Singleness and the ‘new normal’

Whatever our situation, we’re all in the process of working out how to thrive in the ever-changing, but never-quite-as-much-as-we’d-like, ‘new normal’. And it strikes me that, for single Christians, there are particular challenges.

Granted, most of this summer’s weddings have been cancelled – at least, those of any size. That may be a pro or a con, depending on whether you view weddings as the most fun a person can have on a Saturday, or more like an all-day endurance sport event.

I digress. In the old normal, it was (mostly) easy to see how singleness and marriage brought with them a mix of joys and struggles, privileges and responsibilities, advantages and disadvantages, that more or less evened out. In the words of Paul to the Corinthians: ‘One has this gift, another has that’ (1 Cor. 7:7). Apples and oranges… but all good fruit.

In the initial lockdown, it seemed that Covid had suddenly maximised the cons and wiped out the pros. With the prospect of spending the next several weeks stuck inside, who we were stuck inside with made all the difference. Those who were on their own, or in a rented house share with near-strangers, seemed at a distinct disadvantage compared with stable nuclear families. The single person’s freedom to go anywhere and meet up with anyone – to fill evenings and weekends with whoever and whatever seemed the best use of our time – became an irrelevance. Many of ‘the Lord’s affairs’ – that, like Paul, the single person is uniquely positioned to devote themselves to (1 Cor. 7:32, 34) – were promptly cancelled. Added to this, instead of being the time when they felt most connected to their church family, Sunday morning became a solo experience for many. One friend reflected: ‘As a grown man watching in his living room with a house of non-Christians, I find the children’s song to be the longest four minutes of the morning.’

As lockdown eased and evolved it brought a whole host of questions. I can’t be the only person for whom the prospect of a wide-scale policy of social bubbles brought them out in the kind of cold sweat not seen since we were told to sort ourselves into groups for a science project at secondary school.

None of this is to say that Covid hasn’t maximised pressure on many marriages. Of course it has. The Office for National Statistics found that, largely due to the stresses of work and homeschooling, it’s been married couples who have had the highest levels of anxiety during the pandemic, whereas this group reported lower anxiety before.

But it is to suggest that perhaps single people will have to wait the longest before the lifelines they depend on to make life happy and sustainable reappear. For example, our pastor has been beating the drum for hospitality for years. It’s hard not to wonder whether this pandemic will permanently undo that progress. One of the most precious things about being single is being a living example of the truth of God’s promise that he ‘sets the lonely in families’ (Ps. 68:6). How will that look if our homes have to remain closed? What else could we do to help make other people feel like part of our family?

All of us – single or married – have likely reassessed our friendships. And having a healthy web of relationships is what single Christians are particularly reliant on.

Some relationships have flourished. Maybe there are people with whom you’re enjoying more contact than you did before. Other friendships have doubtless had their fault lines exposed; maybe you’ve felt let down or left out. (And it seems likely that we’ve unknowingly made others feel that way.)

But what Covid has reiterated for me is that a great number of our friendships don’t really exist without the shared space of Sunday services or social events and activities. Without regular contact, there’s been… well, no contact. Whereas the swirl of normal church life brought us together to engage relationally – sometimes just small talk, other times very significantly – without that in-person interaction, none of that happens. But that doesn’t mean that those aren’t meaningful relationships. Quite the opposite. The fact that they wouldn’t (and don’t) exist outside of church shows them to be something beyond friendship – unique expressions of the body of Christ. And when hand and foot are separated by distance, it doesn’t quite work. That’s true for every Christian, not just single ones.

My mantelpiece tells a more hopeful story though. I celebrated my birthday last week, and unexpectedly through the post came a whole array of handmade cards by various little people (and their stressed homeschooling parents!) A little reminder of God’s family at is still there.