Back when Alanis Morissette was going on (and on and on) about how Uncle Joey from Full House did her wrong in the love department, I was dealing with a reality that also felt like nails scratching across a chalkboard. I was a single girl in a decidedly anti-singles world. I was a Bible college freshman.

Now if you’ve ever been to a Christian university, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Not long after “Welcome Week” officially wrapped, a seemingly alternate universe emerged. Instead of a bunch of fish-out-of-water freshmen who barely knew each other strolling the halls, there were countless guys and girls already pairing off and practically gluing themselves to each other like Olympic figure skaters.

And while I’d like to think that it didn’t bother me when they were all cutesy and holding hands in chapel, the truth is I often wondered why I wasn’t one of them. Instead of coming clean about my not-so-secret desire for a significant other, however, it was way easier—and far more fun—to mock them with an arsenal of condescending stares and snarky comments. After all, if you can’t beat ’em and you can join ’em, that’s the next best option, right?

It’s not that I wanted to be married at 18 like many of my Brides magazine-wielding dormmates, mind you. But while I was tackling my daily Pentateuch reading or writing about the latest enrollment figures for the school paper, it would’ve been nice to know that someone—anyone—was thinking of me.

Life on the Flip Side

Now a decade after I managed to graduate from my university without the highly coveted ring by spring, I’m now the married one in a sea of single girlfriends who’d admittedly trade places with me in a nanosecond.

It’s not that they aren’t fulfilled in their faith, their careers or in their friendships, of course. But like me back in Bible college, they simply long to share their Friday nights with someone other than a trusty boyfriend with a rather odd name, TiVO.

And whenever our conversation turns to relationships, as it inevitably does most times, I find myself wishing I had better, more insightful answers to their questions like “When am I ever going to meet him?” or “Do you think So-and-so and I could have a future?”

I know when I was single and not always jumping up and down about my status, there was nothing I hated more than pat answers—and everyone from my well-meaning mom to our cute, but happily married singles group leader at church had plenty of them in stock for every occasion.

Yet, what truly encouraging word can anyone offer to the Christian guy or girl that doesn’t fall into the dreaded “It’ll happen when you least expect it” territory? Or worse yet, the platitude that I personally loathed the most: “When you’re completely satisfied in your relationship with God, He’ll bless you with a partner.” Hmm, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.

While both of those replies are about as helpful as consuming a pint of Ben & Jerry’s is for a low-carb diet and should be avoided like the plague, the more earnest route of saying you’ll pray for them doesn’t exactly soften the blow either. So what’s a girl to do?

Basically when it’s all said and done, it’s like Tom Petty says: “The waiting is the hardest part”—and that doesn’t exactly scream warm and fuzzy in the pep talk department. But what I have realized from personal experience over the years—whether I’ve been single, married or dating—is that we’re all waiting for something, no matter what stage of life we’re in.

Surprising Revelations

If you happen to be single and wondering, let me pass this helpful tip along. Once you do settle down with the love of your life (I was 29 when this finally happened), everyone who was bugging you before is only going to be off your case temporarily. Literally what seems like a second later, people will be asking when you’re going to buy a house and planning to have kids.

Basically just when it feels like the pressure’s off, there’s new pressure. And what people may not realize is that maybe you’re not financially stable enough to plunge knee-deep into full-on family mode. Perhaps you or your spouse has been waiting for the right career opportunity or the fulfillment of their ministry calling, and that’s been a frustrating struggle. Or maybe there’s a mountain of credit card debt to pay off first.

No matter how amazing your spouse is, getting married isn’t the magical elixir to all of life’s problems. In fact, it’s just the creative mixing of two different people’s issues that you get to peacefully (and sometimes not so peacefully) solve together—a good and glorious process that’ll shape and refine you in indescribable ways.

However basic that realization may seem at the outset—that waiting isn’t simply relegated to the single person’s experience—it has made a world of difference in my conversations with my unattached girlfriends. It not only demonstrates that I’m not part cyborg and am forced to deal with life’s messy moments, but it helps to shift their perspective of the idyllic romance that’s purported in all our favorite movies to one that’s both romantic and refreshingly realistic. Imagine that.

Of course, while they still hope—and pray (and I join in with them)—that God has someone special in mind for the future, they now recognize that even when they’re married, there will still be some area where an exercise in patience—and an unwavering trust in God—will be required. And whether you’re a slightly cynical college freshman or a newlywed navigating the new, exciting and sometimes perilous waters of married life, you can’t escape it. Which is probably exactly the way God planned it, don’t ya think?