Some days are full of interesting importance that is hard to understand at the time. Today is one of those days that did not offer high drama, but what it did provide was a lot of thought provoking material, much of it that seemed fairly directly aimed at me. I’m not sure what to do about that, or if there is anything that I can really do about it except wait and see what happens, if anything. Suffice it to say that I am the sort of person who cannot let clues fall wordlessly, so one can expect a lot of words about them, and rather than a chronological blog entry, I would like to write a blog entry about the things that concerned me most about today (at least things that don’t happen on a regular enough basis that I have already commented on them before), in such a way that I may eventually make sense of the course of the day.

The most obvious concern, because it was the most public, occurred when the guest of honor at our retirement social for our associate pastor decided that his speech after services was an opportunity to try to encourage those who have been single a long time. He happened to marry at 31 to a woman who was a decade younger than himself, about five years after joining the ministry. His statement, which he specifically dedicated to people in my position, was that for those who are used to the work life, and serving in the church, that things do get easier after marriage. Of course, that does not exactly serve as a comfort for those of us whose life does not present any obvious courtship opportunities at present. If, at some point, one is able to look back, I imagine I would feel the same way, but dealing in the present, it is not immensely helpful to be told that what I want for myself, and feel is rather elusive, would in fact be a very good thing [1]. Such a thing is only helpful if one is in fact optimistic about the subject where such a comment is made. With regards to my love life, there is little cause for optimism at this time.

After services, one of my activities was to figure out how many people will be going to the Ladies’ brunch. Given the total lack of available, appropriate, and interested dates/guests for me, it is ironic, and more than a little bit frustrating, that the task fell to me. At any rate, after asking some people some personal questions about the family members going with them, wives and children and the like, I found out that we would likely have more than 40 people, which would require going to a different venue than originally planned, because it is extremely unlikely (unless I had about ten dates, something I wouldn’t think possible outside of Guatemala, but that’s a long personal story) that we would be able to approach 55 people, which is what we would need for the per person cost to be reasonable in the larger room. As it is, we are likely to have about 40 to 45 people, none of whom will be hanging attentively on my arm waiting for me to give a deeply personal heart-to-heart speech, something that quite frankly terrifies me, given the sort of material that would follow any open revelation of matters of my own heart.

Nor was that the only thing that troubled me about today. After figuring out the majority of the number of people coming from the people on the Spokesmen’s Club roster, I went to add my list to the names of people who will be able to go celebrate the wedding of an acquaintance of mine who happened to be visiting this weekend. There were a few names already on the list in the groom-to-be’s tablet, and I would have been content to put my name on the bottom of the list, but he insisted I put my name and e-mail address right on top of the list, next to the name of a mutual friend of ours. I am not aware of what significance the placement of the name has, but it is suggestive, and in a way that is not calculated to give me a great deal of ease about the conversations and plans that are going on. Time will tell if anything results from it or not, but it definitely made me ill at ease.

In retrospect, all of these problems have the same sort of root. The source of today’s discomfort and frustrations all revolved around the same problem–namely, my lack of a successful love life. It would not bother me personally that people were not particularly empathetic to the frustrations of singles if I was not the intended target audience of misguided efforts at encouragement. Likewise, if I had a guaranteed date for an event like the Ladies’ brunch, I would not feel as if my responsibilities in determining the numbers of people going was a cruel irony. Similarly, it would not matter what games people were playing with the placement of names for a wedding party if I had someone else to focus my attention on who would make a wedding a pleasant and perhaps even inspirational sort of trip. Alas, that is not the case, and so the most obvious and most elegant solution to my own frustrations at services today is pretty clearly denied, at least for the moment. But what does it mean?

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/03/10/with-brethren-like-these-who-needs-enemies/