the same time, many people don’t want to get married and raise families until they feel financially secure. In 2017, 14% of Americans told Pew Research they had no interest in getting married.

The “Dating Market” Is Getting Worse by A. Fetters and K. Tiffany

The “Dating Market” Is Getting Worse b A. Fetters and K. Tiffany

For anyone who cannot wait to get to it, here’s the link to the piece on The Atlantic:

(Link): The ‘Dating Market’ Is Getting Worse

Some of my comments about that piece before I put in some excerpts from it:

About the only “numbers approach” I have ever mentioned on my own blog here is that Christian women really do unnecessarily limit themselves if they try to live out the “Be Equally Yoked” philosophy in regards to dating and marriage, because the reality is, yes, the math is that there are not enough single, Christian men to go around for all the Christian single women who’d like to marry.

So, it makes sense to forgo the “equally yoked” rule, if one is a Christian, to date outside the Christian faith.

At the same time, though, I have seen other adults singles make much too much out of the “numbers game” philosophy on dating sites or comments sections on blogs about dating, where they make finding a romantic life partner sound so cold, or as though they’re shopping for a car.

There’s nothing wrong with having standards, but I am afraid there is a category of single adult who is too stringent or unrealistic with their lists of “must haves.”

I am personally turned off by anyone dispensing dating or “how to get married” advice who behave  as though there is a sure-fire guarantee way to land a spouse – because (Link): there is no such thing.

So, I’m really turned off by the many (sexist) attitudes and lists out there telling women if only the women do X, Y, and Z, they will absolutely get married to a great guy.

One problem is that most of these lists (which go viral on Twitter) are predicated on the notion that all men want and prefer 1950s, submissive, uber-feminine women.

Well, I lived that way for many decades – I was raised in a very traditional family that was into conservative values – so I had many of those prized traits sexist men online say will grant a woman a husband, but I remain never-married into my late 40s.

I was a very meek, docile, passive, sweet woman with traditional values, and no, it didn’t get me a husband.

(As I’ve aged, I’ve realized that it’s not a healthy or safe dating strategy for a woman to fit the picture of docile, overly feminine, passive, etc, that the “dating advice” gurus suggest on twitter and elsewhere, because many abusive, selfish, or controlling men intentionally seek out women with such qualities so that they can control, abuse, or take advantage of them.)

There are many conservatives – including women authors, unfortunately – who keep writing dating advice books for women, or who go on to FOX cable news morning shows, who keep encouraging women to engage in these dangerous dating strategies (of being a doormat, where being “feminine” is associated with doormat behaviors), which I’ve written about before (Link): here and (Link): here, among other blog posts.

The article below states at one point that men out-number women on dating sites. That may be so on some sites, but certainly not all.

Years ago, I had a paid membership on a dating site, and the site was forever claiming they could find no matches for me, most of the time.

For the four or five month paid subscription I had, I was only linked up to a total of about three men in that time.

My research on that particular online dating company found it’s the same with a lot of women, as it had been for me: that site tends to only “dribble out” a tiny number of matches for women, while they send male members more matches per month, every month.

Here are excerpts from…

(Link): The ‘Dating Market’ Is Getting Worse

The old but newly popular notion that one’s love life can be analyzed like an economy is flawed—and it’s ruining romance.

…It’s understandable that someone like Liz [a 30 year old single who is using dating apps to find dates] might internalize the idea that dating is a game of probabilities or ratios, or a marketplace in which single people just have to keep shopping until they find “the one.”

The idea that a dating pool can be analyzed as a marketplace or an economy is both recently popular and very old:
For generations, people have been describing newly single people as (Link): “back on the market” and (Link): analyzing dating in terms of supply and demand.

What Loneliness Does to the Human Body by Ashley Fetters

What Loneliness Does to the Human Body by Ashley Fetters

(Link): What Loneliness Does to the Human Body By Ashley Fetters

Excerpts:

January 2018

…When researchers study loneliness, they tend to define it as “the perceived discrepancy between one’s desired level of social connection and their actual level of social connection,” says Brigham Young University psychology and neuroscience professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad.

Some people who are socially isolated don’t necessarily feel lonely, and some people who are lonely are surrounded by people who make them feel more alienated, not less.

But 9 million lonely people probably aren’t just a damper on the national morale; they’re likely to be a strain on national productivity and health-care systems, too.

