How to Talk to the Single Women in Your Life

As soon as I got old enough, the questions and conversations I would be engaged with during the holidays, whether it be family gatherings or church social functions, were stripped down to three basic questions.

  "How are you?"

"How's school?"

"Do you have a boyfriend yet?"

At first it was flattering. The simple act of initiating conversation was thrilling to me because I had understood it as people caring about me, wanting to get to know who I was and who I wanted to be. Eventually through the complexities of social interactions and patterns, I came to understand the first two questions were never as important as the final questions. The older I became the more it seemed to be that those initial questions in the sequence were simply a means to an end - to the knowing of my all too important relationship status.

I have said in a prior blog post that relationships are an important and healthy part of the human existence, including the human existence of single persons, but it was disappointing that every conversation seemed to be focused on the need to talk about me in relation to a romantic attachment. My identity as a human was bound up solely in someone else. It didn't matter what I was studying, what I was passionate about, what I was struggling with, or what gave me joy or pain. All that mattered was having a partner. It also caused me to be this strange tangle of sad and angry, because regardless the answer I gave there was the secondary assumption of how I felt about my relationship status (or lack thereof). It was assumed I was sad if I was single (and that it was never a choice), and happy if I had a someone.

I am not saying that having a someone cannot make a person happy or that single persons are never sad about being single. I am also not trying to say that family and friends should never inquire into the personal, relational aspects of the single people in their lives. What I am attempting to point out is that in very small, simple questions, a single woman can be reminded of her lack of voice and personhood in a place where her voice and personhood should be uplifted and honored as a complete human experience. In only listening to her when she is talking about a romantic partner, we teach women there are limits to where their value is.

When I began to voice my complaints about only being questioned about a partner, it was explained to me having a someone would mean that a new persons could be introduced into the social circles and they wanted to know as much as possible before they met the person (if they ever did). That explanation did not lessen the disappointment. Quite the reverse actually, for right before their very eyes was a young woman who was constantly changing, constantly becoming new, and they seemingly had no interest in who she had become or was becoming into. Here, before them was a new person, and they were more interested in someone else, a person that may not have existed or that they may never meet.

So when you find yourself in a conversation with a family member or friend or church member who is a single woman, I beg you to ask her a question about who she is. First, get to know what makes her tick and thus honor who God has uniquely and wonderfully made her to be. Ask her what God is up to in her life, where she has seen God or where she struggles to see God.  Ask her about her prayer life or her passions.  Ask her if she has created something.  Ask her to teach you something.  Ask her if she's read something, or what her favorite movies are.

And if she has a significant other, go talk to the significant other directly.