Being single is a lot like being a vampire.

No, seriously. I know it sounds ridiculous, but think about it. Okay, forget about the whole blood sucking thing for a minute: what makes a vampire a vampire? Immortality, right? They never age.

I never used to see the appeal of vampires, honestly. I’m not really into fantasy or film noir. But, after deciding to explore a movie to figure out what all my female students were raving about a few years ago, I was surprised by how much the plight of the modern, youthful vampire resonated with me. It took me a while to figure out why, but then I realized that there are many similarities between being a vampire and being single, at least in my experience.

Exhibit A: Vampires themselves are not touched by time, yet they still inhabit a world inside of time. While they do not age or change, everything around them is constantly changing. Loved ones grow old, get sick, die, while they remain the same.
As a single person, my lifestyle has remained essentially the same since my early 20’s. Meanwhile, almost all of my friends from my early 20’s are now spouses, parents, homeowners, etc. I watch everyone else’s lives progress and change and develop new chapters, while mine remains more or less untouched.
Exhibit B: Vampires do not age along with everyone else. Consequently, they are usually mistaken for being much younger than they actually are.
Okay, so technically, I’m always aging. But, I never seem to change. The conversation that happens when people learn my real age is so consistent that I sometimes mouth the reactions while the latest person is having them. I can’t count the number of times someone has tried to share a reassuring story about how they didn’t meet their husband until they were like 29. (smirk and sigh) When I tell them how far past that I am, there is always, without exception, a loud gasp, followed by an eerie expression and intent examination of my face as if they just entered the Twilight Zone, followed by a, “No. You can’t be. Seriously?” Seriously. “I thought you were like 25!” It’s always the same number. I realize this is a problem a lot of women would kill to have. But, while I guess I’d rather be a stunningly youthful spinster than a wrinkly one, I sometimes think I would take the grey and the wrinkles if I got to have a family and make a home.
Exhibit C: Vampires must constantly change their society and find a new home or place to live.
Okay, so in the case of a vampire, this is self-inflicted in order to avoid detection. I’m not really afraid of anyone discovering that I’m single. But, my society still changes about every 3 years. I was complaining to another single friend once about how all my friendships were changing, and she said, “Well, you’re at the 3 year mark.” I had no idea what she was talking about, but she asserted that there is a 3 year rotation for social circles when you are single. I’ve paid attention ever since then and she’s totally right! You find a group that you can belong to. For me, it’s the young adults group at my church. You have people to “do life with” who are available to hang out and talk to and do things with. Then, over the course of 3 years, all of those people either get married, or the married people have kids, or they buy a house and start renovating, or the newlyweds decide they need to join a marriage bible study instead, and *PRESTO!* your social circle is gone. Now, usually, there is more of a trickle in and trickle out, so everyone doesn’t disappear at once leaving a void. But, still, it does get exhausting sometimes.
Exhibit D: Vampires do not really fit in anywhere. They just sort of cohabitate.
I frequently feel as if I do not quite fit in anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful to say that I feel accepted lots of places, even pursued and known. But, I just can’t figure out where I fit. I don’t fit in with my chronological peers, because I am still living the life of a 24-year-old. I don’t quite fit in with my stage of life peers because it is not all new and exciting to me. I have been dealing with this for a long time, and I carry the weight of years that they have not yet known. Eventually, youth gets old. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. What’s even more trippy is when my stage of life peers move on to the next stages, even though they are years younger than me. Am I the big sister still? The younger sister? I often feel like I have just fallen off the space-time continuum altogether, and it’s not freeing so much as disorienting. That’s the trouble with vampires. Immortality is only great if you live in an immortal world, and a much better one than this one.

I was festering over this one day a while back. You know, the whole “woe is me” and “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen” head space. I even wrote a poem to express my temporal confusion. I started praying about it, and as I was mid-sentence, telling God “It feels like–” Jesus finished the sentence for me: “Like you have no place to rest your head?” I stopped dead in my tracks. Yes! That’s exactly what it feels like, and I suddenly realized, Somebody does know the trouble I’ve seen. Imagine being eternal, immortal, the only-wise God and then actually entering into Time, becoming a chronological being. Talk about disorienting! I worry about losing my chronology; Jesus took on the burden of chronology for me. If I think people don’t know what to make of me, I can only imagine how misunderstood He felt. Literally no one knew what He was going through or what His experience of life was like. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, He did not follow the expected timeline of His culture either. I’m sure he faced many a “When are you going to settle down?” question of His own. I assume most of his siblings got married, had kids. People maybe expected Him to take over the family carpentry business, settle down with a nice Jewish girl, raise a family. Instead, He was still travelling around as a homeless, itinerant rabbi at the age of 33. “Foxes have their holes, and birds of the air have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” (Matthew 8:20) As the Son of God, He had the whole scope of eternity in which to lay His head (even though He didn’t need to), but when He became the Son of Man and actually had the need, there was nowhere. So, as it turns out, as much as being a vampire is disorienting and confusing, and lonely sometimes, I do have someplace to lay my head: squarely on the chest of Christ, my Savior. And, when necessary, He will hold me until I finish singing my dramatic dirges and collapse my head in exhaustion. He’s done it before.