Confessions of a Spinster
Dear Readers,
This semester of grad school has it out for me. Believe me, I would not abandon you for any less worthy cause than my own education and career. I expect next semester to be less busy (hopefully), but even so who can say whether my dating life will be fruitful or barren.
With that mindless conjecturing behind us, I wanted to share a little something I wrote for a creative writing class recently. It revolves around that rather brutish date I went on with Ben several weeks ago, but provides many details I brushed past in my haste to vent. I hope it provides some entertainment until I can return in order to update you regarding a certain Counselor who is constant in only his inconsistency.
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I believe I may have become a spinster as early as age twenty. The ages between sixteen and nineteen had been years of relative plenty with regards to my dating life, but once I reached age twenty, it was as if I had prematurely lost my bloom and I face my years of famine, which have the potential to be perpetual.
Ben tightened his arm around my
waist as I more than reluctantly put my arm around his shoulders to keep myself
from flying off the golf cart as we hurtled (breakneck speeds of 10 or 15 miles
per hour) around the bends in the path that encircled the golf course. Ben's boss had deemed it a worthy endeavor to weigh down the golf cart with as
many of his employees as he could in order to take a small excursion to the
fishing pond on the outskirts of the golf course. As luck would have it, I was
the one left without a seat and thus was forced to take up residence on the lap
of my date who I was already more than fed up with by this point in the
afternoon. “Now hold on tight,” Ben's boss winked at me which prompted Ben to clutch me closer and myself to pray that I would in fact fall off the
cart.
I
hurled myself from the golf cart before it came to a complete stop beside a
man-made pond of questionable purity. The others of our group quickly commandeered
the fishing poles which left Ben and I to either watch their unsuccessful
fishing endeavors (please, no) or to amuse ourselves on the playground nearby
(childish but acceptable). I stationed myself on a swing while Ben asked me
to watch his exceedingly poor attempts at parkour. Ben took a running start
at a vertical climbing wall and immediately bounced off it lacking sufficient upper body
strength to heave himself over the structure. I rolled my eyes dramatically as
he jumped from bars to slides in a sloppy, solitary game of the-ground-is-lava.
Out of breath from his games and
failing to elicit admiration from myself, Ben suggested that he teach me
how to fish as most of the others had abandoned their poles by the pond’s edge.
I consented to the proposal not because I had any desire to experience such a
display of male egoism, but rather because I would have paid him to cease his
sad parkour routine. Ben grabbed at a hot pink fishing pole, baited it with
some sticky neon substance unrecognizable to me as anything I would have
considered to be bait for fish (then again I know absolutely nothing about
fishing), and led me to a more secluded side of the small pond. He then
proceeded to explain how to cast the line into the water, and then demonstrated.
And by demonstrated I mean that he pulled his arm back and swung the pole
towards the water and not a thing happened. The line didn’t budge. I suppressed
a malevolent giggle as he repeated the process, again to no avail. Ben cursed the pole and its girlish color which was surely the cause of the
problem, then pulled out a pocket knife and explained to me exactly how he was
going to fix the line. To his surprise and consternation, his pocket knife
tactics had been futile. By this point I had stationed myself on a rock
reveling in the spectacle. Ben grumbled and went to retrieve a new fishing
pole. Having returned with a pole of a more manly hue, he talked me through the
same process of how to cast. This time the line did do its proper job, but it was the fisherman who was lacking as the line never reached the water, but rather become
hopelessly entangled in a nearby tree. He finally gave up on extricating the
mess of line from the tree’s clutches and once again his handy pocket knife
made an appearance. What he did not give up however, was the fishing lesson.
Once more he sauntered off for the third fishing pole. I can now give Ben credit for getting the line into the water. Third time is indeed a charm.
By the time he had gotten around to
fishing pole number three, the horde had clambered back onto the golf cart,
leaving Ben and I alone at the pond. Which was worse? Staying to watch the
fishing or reliving the disagreeable moments on the golf cart? I would have
chosen the golf cart if it meant that Ben would be taking me home. But now
that Ben had his line in the water, he decided that it was the opportune
time for some riveting small talk.
“I’m excited for the semester to
begin,” he said over his shoulder at me as I was still occupying my space on
the rock.
“Yeah, why is that?” I replied as I
tore at a stem of grass.
“All the new freshman girls are
coming.” I paused mid-tear at my prized grass stem and gave his back my most
disgusted look.
“You don’t think you’re a bit too
old for freshman girls?”
“Naw, freshman girls are pretty easy
to get.” The urge to shove him headlong into the pond was staggering. But he
had the keys to the car and if I ever wanted to return home, such physical
violence might not have been the best option.
“And that’s the problem with all the
men here,” I said with a curt laugh, “they’re only into the young, hot
eighteen-year-olds. Anyone above the age of twenty-two doesn’t stand a chance
because no man wants a mature, educated woman.” Not that I was in anyway hurt
that I was not the object of his desire. I think I might have thrown myself
into the pond if that was the case.
“Oh, no, we men like older women
like you because you have a career and can be our sugar-mamas and put us
through the rest of our schooling.”
The
date could not have possibly ended too soon. Ben dropped me off at my
apartment without making a move to let me out of the car or to actually take me
to my door. He just announced that he would text me if he got bored while I
slammed the car door in his face.
Men are often boys in sheep’s
clothing, and when a girl becomes a woman of a certain age, she is no longer
content with such false pretenses. Mary Shelley once penned, “Oh! Be men, or be
more than men.” I have never been a greater fan of this statement until
recently. “Condemning” myself to spinsterhood is a delicate thing. It is not so
much a necessity of situation as it is an utter disdain for the lack of real
men in this world. It is not comprised so much of me having “lost my bloom” or
my youthful excitement and naivete, but that I have become more worldly wise.
My mother calls it cynical, but I call it realistic.
However,
like I said, my spinsterhood is a delicate thing. I cannot entirely give up on
the notion of marriage partly because of my duty as a young Mormon woman to
rest all my hopes and dreams on an eternal family. Another part of me cringes
at the thought of disappointing my mother and being pitied by my entire
hometown.
I
do not condemn marriage in the slightest. On the contrary, I view it as a
wonderful and sacred institution. But as wonderful as the marriage ideal may
be, I just wish to rest in peace with my spinsterhood.
As
far as I can tell, marriage is not anywhere on my radar. I do not know the will
of God and thus I cannot pray specifically to be relieved from spinsterhood. I
have become a more comfortable spinster, content with solitude and the single
life. I do not see any reason why I should be any less content than the wives
and mothers who are my own age. I do not have a life to be pitied. Thus far,
spinsterhood has afforded me remarkable tranquility, and I am relatively
unmarred by the male sex. Their absence in my life is often a great relief
because their presence often brings naught but dissatisfaction.
I
am intent upon reveling in my spinsterhood until some man can prove to me that
he is in fact a man worth sacrificing my spinsterhood to.
Con Amor,
The Lady
