Confessions of a Spinster

#SelfLove

"When are you planning to give your parents grandchildren?" Sam heard her Uncle Marcel's question and immediately she wished she could sew up her ears for the rest of the Christmas Eve dinner.

When she was twenty-five they had started asking this question and she's now a few months shy of thirty-five and she was still hearing the same old lyrics to the Get Married soundtrack.

They all have the same goal, by the way. Conform or be charity. Sam's family are serial marriage evangelists. They would tell everyone of age to start dating and get married before they are thirty. But before nineteen there is a traditional dogma of keeping it in your pants until the right guy comes along to profess his life-long ambition to bone you for life.

One would think that members of her family oughta be good with this whole marriage thing if they loved it so much. Looking around the grumbling faces of her cousins' spouses, held hostage by their children, Sam wondered if anyone was even able to keep their food down. She looked across the table to her closest cousin, once the prettiest girl in her high school now the haggard mother of four. "Maryleigh, let me take care of Luke for a bit so you can eat."

Her cousin looked at Sam as if she had grown another head but was delighted for the relief. Sam didn't hate children contrary to what people around her thought. She was an absolutely terrific aunt. She just loved them on weekends more than every day of her life. That would be the case if she became someone's mom. She was willing to wait when it was the right time to give up all of her hobbies and free time to tend to a little human from womb to tomb.

Most of her friends think that the reason she doesn't have someone is that she came from a broken home. It's actually the opposite of that. Her parents have a wonderful and lovely marriage. They are each other's best friends and Sam wants that for herself. Or at least she did once.

She believes that people get a chance for great love twice in their lives. The first one is the person who would change your fantastical notion of love. Often it involves an excruciating break-up and a succeeding emotional breakdown that requires hours and hours of rom-com cryfests and mint choco chip ice cream.

The second one is the keeper. Someone who comes into your life to be your life partner or your lawfully-wedded spouse. This person is the one whom you would love for the rest of your life. Sam thinks that screwing up her first great love was enough. Mucking up the last great love would be too devastating so she joined the movement for people who want to be identified as Self Partnered. It was convenient and exactly what she wanted to be for the rest of her life. Unfortunately for the sexist languages of the world, men are called bachelors, and single women are called spinsters. Spinster is not a sexy word, not even a bit. So Sam is patiently waiting for the days when she can graduate to cougar status. Then she would have a lot more fun.

She doesn't date. But she doesn't turn down sexual encounters either. She has a powerful online dating profile that shows off her alter ego, Samantha Lee. But when she is around family and friends she was Sam Lee, the boyish spinster.

It didn't matter to her if her family thinks she is a hopeless case. She was having the time of her life being exactly who she is, a self-loving sexy woman who pays for her own meals and bills.

It's already 2020, who needs men when you can swipe for everything yourself?