A recent trip to the Emergency Room of the local hospital with a friend brought to the front of my mind something which had been lurking back there for a while. While filling out the registration forms, the intake clerk asked him, “Sir, are you single, married, or…?” My friend, having been on his own for some time now, with no domestic entanglements to his name at the moment, answered, “Single.”
The clerk, perhaps making a judgment about the accuracy of this statement based on the number of years my friend has been on this earth, or perhaps by the fact of my presence, a woman of appropriate age, persisted. “Never been married sir?” she asked.
“Oh yes, but that was quite a while ago. I’ve been divorced for more than ten years now,” he answered. “Oh,” she replied, making a correction on the intake form. “Divorced.” And that was his label for the day: divorced white male of a certain age.
I’m not sure what bearing any of those labels had to do with the treatment he was given in the ER; it all turned out alright, the injured finger, fresh from a bout with the recently acquired table saw, was cleaned & dressed efficiently, and we were on our way in a reasonable amount of time.
On the way home, I was thinking about the interchange with the clerk. I had experienced a similar moment of confusion when, while filling out insurance forms, I had to make a choice, check a box, assign myself a label. Having been married for close to 40 years, in the past the box-checking process was a snap: “Married”. But I’ve been a widow now for more than 4 years and am alone, so “Single”. But no, there’s another label there—wait, there are two to choose from: “Widower” and “Widow”.
Since I am on my own and without any afore-mentioned domestic entanglements at this time, I chose “Single”. This does not mean any disrespect to those who choose to identify themselves as “W” instead of “S” on a form. They have their reasons; I have mine. I am a single white woman of a certain age. I have chosen my labels to reflect who I am at this time in my life, not the woman I once was or will become. Alone, but with friends. No strings, but connected. This is me. This is now.
P.S. Upon further reflection, I checked with Wikipedia and my decision to choose “S” seems to be supported by this particular font of contemporary wisdom. To quote, “ A person’s marital statues indicates whether the person is married or single…In the simplest sense, the only possible answers are “Married” or “Single”.