Well-meaning relatives try match game?

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The only time this has happened to me is with the one grandma I have that is now deceased. When she was in extended care in a nursing home (hemiplegic stroke victim), it was obvious she was trying to find me someone, or at least discussing my issues at length with the nurses. Now she didn't mean any harm but one time she introduced me to a male nurse who had to be at least 8 years my senior. This guy had two earrings, one in each ear, which at that time didn't impress me. And while Grandma was introducing him to me, he looked friendly but showed absolutely no interest in me past the 'gotta be friendly cuz it's a hospital and guy is a nurse'. Eh, I don't blame her for trying. I was in my mid 20s by then.

Partially related to this, one of the female nurses who took care of Grandma regularly suddenly asked me, "Why aren't you married yet?" I was stunned, but replied, "Who would I marry?" Then I told her I did not and never have had a boyfriend, and "It's pretty hard to get married if I've never even had a Boyfriend". That was pretty much the end of that conversation, as I was on my way out the door anyway. The ONLY way this nurse would have known whether or not I was married yet is if Grandma had said something about that. I bet poor Grandma was only doing that to try to fish around for someone to introduce me to.

Actually, people asking me questions like that doesn't really bother me that much.

I get the idea that relatives looking for someone is a phenomenon that usually only happens to women, thanks to that whole double standard of single men being fine but single women are supposedly "defective" somehow... Personally, I find that gender role stereotype annoying as hell... there are times that I wish my family would look for a woman for me... if they did that, I would know right off the bat that my family approves of the woman, but more importantly, that my family approves of me being in a relationship (at this point, it's looking like my mother in particular wants me to stay out of relationships...)

Shebakoby, your story made me think of a situation with my Grandfather a few months ago.

As he was laying on his deathbed in a nursing home, he told me one of the greatest disappointments in his life was not getting to see me get married off before he died. He may as well have gotten up and kicked me in the stomach, but he'd just had a stroke and couldn't move, so I guess he had to go the 'you're an old maid at 26 and a disappointment to your family' route.

He went on about how the guy who dumped me a month before our wedding date a few years ago was such a great guy and asked if I knew how he was doing these days. Bear in mind, he had a hearing problem and was talking so loudly all of the staff and anyone else in that wing of the nursing home could hear the conversation.

I'm sure he didn't mean any harm, just like your grandma, but it was awful all the same.

I get this all the time. I just shrug it off. I think the only time I ever really felt uncomfortable was when my 70 year old aunt was telling me it's alright if i'm gay lol. Her heavy italian accent mixed with 30 years of living in new york didnt help either.
It's always easy to forget about it because it usually comes from the aunts/cousins and in the same breath as them bad mouthing their husbands.
"that as*hole frank just doesnt love me anymore, all we do is bicker and argue, i swear if it wasnt for the kids we'd be long gone, but oh William, you should get married, really, you're just wasting away not finding the right women"

Oh, there was one other time an aunt said something that was horribly hilarious. I dont even remember the context of the conversation, we were out somewhere and she said this about someone she saw "what about her? she's got good child birthing hips" And i didnt say anything but must have had the most awfully perplexed look on my face lol. I mean seriously, my aunt was in her 60s so kinda old, but not like old world old lol, i didnt think you could judge any kind of relationship potential on "child birthing hips" since the 18th century lol.

Actually, I've gotten it a lot as a guy... "isn't there someone special you aren't telling us about? why aren't you married?"

For a long time, I thought I was being made fun of. I guess there's a little bit of teasing in there, but it's hard for me to pick it out from the rest of it which I'm guessing is a genuine concern for my happiness or my health, or a genuine desire to see the project of my life completed on schedule.

I think the efforts to pressure me into it actually had the opposite effect on me, particularly from my family. When it seems that everyone is watching and counting on me to get it right, the consequences of failure get that much higher. That, combined with an inescapable feeling that I am being made fun of, leaves my confidence shaken pretty badly. In many ways it becomes so much stress and so much work and so much risk, that I only want to commit to it once, so I want to make that one time count, and no matter how badly I want it for my own reasons, I don't want it badly enough to do it wrong and start all over from the beginning with the added weight of that failure on top of me.

I think the assumption is that if I'm not married or sleeping around, there's something wrong, probably gay - I've gotten that a lot, especially when a relative gets frustrated or mad at me. I'm terrible at reading emotions, but their shame and disappointment are hard to miss. These accusations hurt badly, when they come from family. Sometimes I'll get a question about whether there's something physically wrong, too. Sometimes I've had people speculate that I'm not married because my family won't let me or something, like it's a matter of getting permission. Once or twice I've had people suggest that maybe I'm not married because I prefer children - that crushed me pretty badly.



Willa, I had to grin about the child-birthing hips Of all the things I like about women's bodies, their hips and thighs took the longest to get my attention. I've only started finding fairly wide, muscular hips and sturdy thighs attractive over the last year or so. I suppose that about 15 years ago I would have thought those poor women were just a bit too big for me (and the mass media would agree), but now I think of them as healthy. I've pretty much thought the same thing to myself as I admire these women from the corner of my eye: these women look strong and healthy enough to bear children.

I get this crap too even though I was married once. I have dated a number of women since my divorce but have no desire to get married again. The women I usually date have no desire to get married either. My son is 14 but some people think I need to make more babies so that he has a playmate. Uh, he will be an adult in 4 years and will not want to play with a 3yo. Some people really freak out when I tell them I had a vasectomy years ago. I am in a financially stable position and am going to school to start a new career. why would I want to f!@# that up now?