A bit of bellybutton observation, and introspection, whilst I’m writing up my final essays and E-learning presentation for the PGCE course I’m doing.
This is a displacement activity; I feel a need to pointlessly purge my soul at you – you lucky readers, you!
As some of you out there in Cyberland know, I split up with my partner of three and a half years back in mid-March. I’ve been feeling a little teary on and off (my fault – shouldn’t listen to anything by Regina Spektor). But I know that it’s OK – and it’s perfectly normal – to feel a little sad from time to time, even though it was the best thing to do.
That aside, certain relatives keep pointing out my lack of relationship (yes, I know after such a short time too!) stating the following facts:
- I’m thirty (well done, your maths is astute)
- I’m not married (again, well done, your powers of observation are unsurpassed)
- I don’t have any children (well, there’s none that I know of!)
It particularly grates as it’s really, really not that unusual to be any of the above three things!
I think it’s the expectations that some of my older relatives who are trapped in a certain social and cultural contexts. This comes complete with commentary and questions such as:
- “You’ve had how many boyfriends, Jennifer.” (none of your business!)
- “Don’t you want to own your own place?” (um, not on my teacher’s bursary, and I don’t particularly want a mortgage hanging around my neck like the proverbial Coleridge albatross)
- “Do you not want to have children?” (yes, but not quite yet)
- “Why don’t you have a career?” (my life is my career, thank you very much)
All of this is incredibly annoying!
Hints and tips on how to deal with these – rather than my usual trick of: nodding, smiling, and gentle explanations rather than sarcasm – are most welcome!
Back to work now!
GirlWideWeb
May 18, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I didn’t actually know that you were single, clearly Facebook fails epically as a stalking tool. I shall have to find something more useful to replace it in my Secret Information Network…
As for the questioning, I manage to avoid most of that by being a bloke, but I would suggest telling anyone who asks that you’ve got a lesbian girlfriend and are thinking of a civil partnership and adopting to get round the marriage/children thing. That will certainly shut them up for a short while, possibly permanently.
May 19, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I haven’t been jumping up and down to mark the demise of the last relationship I was in. This is because I still really care about O, hope that one day we can be friends again, and was trying to be sensitive.
I like your suggestions though. Most of my relatives are pretty open-minded to same sex relationships, however, a few aren’t; these tend to be the ones that lead the Jenbee interrogation. I’m also lucky that they’re not particularly net savvy either
Hope all’s well – you finished that thesis?
May 21, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Thesis is still not finished yet, hoping to do some more work on it over the bank holiday weekend.