Simon Mwendapole South of the river
SINGLED OUT
Great to be back in London after a well deserved break in Uganda and Zambia.
There I met lovely people who had just turned ‘positive’ after
meeting me, though they knew about their positive status five years ago.
I am currently single and it has made me think about how single status affects
our well-being, whether you are a man or woman living with HIV and Aids. I
know for some, a minority, this is no big deal but for most of us it is.Traditionally,
marriage is perceived as the ultimate relationship. As such, young men and
women long for a time they can tie the knot and enjoy wedded bliss. But in
recent times it is now acceptable and more common to see men and women staying
single for the rest of their lives. This is so because of many factors: death
caused by HIV, domestic violence, inability to find a partner who satisfies
you all-round. By this I mean somebody who’s honest, hardworking, loving
and generous.In our situation, sometimes people opt to be single because it
is their preferred status and sometimes because potential partners just don’t
live up to our minimum standards. Widowed and divorced people blunder terribly
when they present themselves to society as objects of pity on account of their
no longer ‘belonging’ to someone. Being a ‘Mrs’ is
not superior to being a ‘Miss’. I know loneliness is never a good
companion, but it is wrong to assume married people do not suffer loneliness
or that the loneliness of being single is necessarily remedied by marriage.
Often having a partner can be chaotic. You fight, ignore each other and yet
you are forced to watch the same TV set. This is no good for people with HIV
who should aim to be stress-free most of the time as they grapple with their
condition.
There
are advantages and disadvantages to being single. One of the blessings of
single life is having more time. With fewer marital obligations and relationships,
more time is created to do other things. With more time comes opportunities
to achieve great things. Only the sluggard does not share a craving for more
time. Single people do well to keep themselves productively busy, surrounding
themselves with productive friends and entertaining themselves with healthy
amusements.Freedom is the second rare blessing single people have. A shared
life is a life of strict mutual accountability; even just popping to the corner
shop for a newspaper involves having to inform your partner. Sometimes the
obligation to be available to a spouse can rob one of a precious chance to
be with friends and close relatives. Also, whatever one’s work, cultural
compromises have to be struck as a family.Then there is the freedom of non-attachment.
There is sweet slavery in being attached to a family. So strong is the attachment
that prolonged separation is distressing. Negative occurrences in the lives
of spouses and children are debilitating. Not so with non-family folk.
Another advantage is the ability to give more to charity, as running a family
is expensive. There is always the worry about feeding, dressing, educating
and ensuring that the family is secure. Being single may help you get ‘loaded’
and allow you to splash out on more things.There is just one disadvantage
of being single: the absence of somebody lying next to you who says ‘I
love you’ first thing every day.
In my life I have come across loads of people, including my own relatives,
who thought being single was a curse. Sometimes you get involved with people
who wreak havoc, want to control your life and thus affect your adherence
to treatment. I have witnessed people vomiting and nauseous after being upset
by a partner. We don’t need this do we? And fortunately, these days,
traditional family values don’t come into play very much.
As for me, I will always be a family man and think I can’t really survive
without a babe by my side, so singleness is out for me, for the time being.
• Simwenda@aol.com
