The Pessimism of Being Single

I am at that age where I, as a single man, observe his friends getting married and starting families, and begin to wonder, is there something wrong with me? The same week I broke up, like, three of my friends got engaged, including one who was single only three weeks earlier. I was happy for them all, but I didn't feel comfortable seeing all that. Of course, you hear the well-meaning but naive lines such as, "It's okay to be single" or "You shouldn't put your confidence in a partner" or the rage inducing, "God is enough." 

These all sort of betray a kind of anti-marriage view, and I've noticed a lot of this philosophy comes from emotionally hurt women and people that were duped by the Sam Harris wave that hit Protestantism a few years ago. I say duped because while everyone was distributing Harris' book,  I Kissed Dating Goodbye, encouraging people to be single forever and follow Harris' model, Harris found himself a wife.

I'm not saying it's not okay to be single, but I just don't think it's okay for me to be single. I see the value that being single has, and the Bible spells this out, but unless I have that gift, I am supposed to get married. When God created man, his first commandment was to be fruitful and multiply. So, unless otherwise instructed, that is what I am supposed to do. How do I know whether I am called to be single or not? Well, maybe I don't, but I certainly know better than anyone else other than God, so, most of the time, people are just out of line when they tell me this, because they say it as a kind of resignation. 'Oh, you're not having success in finding a wife? Well, it's okay to be single.' What they're telling me is, well, maybe you should just give up. But why give up? Isn't marriage worth pursuing? 

There is also the view that more explicitly puts marriage and God at odds, which is unacceptable. 'God alone is sufficient, and he is all you need. God is enough.' Well yeah, who is going to deny that? But will they also deny that humans are incomplete in some sense without a spouse? As humans, we are generally independent of others. We can feed ourselves and eat our food (either by growing it or exchanging it for some other earned good), we can live by ourselves and clean ourselves, we can read and write by ourselves. Imagine how strange it would be if that were not the case. Imagine if I needed someone else's eye ball to form a complete image in my mind. How odd would it be to say that I need someone else's teeth to chew my food, and someone else's stomach to digest it. We are not like that in every single way, except for one, and that is reproduction. We cannot reproduce by ourselves, yet we only have half of the necessary organs to do so. God made us to be with someone else. To say God is sufficient is, in this context, to ignore God's general will for mankind. 

Besides, we already have a test case for this. When Adam was in the Garden, he had God, yet God said, it is not good for man to be alone. God was with Adam, yet saw he was still alone. God is alone sufficient for our spiritual needs, but we are not alone spiritual, but physical as well, and God does provide for that. It's a kind of Gnosticism to say we don't need marriage because we have God. 

So, why all pessimism? Because I want to distinguish the pessimism that I have with the kind that others have tried to force on me. As I mentioned, the pessimism of others is the pessimism that tries to consider how I can make the best out of something. It's a pessimism of salvage. Can't find a wife? Well, maybe you should stay single. Can't find fulfillment in being single? Well, find fulfillment in God. It is the pessimism of hopelessness. 

My pessimism isn't like that. I have two views in mind, and most people think they are contradictory. I believe that God wants me to desire a wife. I also believe that it is possible that God does not want me to have a wife. Why is this contradictory for some people? It is contradictory for some Christians because they view God as some kind of genie, that grants all your wishes, and wants everyone to be happy about everything. Theirs is not a God of long suffering, a suffering that creates character. It may be that God wants me to fail. I am not one of those Christians who thinks Jeremiah 29:11 applies to me. God may put this desire in me and have it never be fulfilled for the development of character, and I am okay with that. Because I know that these two views are not contradictory, I can view my failures, as heart wrenching and frustrating as they can be, as a development of some virtue. I can wail and cry out to God about my loneliness, but this pessimism is exactly that which gives me hope. It reminds me that I am not entitled to anything, or anyone, and so I must remain as open to failure, but I must also be open to success. In the previous views, those close windows. Can't get married? Well, close that door and be single. No! I won't close any doors! If I am single, allow me to embrace how much that sucks! And if I am ever married, you can share with me all the joys and happiness of that marriage.