So many friends are under pressure to start families, even when they don’t want to settle down. “Na wewe utaolewa lini,” their families ask each time they go home. And she’s seen as not completely successful. There’s a way society views an unattached woman.
She’s either overly wedded to her career, unable to maintain a relationship or just untameable. On the other hand, the man who is single and may have a different woman in his arm every weekend is still seen as being in control, dedicated to his job, charismatic, and, as a bonus, a ndume.
Because let’s face it, there’s still some reserve attached to that label. But if men can wear their single status like a badge, why not women? When will society come to terms with the fact that some women have never thought about marriage, have never craved children, and have no interest in settling down with anyone in the foreseeable future?
Sure, society is always going to try to fit us into a mould. When we are single, someone will wonder when you will get hitched. If you are married, they will wonder when you will have kids… the cycle never ends. Don’t listen to slander from people in relationships.
They will try to make you feel like less of a person because you’re alone. But what they’ll never understand is that you are not lonely, just single by choice. Some of us have figured out the perfect loophole to find happiness and still have fun along the way.
We choose to be single for as long as possible, sometimes it’s fear of commitment, but other times it really is that instinctive feeling in our gut that this man isn’t what I want.
So why settle for less? We refuse to let people guilt us into thinking we need to be with someone in order to be complete. In our dictionaries, being single is not a dirty word. It’s actually an invaluable experience if you truly embrace it.