Married / Coupled / Single – I have some words for ya.

Today, I’m talking especially to my single peeps.

I’m an expert on being single. I’ve been single my whole life. As far as experience in this field goes, I think I’m qualified enough to put it on my CV.

Of course, there are those that are more experienced than me. I have lived the single life for 25 years. Others have lived it for longer.

But I mean it when I say, “single my whole life”. Not just not married, but no boyfriend (check out my previous posts on this: here and here) and, guess what – my lips are off limits!

This is all out of choice.

A bit drastic for some, I know.

I’ve written a lot about how many benefits there are to being single.

For one, arguments are extremely rare in my household, because I don’t typically get into arguments with myself.

There are things I’ve been able to do in the last five years that I know I wouldn’t have been able to do if I had been married, or even coupled off.

I really have a problem with people acting as though – especially when talking to girls and women, that your life has not begun until someone else has become a part of it. I’m sorry, what have the last twenty-five years of my life been, then? A dream?

You have to live with YOU for the rest of your life. So you might as well fall in love with yourself before you go falling for anyone else.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to get married. That doesn’t mean that I want to stay single my whole life. Actually, if I’m honest, the thought of being single for my entire life rather terrifies me.

I’m a hopeless romantic, and that’s why I’m single.

I value my life.

I’m not prepared to settle. As much as I would like companionship and an intimate partner to share my life with, I’m not desperate. I know my worth and I’m not going to be with a guy that doesn’t know and recognise my worth, or simply isn’t right for me. Value doesn’t beg.

The best and coolest guy to ever live has my heart, so it would have to be a pretty cool and dog-on special guy that I would allow to share it! Jesus is my No. 1, and any other guy would be lucky to get a No.2 spot!

I used to always say, “When I get married…” I didn’t want to get married before the age of twenty-five. I knew there was a lot I wanted to accomplish before committing to a life with another human being.

Now, though I do still want to get married and believe it is likely in my future, I tend more towards “If I get married…”

It should not be a terrifying thought for me to not get married. If you feel the same way about being single, ask yourself why.

What is it that is so upsetting to you about the prospect of not having a marital partner in your life? Is it because a lot of your friends are married or coupled off now, and you feel side-lined and the odd one out? Is it because you crave physical intimacy? Is it because you want to have a sidekick who can provide you with daily companionship? Are you flippin’ tired of having people ask you if “there’s anyone special in your life?”

I’m not going to lie, I have days where I feel all of the above.

But I have to remind myself of this…

Christ has to be enough.

Do you know that song, Christ is Enough? The chorus goes,

Christ is enough for me,
Christ is enough for me.
Everything I need is in You,
Everything I need.

I’ve never really been a fan of that song. I used to convince myself that it was because I don’t really like the tune (which is true), but I think it’s also because I can’t honestly that Christ is enough for me. Is He Number 1 on my friend list? Absolutely. Do I love Him more than anyone else or anything in the world? Absolutely. But can I honestly say that Christ alone, with nothing else, in my life – no friendships, no marriage – would be enough for me? No, I can’t.

My aim is to get to the point when I can honestly say that Jesus, and Jesus alone is enough for me. To be truthful, God the Father, Son and Spirit are all I really need - everything else is a bonus. Every good and perfect gift comes from God, and they are just that: “gifts”. God doesn’t owe me anything.

That’s another thing. This idea of being “owed” something. I have to talk myself out of that pattern of thinking a lot these days. I’m twenty-five. In the map of my life that I had drawn, I would have found "the one" by now.

Courtesy of Jamie-Grace

I’ve never had a boyfriend and only my husband is going to get to kiss me. Sometimes it feels as though, because I’ve kept this promise to God, that I should have “earned” my right to have a great man as a husband by now. It’s easy to think that I’ve done this “the right way” – which is absolutely the wrong way to think, of course.

The reality remains though, that while I’ve been here, choosing to stay single (it isn’t an easy road) and wait for God’s timing, there are people out in these streets who have chosen quite the opposite: have maybe been in multiple relationships since they were ten, perhaps had a number of intimate partners before marriage – and are still happily coupled off.

It doesn’t always feel fair. It feels as though I could probably have done things “the wrong way” and still be married by now. (Even if that were true, multiple relationships and pre-marital sex cause their own complications going into marriage.)

God doesn’t owe me anything. (Moreover, He is in the business of forgiveness.)

What He chooses to give me, or give others, is His right and prerogative.

