This word is thrown about so often that I'm not even sure how people define it. But one can be sure most often it's when people are aiming for something higher than what other people aim for.
Lately, I've been told to lower my expectations because there aren't any decent men. I really don't know why people think that because every day somewhere or the other people are getting married. Either they just close their eyes and pick a guy at whom their finger pointed or they've actually thought the guy was decent enough to get married to. And if they can find a guy, then I suppose I can too. If he's in my destiny then I'll find him, inshaAllah.
But the advice of lowering my expectations is hard for me to swallow because I don't feel like they are expectations as much as finding a guy who likes me for what I am rather than what I can become for him (not in terms of religion). There was a joke I used to read about how women marry men trying to change them and they never do and men marrying women hoping they never change and they do. Seems it goes the exact opposite in us Muslims. The guys are trying to change their wives according to their desires and the wives are hoping the husbands remain as what they were when they got married.
Who really gets to decide when one is being "choosy"? Shouldn't the reasoning of the person be understood as well? We are all unique and if we have a little insight, we understand ourselves and our needs. If the advice is based on a better reason than "it's difficult to find a decent man" or "you are getting older", then it has more worth when it comes to being considered. Being single is not the end of the world. And marriage shouldn't be what defines us Muslims.
10 years ago