The bodies of lonely people are markedly different from the bodies of non-lonely people.

Thoughts on the NRO Essay “Advice For Incels” by Kevin D. Williamson

Thoughts on the NRO Essay “Advice For Incels” by Kevin D. Williamson

About me and this blog:

If you are new to my blog: I have been a conservative my entire life. I’ve never voted Democrat. I was a Republican until a few years ago. I am no longer in any political party.

I sometimes critique secular, left wing feminists on my blog (such as but not limited to (Link): this post and (Link): this one), but there are times when I believe other conservatives get feminists wrong, and feminists are actually correct on some issues.

I was brought up in a traditional values, conservative, Christian family where my parents brought me to Southern Baptist churches as I was growing up, where I was taught to believe in gender complementarianism, which I did for many years, until I finally realized how (Link): wrong and sexist complementarianism is.

Because I grew up as a complementarian, I am quite familiar with what they think and why they think as they do.

My current religious beliefs are somewhat “up in the air,” as I am waffling between being agnostic, (or a deist), and the Christian faith. (Note: I am not an atheist.)

I am by no means anti- Nuclear Family, anti- motherhood, or anti- marriage, though I do posit that many to most conservatives – especially the religious ones – have gone to un-biblical lengths and have turned the Nuclear Family, marriage, natalism, and motherhood and fatherhood into idols which is wrong of them.

— end introduction to me and this blog —

I saw a link to this essay go through my Twitter feed today:

(Link): Advice for Incels by Kevin D. Williamson

On one level, this essay – “Advice for Incels” was okay.

However, I think that while the guy who wrote it has his heart in the right place, I think he gets a lot of things wrong and is naive about how Baptist and conservative Protestant and evangelical churches are for adult singles.

I’ve spent the last several years on this blog covering these topics – I’d encourage Williamson and anyone who read his NRO piece to read the books  (Link): “Singled Out” by Field and Colon and  “Quitting Church” by Christian author Julia Duin for even more information.

Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About, by B. Smith

Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About, by B. Smith

This article discusses how sometimes the single life can be lonely. The author is writing from a secular perspective.

I’ve said on this blog in years past that if Christians did their job properly, Christian singles would have their companionship needs met by the church, but Christians are too focused on meeting the needs of Married Couples and droning on about the importance of The Nuclear Family to give any thought to adults who remain single past the age of 25 or 30.

If Christians were doing their jobs properly, they’d be helping those singles who want marriage to get married – by hosting social events geared towards single adults, by asking their single friends if they could fix them up on dates.

Christians could also provide platonic companionship by inviting single adults over for dinner or out to the movies, but married couples usually don’t want single adults in the mix, sometimes because they don’t like “odd numbers” around the dinner table and the paranoia of Christians who believe in the moronic “Billy Graham Rule.”

Christian singles are left to their own devices as to how to seek out companionship. Most churches simply do not care to meet the needs of singles, but will tell them the church is not for them,  that the church does not exist to help single adults get their needs met.

Originally spotted this on Melanie Notkin’s Twitter:

(Link): Why Being Single Sucks: What No One Wants to Talk About

Excerpts:

We often celebrate the power and pleasures of the single life, but skim over one of its harshest realities: loneliness

….In 1981, 26 percent of Canadians aged 25 to 29 were unmarried. In 2016 (the last yearcensus numbers were gathered), that number skyrocketed to 57 percent. During that time, the percentage of unmarried women in their early 30s jumped from 10 to 34 percent.

The Biggest Threat To Middle-Aged Men: Loneliness (Study)

The Biggest Threat To Middle-Aged Men: Loneliness

(Link):   The biggest health threat facing middle-aged men is loneliness

(Link):   Middle-Aged Men Need More Friends

Men and friendship. By middle age, many have too little of it. And it’s a threat to men’s health.

(Link):   The biggest threat facing middle-age men isn’t smoking or obesity. It’s loneliness.

Excerpts:

As men grow older, they tend to let their friendships lapse. But there’s still time to do something about it.

…The editor told me there was all sorts of evidence out there about how men, as they age, let their close friendships lapse, and that that fact can cause all sorts of problems and have a terrible impact on their health.

…Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general of the United States, has said many times in recent years that the most prevalent health issue in the country is not cancer or heart disease or obesity. It is isolation.

I TURNED 40 IN MAY. I have a wife and two young boys.

