Leave me alone please

If getting married goes beyond the issue of two individuals and involves two families, then being single is not quite a personal issue but involves at least one's whole family.

In my case, my singlehood somehow concerns my mum (unfortunately) and anything that concerns my mums concerns my whole family, plus a bunch of relatives from both of my mum's and dad's sides.

Sounds like an catastrophe? Indeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed.

Chinese New Year is a perfect occasion for relatives to gather and exchange bits and pieces about this and that (and for my mum to talk about bits and pieces about me). Being the eldest girl in the family with one married younger sister and dating younger sisters, I have just committed a sin by remaining single at my age.

Despite repeated clarification, my mum somehow hooked my singlehood to my desicion to quit my job and study overseas and half-jokingly asserted that further education lazed my youth away and killed my dismal chance of getting a boyfriend. My mum also grumbled that I said I would never get married though I can't remember saying anything alike, let alone that's not what I think.

Is that all they are concerned about? Getting married and having babies?

So suddenly I become a desperate-aging-highly-educated-but-about-to-go-jobless-girl-turning-spinster.

The more I want to explain myself, the more they think I am desperate. The fact is, I am made desperate instead of genuinely feeling desperate in the first place.

But maybe I should be glad about one thing: if becoming a spinster is my family's only concern over my decision to quit my job and study, then it's not really a concern at all. Anyway, I may end up the same keeping my job here.