il Giardino Romantico

Being alone is not a sin.  Neither should it be frowned upon.  Yet the world was not built for loners.  I am not against the practice of matrimony, nor am I against committed relationships.  However, I am protesting against the idea that the only achievement one should seek in life is to find his or her better half.

A romantic relationship should be the reward one picks up along the way.  A goal that one should set out to achieve should be something greater than merely a time killer.  That goal could be an achievement in academic areas, or it could be a realization of a dream in the area of one’s profession. The meaning of such goals is so that one can come to realize their own individuality, and elevate themselves to a higher status in their spirituality.  When they look back at their past, they would gasp at the progress they have made.  It is very much like mountain climbing, where the climber does not cease to reach the top only because they have found a very pretty flower and wished to keep it. The flower is a reward for the climb.  The priority remains to be to reach the top of the mountain.  That is the ultimate goal. 

We have heard of many stories of those who claim to have given up on their goals in life in order to be with someone who they believed is their better half.  This, is what society should really frown upon.  If this better half of yours do not believe or assist you in achieving your goal in life, then what is it that makes them your ‘better’ half?  Must one really surrender a dream or a goal for the sake of a relationship?  It may be a difficult choice, but trust me, in the end both you and your supposed better half will survive. 

How have I come to realize this?  A few years ago, I, myself, was ready to give up my ultimate goal in life believing that the person I was involved with would be the one that I would marry.  When the relationship broke down, I mourned.  I was ready to make a commitment, and give up my dream altogether so we could have a future together.  Yet he insisted on ending the relationship.  Guess what?  Whenever I look back now, I always have a feeling of relief knowing that the end of the relationship meant I was back on the track towards my dream, my goal. 

Some time after that, I began dating someone who insisted that I continue to do so.  Our relationship was mainly built upon the belief and support that we gave each other toward realizing our respective goals in life.  We may fail, but if we deny ourselves the right to even attempting to realize it, our relationship, our lives for the past few years would have been meaningless.  Our dreams and goals were more important than the relationship itself.  It is the dream, the goal that defines who we are.  Without them, we are nobody.  If, we should find each other again along the road, or at the end of the road, then it would be the most rewarding outcome of all of our efforts.  If not, then we would be content enough to know that one of us, if not both, have achieved our goal.

It is after I have learned this lesson, that I began scrutinizing the world around me.  My partner has gone away from me, but he has not deserted me.  I have my own dreams to realize.  It would take some time.  Before that, I would have to spend some time alone.  Perhaps I had not been observant enough, or it might have been because I wasn’t alone that I did not realize how much this society frowns upon solitariness. 

It is not hard to understand that this phenomenon is the result of the continual brainwashing of the media.  Television shows and movies tell you that being alone meant there must be something wrong with you.  You must be hard to get along with.  You must have had bad relationships.  You are either afraid to get involved in a relationship, or incapable of being in one.  You have no friends because you are a freak. You are mentally ill or have some minor psychological issue that pulls you away from making friends, even if you desire the company of others.  Whatever the reason, you are alone and it is not right.

The problem is worse if you happen to be a single female above the age of twenty-five.  Ten out of ten chick flicks promote the idea of finding someone to love, and eventually wed.  Even the most stubborn feminists end up in a relationship of some sort at the end of the movie.  Stop here and consider for a moment: isn’t that exactly why YOU want to be in a relationship, too?

Generations before us were brought up to believe that finding a husband would be the only achievement for any decent woman. I am quite certain that Jane Austen would tell you all about it in her novels.  Yet she lived in an age where men defined the purpose of every woman.  Times have changed.  Ideas have changed.  If Mary Wollstonecraft were to be born a century later, she would have advocated the same idea I am discussing in this writing. 

We witness the awakening of womanhood through Kate Chopin, among other feminist writers.  Most of us no longer marry for the sake of marriage.  We marry because we wish to continue on the road of life with the one we deeply love.  Yet many of us still live in the delusion that the main purpose of our life, even if our gender have been guaranteed education and career prospects, is to find a man to wed in order to carry out the duty of our feminine nature. 

Single females who have lived for more than a quarter of a century are not to be blamed.  Society should not condemn them and place them into the category of the ‘unwanted’.  It is not our fault that decent men have become rarities.  Women have come to realize their potential.  They have been denied the right to so many aspects that men have been taking for granted, that whenever the opportunity should come in sight, they grab hold of it.  As a result, they often achieve more than what they had set out initially.  On the other hand, men have been taking their opportunities and abilities for granted for so long that they have lost their enthusiasm.  Yet they do not wish to submit to the newly risen women power.  Therefore, they aim for those who have not been ‘contaminated’ by such ideas as that the female population deserves the same rights as those of men. 

That particular portion of the female population remains popular among men even today.  Women, who prefer to continue on the path on their own, or choose to sacrifice relationships for the sake of realizing their dreams, are therefore frowned upon.  Parents, senior members of the family, even peers, begin to nag you about finding someone.  They begin to question your value due to the fact that you have remained single while many others of your own age have become wives, or even mothers.

If you were to take a trip alone, you would seldom find a single-bed room available for single travelers.  Most lodgings designed their rooms for two or more.  If you were to dine at a decent restaurant, it would be difficult to find a suitable meal for one.  The only appropriate portion suitable for a single diner would probably be a salad, a soup, or just a serving of desert.  If you were reading at an outdoor coffee shop, occupying a large table, you would soon be escorted to a smaller table, because the bigger party would prefer to sit comfortably at yours.  Package tours are designed so it would seem a better deal for two or more people to join. 

The world was not built for loners.  We are the arrogant bitches and bastards that believe no one is good enough for our company.  We are the plague of society that everyone wishes to eliminate one after the other.  We are also the ones without any confidence for that must be the reason why we sit alone in coffee shops and restaurants.

However, what they do not realize is the fact that being alone is not the equivalent of being lonely.  It might as well be them that are truly lonely.  For without the company of their male chauvinist husbands and their intolerable children, they would lose the meaning of their existence in this world.  The real winners are those that remain strong even after domestic failures.  For it does not necessarily lead to individual failure.  If one can come to realize that, then they are the true achievers of life. 

I am quite confident that one day, I will be able to find a companion who will accompany me through the rest of my journey in life.  I am also just as confident that, if unfortunately my domestic life should fail, I would still stand on my two feet and face a future just as bright.

Am I being too harsh to ask you to look a little deeper into your life, and find that one thing that would define who you are?  If wedding cakes and bridal gowns continue to be the destination of your journey, then I must say that the effort our female predecessors had all been fruitless.