..During the week, much of my waking life revolves around work. Or getting ready for work. Or driving to work. Or driving home from work. Or texting my wife to tell her I’m going to be late getting home from work.

Much of everything else revolves around my kids.

…I rarely see those people anywhere outside those environments, because when everything adds up, I have left almost no time for friends. I have structured myself into being a loser.

“YOU SHOULD USE THIS story suggestion as a call to do something about it.”

That’s Dr. Richard S. Schwartz, a Cambridge psychiatrist, and I had reached out to him because he and his wife, Dr. Jacqueline Olds, literally wrote the book on this topic, The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-First Century.

…“Since my wife and I have written about loneliness and social isolation, we see a fair number of people for whom this is a big problem,” Schwartz continues.

More 40-Something Single Women Falling Prey to Dishonest or Violent Men in Dating (says report)

More 40-Something Single Women Falling Prey to Dishonest or Violent Men in Dating (says report)

I don’t know how accurate this type of story is. Sometimes the media like to report ideas and leave the impression there is a huge crisis going on, because it generates panic and makes for good click-bait and gets them more views and hits.

For example:

(Link):  When Newsweek ‘Struck Terror in the Hearts of Single Women’ – Bogus Study Said Women Over 40 More Likely To Be Killed By A Terrorist Than to Marry

This story is in a UK-based paper. I’ve no idea how common this is in the United States vs. the UK. Some of the folks who left comments below the (Link): Twitter post felt that the article is “victim-blaming.” I don’t know if I took it that way or not.

I have posted other stories to this blog before of women who were killed by men they had met online, and one story about a guy who was robbed (and I think killed) by a woman he met on a dating site (she brought her male friends with her to the man’s house, and her friends killed him – she was part of the plot). I don’t think it’s necessarily “victim blaming” to remind people who use dating sites to use caution when meeting people through sites.

(Link):  The tragic story of Helen Bailey’s murder shows how easily an unscrupulous character can fool a lonely romantic by J. S-Porter

“At 49, I met and married a man within three months. It was a disaster, and I quickly realised I’d been hopelessly naïve. Sometimes the dream gets in the way of reality”

Excerpts:

A successful middle-aged woman was murdered by a partner she trusted implicitly. Helen Bailey’s story is shocking because it reveals how little she really knew about her partner of five years. How can such an intelligent person be so oblivious to the dark side of her lover’s personality?

‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ TV Show Scene Perfectly Sums Up What It’s Like To Be Single at 40+ When You Had Wanted to Be Married

‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ TV Show Scene Perfectly Sums Up What It’s Like To Be Single at 40+ When You Had Wanted to Be Married 

I just re-watched a re-run I had forgotten about. It really resonated – maybe not so much at the time, when I was in my 20s when it first aired, but now that I’m in my 40s and still single, like the character in the skit is, I totally relate.

I will embed the scene below in this post, that someone posted on You Tube (I so hope the video is never pulled down. Sometimes, videos are removed due to copyright infringement claims.)

“Everybody Loves Raymond” is a television situation comedy show that started around 1996. I used to watch it every week and still remember the characters and one or two of the episodes.

This show takes place, starts out, in the late 1990s, before many Americans had the internet – dating sites were still a good ways away, and cell phones didn’t really catch on until around the year 2,000 or a bit later.

Even when dating sites first came out and caught on, many singles did not want to use them.

Even up to around 2005 or so, there was a stigma attached to dating sites. If you used one at that time, you didn’t really want anyone to know, because they might think you were desperate or a loser.

I started watching “Everyone Loves Raymond” again in re-runs about two weeks ago – it comes on some of the local cable channels. If you’re like I am – single over the age of 35 and had expected and wanted to marry – you might really relate to the embedded video in this post, too.

To set it up for you if you’re not familiar with the show:

The show is about a guy named Ray who is married to Debra. Ray’s parents, Frank and Marie, live across the street from Ray and Debra.

Ray’s older brother, Robert (a.k.a. “Robbie”), is a police officer who lives with his parents – the guy was married to a woman name Joanne(?), and if I remember correctly, she won the house in their divorce. Joanne dumped Robert for a guy Robert arrested.

For a long time, Robert was too broke and too depressed to live on his own, so he lived with his parents. Eventually, Robert meets Amy, and they get married. But for a good long time, Robert, who is in his early 40s, is single, can’t seem to meet the right woman, and hates being single.