Friends and the pressure to get married

What you need to know:

  • But her daughter had decided, and it had been the end of the young man. That was two years ago. She had not dated anyone in all that time.
  • Well, tomorrow was her birthday. She made the big 30. Perhaps it was time for the mother to have a very serious heart to heart talk with her daughter!

She was 29 years old. She was not dating anyone. She was okay with it, but her friends were not giving her any sleep. They would not let her be, they kept asking her when she was planning to settle down.
And she would answer them by saying that when the right man came along, she would.

“But there is no Mr Right”, they would respond. All men are the same, you are lucky if you get a decent one. Just settle down. And she wanted to settle down, she really did. But there was no one in her life worth settling down with, at least according to her standards.

Your standards are too high, her friends told her. You are not going to get a man who is smart, well-educated, kind, and is also a good man.

Those kinds of men will never be born. You think you are better than us. You think our husbands are not good enough men? Okay keep waiting and before you know it, you will be a spinster, all by yourself.

And she would think about this for a long time and sigh. Wondering if indeed her standards were too high. True, good men were hard to come by, but they were there. She had known some good men.

And her standards were not really that high, according to her. They were just basic requirements that any decent man should possess. That was not too much to ask for, was it?

And as for her age, well, she believed if she met the right man, it would not matter what age she was.
So she listened when her friends, and her family told her about her situation. And she put on a serious face, because they expected her to take it seriously.

“Your standards are too high, her friends told her. You are not going to get a man who is smart, well-educated, kind, and is also a good man. Those kinds of men will never be born. ”

Her mother was not one of them. She had never asked her daughter about her plans of settling down, although it was obvious that she would be very happy. She understood her daughter very well; her daughter set in her ways.

She was particular in what she wanted and she would not settle for anything else other than what she wanted. The times had changed yes, girls could make choices now, but life was not that simple.

Not all choices one had to make in life were choices that made them happy. But she would never make her daughter do something she was not happy with.

Although, sometimes she wished her daughter was more ‘flexible’. Take for example that young man, the last one she had dated. He had seemed a decent young man, even though he drank too much. Her daughter had decided she was not settling with a drunkard, and that had been it.

Perhaps if she had been a bit more patient with him, tried a bit harder to make him at least reduce. He was not a bad young man.
But her daughter had decided, and it had been the end of the young man. That was two years ago. She had not dated anyone in all that time.

Well, tomorrow was her birthday. She made the big 30. Perhaps it was time for the mother to have a very serious heart to heart talk with her daughter!