Single Sundays

I feel very fortunate to have been brought up in a Christian home, and have attended church my entire life (with a few peaks and valleys there, but consistently nonetheless).  I am very sure of my faith and am comfortable with the church community.

I must admit, however, that being single and attending church is really hard!  It's hard for me for a variety of reasons.

1.  I associate church as a family activity.  This means that I feel kind of lonely going to church alone, even if I am going to meet friends there!

2.  I feel like I have a giant "I am a single loser!" tattooed on my forehead.  I know that I don't, and I know that it shouldn't matter, but I feel like everyone is looking at me like "Aww, poor single gal!  Wonder what is wrong with her that she is still single?"  Come on, admit it, you've thought it about people!

3.  Given this irrational feeling, walking into church every Sunday feels like such a hard, difficult walk.  And I've been single a long time, so when am I going to get over this?!

4.  I sit in church and look around, watching couples all snuggly.  I watch all the families.  And then I get jealous.  I repeat, jealous.  In church, nonetheless!  It's a wonder I'm not struck with lightning on the spot.

5.  My attempts at finding other single Christians out there have been less than stellar.  I've gone to singles groups.  My findings are that they are filled with 19 year olds who are SO STOKED ABOUT LIFE!  AND COLLEGE!!  RAH RAH!  Or, 40 year old divorced people.  I don't have a problem with either group, but I have nothing in common with them!  I have to bite my tongue to not say something snarky to the college group, and not get all depressed listening to the divorced group talking about custody issues. when at this rate I'd just be happy to get a date! 

Or, there was the time I asked in a church about a singles group and they asked me if I'd like to start one.

Or, there was the time that I attempted to join a singles Life Group, only to be told that at the next semester, they would start coed groups, but for now, they are separating them by gender.  So, I joined an all female group.  Now, church is not a meat market, but you know, I work in a basically all female environment, so I wasn't super enthused about that.  I patiently waited for the next semester, put on a pretty outfit, and went to join a Life Group to discover that the groups were STILL gender separated!  Well, now what?!  I got up the nerve to ask about this, trying desperately to not sound, well...desperate.  They told me that they'd had so many problems with coed groups fighting, and also with perverts from the community showing up to the groups and targetting women, that they disbanded the whole coed concept.  The sad part is, this is not the only church I've heard having this problem.

So, my choices are to hope I meet some like minded person in a bar, when I am not a bar kind of person, or to hope that someone setting me up will work (when trust me, BEEN THERE, done that, not doing it again!), or hope that somehow single men my age will suddenly flood the educational world, or go to the divorced group and pretend I have a child that is conveniently never in my physical custody and complain about my imaginary ex (I wonder if I named him "George Glass" if anyone would get the Brady Bunch joke?).  Or, just pluck up the courage to take the "Walk of Death" from the parking lot into the church every Sunday and keep on keeping on.

Sometimes it's not easy being single!