I’m adopted. My need to start with a disclaimer is a fitting introduction for this piece, I believe. I love my relatives as much as one can love one’s family, but cripes. Sometimes. Which times, you ask? Oh, well, if you INSIST.

My sister(my biological sister – she’s also adopted) tried to play matchmaker, using myself and one of her best friends from college as pawns. It was a nice gesture, a sort of subtle nod to the fact that I haven’t dated in months and I have NO social life. So we went out a few times, first double-dating with my sister and her fiance, and then on our own.

After the fifth date, I called it quits. I told him I just want to be friends. To be fair, I sort of knew what was coming. I went on a few dates with a different guy in October, and he met my Grandma, and she loved him…and when I broke up with him, she acted as if I’d torn the heart right from her chest and spat on it before grinding it into hamburger.

I’m twenty-five, not forty, but my entire family acts as if I should MARRY and become IMPREGNATED by the FIRST nice guy to come along, no matter how obvious it is that we don’t belong together. Because I’m TWENTY-FIVE and god, I’m on the verge of becoming infertile and owning a cat instead of a husband and living out my life as a WITHERED OLD MAID.

Which of course makes me want to date about as much as I want to get a brazilian bikini wax. For crying out loud. My Grams, of course, got married at eighteen and started immediately having kids. And my youngest sister is six months pregnant, with plans to get married eventually (to her boyfriend) and my other sister just got engaged to a terrific guy, and they are so MIND-NUMBINGLY happy I want to drown myself in my coffee cup whenever I’m around them for lengthy periods of time.

So I, obviously, am not living up to expectations. By god, I actually break up with people who don’t do anything for me. And yes, I think five dates is MORE than enough time to decide whether or not I have a future with someone. And then there’s the deeper issue of life being about much, much more than settling down and populating the planet. Of course, if I met the right guy and fell in love and he asked me to marry him, I’d do it. But I’m not in any huge hurry, and I’m not intending to be in any huge hurry ten years from now, either, if that’s the case.

However, rather than seeing my point of view, my family has chosen to label me as having “issues” and being “commitment-phobic.” They’ve also doomed me to die alone. And they said they never want to hear anything about my future boyfriends, and to be honest…I am more than okay with that.