My family has lost hope!

“This engagement ring is a gesture of my interminable love for you. I can’t imagine forever without you,” said Oscar. I played the astonished and teary eyed role. Wooing a man, making him fall and later choosing you for the ideal life-time partner is one challenge many spinsters face everywhere. I felt like I had won a jackpot, no good thing could transcend the man of my life proposing marriage!Well, if it wasn’t for my mother’s routine nagging phone call, I would have chosen living in ‘dream world’, at least for a day.The fact is; Oscar is one of my ex-boyfriends, we broke-up years ago. Regardless of my maturity, I am single but not desperate. I’m still searching for a soul mate though my routine dates continue to disappoint me. Meanwhile, mother, family and society continue nagging me about marriage and a church wedding! It’s almost as if they think I’m allergic to commitment! Well, like all the usual telephone conversations, mother wouldn’t stop mentioning the beauty of marriage, the security of having your own man and an army of children. “Bridget is getting married as well, she announced yesterday,” Mother continued, in a somewhat irritating voice.Matter of fact, Bridget {a niece and age mate} was about to tie the knot, though that doesn’t quite explain why I had to put up with all this pressure from the family! For one, I was neither Bridget nor her twin, two, I can’t picture myself getting married because everyone is doing it and three, I had given relationships a try, though they all ended miserably! Meanwhile, gossip of me choosing career over raising a family continued. Many times, family members came out openly about it. At a family re-union one time, my paternal uncle blatantly said, “Are you waiting for grey hair? Please let us join in the search.”Grief engulfed me, though there was nothing I could do to get my parents out of the misery of having an “intelligent and somewhat accomplished daughter” failing in the dating business. What was I to do anyway? My “think like a man, act like a lady,” tricks only worked in movies, at least none of the listed techniques to win a man worked for me. I wasn’t about to embarrass myself in pursuit of a man, neither was I about to stoop to the dreadful way of faking pregnancy (or actually getting pregnant) just to get a man to marry me. The seemingly practical option was to put up with the nagging phone calls, talks and misjudgment. After all not even my own mother understood the reason behind my being single!