To be honest, I’m glad I’m not engaged right now – I would hate to be geographically and socially distanced from my fiancé, which lockdown has made a requirement for many people I know! And frankly, I love seasons where I’m interested in literally no-one. Attraction is a distraction, most of the time. I have a lot more space in my brain when there isn’t a guy in it.

I do believe that my faithfulness in giving this area over to God will be met with a reward someday. But I certainly didn’t choose to do it because of the reward alone: I chose to do it because I believe God deserves my faithfulness. And He deserves my faithfulness whether or not my giving it to him reaps the rewards I want.

TO BE MARRIED ≠ TO GRADUATE.

Marriage is often presented as the “graduation” from being single, as though being single is on a lower plain and means you have less worth. This is so wrong. Besides, some couples are the worst advertisements for matrimony! (More on that in another post.)

What Now?

This time of lockdown is, for many single people, amplifying a longing for companionship. That is normal, and nothing to be ashamed of.

But it could also be a time in which we learn how to love what we already have, even more and even better. Learn how to love ourselves and prize what is inside of us: the skills, the character traits that we have to offer the world. Learn how to love those around us: caring and cherishing our friends and family. And if you believe that there is a Person who already has your heart and has already chosen you, then learn to love Him better. He loves you more and better than any future spouse ever could.

In the meantime, speaking especially to my single ladies: if he’s not prepared to work hard to keep you in his life, then he’s not ready to have the awesomeness that is you in his life. 💁🏽‍

“He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favour from the Lord.” - Proverbs 18:22

Noughts + Crosses: A Review of the 3rd episode of the popular BBC drama series

Rating: 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐

Before reading, make sure you watch the first and second episodes of Noughts + Crosses, and read my reviews of them (here and here)! The below review contains a few spoilers as to what has already happened so far in the series…

The third episode of Noughts + Crosses is my least favourite so far, although the show is most certainly a class act.

Perhaps one of the reasons I am less raving about this episode is that it makes fewer salient points about the dichotomy of the “superior” and subjugated. That is not to say that they are not present – but in this episode, it is interpersonal relationships that come to the fore, and less so structural relationships.

With that said, the very first few words we hear in this episode are uttered by a university lecturer, who boldly proclaims before his class that:

“When the Aprican settlers first came to Albion, they were faced with a country in chaos.”

Does that type of rhetoric seem in any way familiar to you?

“Settlers”. Settlers, or invaders? Plunderers? Looters? 

When we talk about Americans in the modern-day, we rarely speak of Native Americans. The standard of Americanness we most typically see represented is Caucasian. We do not speak of “European Americans”, but “Asian-American” and “African-American” are staple terms. Why is this? Because white Americans are seen to be the standard. Those with a greater right to be there than anyone else. Settlers. The reality is that Christopher Columbus did not “discover” America, the indigenous peoples were already there. They were slaughtered and displaced from their land - and then the invaders called themselves “Americans”.

In the dystopian world of Noughts + Crosses, Apricans behave in much the same way. The Crosses determine themselves to be those with the right to be there. The Noughts are worse than an inconvenience to them.

The Crosses legitimise their dehumanisation of the Noughts by convincing themselves that they saved the Noughts from “their own worst tendencies”. They tell themselves that Albion was “a country in chaos” before the wonderful saviours arrived.

This mirrors the notion of the white saviour complex, visible in our world today. This complex can be found in literary writings: some of those I had to study at university would refer to “the civilised world” – by which they mean the white world. You can also spot the white saviour complex in short-term missionary trips where white Westerners clamour to take photos with little black children – excited to post them on their social media feeds once they return.

In an effort to make Crosses the heroes of the story, Sephy’s professor states, with no shame: 

“An ongoing, brutal civil war had left many of its [Albion’s] barbaric inhabitants dying of plague or starvation.”

“Barbaric”. No doubt we are used to seeing that word used in racist rhetoric, just to describe a different racial group.

Sephy has transformed the naïve, privileged Cross girl she was when we first met her. Now, she challenges her professor with no shame.

She does get in trouble for it, though. But with the Home Secretary as her father, she doesn’t pay too hefty a price.

Not that Kamal Hadley, Sephy’s father, appreciates her moral commitment to equality for Noughts. He gets a bee in his bonnet when it is announced that Noughts will for the first time ever, be allowed to publicly celebrate their traditional festival, Midsummer. He’s a bit pathetic.

Kamal has the same idea in his head that the inventors of classical racism had: that one race is intrinsically superior, and other races are inherently inferior – and thus equality is not the modus operandi.

In this world of systemic oppression, it is difficult for Noughts to occupy much space.

When Ryan, Callum’s father, struggles to find a new job, his son Jude asks:

Though only afforded a few lines in the script, this point is striking. In the reality of our world, in white-majority countries such as the UK, “foreign-sounding” names have been proven to make the lives of those who carry them more difficult. It is more difficult for someone with a “non-English-sounding name” to get an interview or sometimes a place on an educational course. In this dystopian world, the Noughts are the group who are systematically denied a place at the table.

The Complexity of Interpersonal Relationships

The love story between Callum and Sephy continues to be spun in this episode.

Relationships take centre stage in this episode. Not just the romance between Sephy and Callum – we see a number of interpersonal relationships fractured by friction in episode three.

The friendship between Jasmine (Sephy’s mother) and Meggie (Callum’s mother) is one of them. We see Jasmine descend into alcohol addiction and deep depression. In her hurt, she pushes her long-time employee and friend, Meggie, away – and into the shadows. 

Jasmine develops a dependency on the bottle

A stunned Meggie stands in shock after Jasmine deals her an unexpected blow

As conflict divides their mothers, Sephy and Callum too, are faced with a divide. A divide of a different nature. Notwithstanding their love for each other, the state-imposed separation of Noughts and Crosses continues to complicate the young couple’s relationship.

Callum is questioned by an officer simply for standing by Sephy in front of Danny’s memorial.

 Just as many black people are racially profiled as “suspicious”, Callum is interrogated by an officer simply because he is standing with a Cross woman – and in a district different to the one in which he lives. Reminds me of the video that surfaced a few weeks back of a white police officer stopping a black man, here in the UK, using the words “No offence to you, but you’re a black male” and “I haven’t seen you before” – thereby arriving at the conclusion that the driver must be a drug dealer.

Mirroring the racial profiling Callum is subjected to, the presumption that Noughts = trouble is the driving force for the tank that shows up at the Midsummer festival. 

The Noughts’ version of a Caribbean carnival! They look pretty harmless to me…

… But unbelievably, a military tank is deployed to police the crowds.

Racial stereotyping is evident in Jasmine’s rhetoric, too. In her attempt to urge Sephy not to attend the Midsummer festival, she lets slip some shocking hypocrisy.

Jasmine isn't exactly teetotal herself...

Expectations for women are the same in this world.

As the rift widens between Jasmine and Sephy, we see another interpersonal relationship further disintegrate: Callum and Jude’s. What happens to Callum’s brother is what often happens to a group of marginalised, disenfranchised people. Jude feels a desperate need to belong – and goes searching for his identity in the wrong place. I don’t know about you, but I actually feel pity for him.  

Jude seems to seek approval from Jack Dorn in the way one might seek approval from a father.

This episode sees Jude and Callum pitted against each other in a way we have never seen before.

Lekan, Sephy’s now ex-boyfriend, has a part to play in that. He pulls a ruse that nearly costs Jude his life. Realising that Mercy Point will never truly be for him and his people, Callum decides to walk away.

In the chaos of their divided world, Callum and Sephy find comfort and solace in each other.

A bit too much comfort and solace, if you know what I mean.

As they are doing the deed (not shown, thankfully), Meggie bumps into someone on her way home who personifies the ghosts of Kamal’s past. Yaro. Yaro is played by Luke Bailey. Sorry to say, but Bailey is the worst actor in an otherwise pretty stellar cast. I don’t know what accent he is supposed to be speaking in, but if it is meant to be a Nigerian accent, it isn’t a very good one. 

Yaro and Meggie’s exchange doesn’t last long. Then comes the awkward and laughable moment in which Meggie finds her son and Sephy upstairs. The contrast between this moment and the one shown in the still below, is striking.

Jasmine’s hospitalisation brings into focus the importance of family. It causes Sephy, her sister Minerva and their father Kamal, to reassess their priorities.

Meanwhile, trouble begins to set on Jude and Callum’s relationship. Jude is less than impressed when he learns that Callum and Sephy are seeing each other.

Some might say the same about Callum! ;)

Callum’s reaction to a drastic decision that Jude has made, on the other hand, provokes a much more volatile response. The directions the two have decided to take in response to racial injustice are diametrically opposed.

Let’s just say, this episode is full of drama.

Watch it.

All six episodes of Noughts + Crosses are available to watch on BBC iPlayer and various other streaming services outside of the UK. Go and watch it! I've tried not to give away any key spoilers!