Is there something wrong with me?

the norms isn't the norms for me.

It’s a rhetorical question, one that doesn’t really need an answer because I’m not exactly asking. I’m saying, but also asking. To no one in particular. To the void, maybe. Or to a version of me that exists somewhere else, living a slightly different life. Sometimes I wonder if she’s happier there. If she’s free. If the noise of the world is quieter on her side.
Does she follow the path society carved out for her? Does she ask herself these same questions? Or did she find peace in doing things on her own terms? Sometimes I wonder if she’s married now, with kids, just like her friends over there. Or if she doesn’t give a fuck about labels, like I do. I wonder if an alternate world even exists, or if I’m just lost in my head like I do all the time.

Maybe in her world, she’s free to create her own path without the pressure to check off boxes that don’t feel like her own. Maybe she’s more at peace because of it. She’s not bound by the same expectations, and maybe in her world, marriage doesn’t carry the same weight. Maybe it’s not a goal, a prize, or a societal contract… it’s just one possibility among many.

Maybe something is wrong with me, but I’ve never been one to conform to society. And the pressure that comes with it. The pressure that also comes with being a girl child.

These days, I feel like a ghost walking through life and looking around, asking questions to no one in particular. I’m like a quiet observer in a sea of wedding announcements, scrolling through the internet and liking pre-wedding photoshoots, watching TikTok videos of pretty bridal showers, and receiving wedding invites. Everyone seems to be moving forward, finding “the one,” planning their forever with that “one”, signing love contracts that come with aso-ebi’s and agbada. Meanwhile, I’m still here, trying to figure out if I even want to share a wardrobe, my kitchen, or the quiet parts of my solitude with another human being. Maybe I’ve become so used to the loneliness. So used to my personal space.

I watch them talk about soulmates and bridal registries, and I keep thinking:
How did you know?
How do you look at someone and say, “Yes, I want this. Forever. And I want it with him or her.”
How does anyone feel that kind of certainty? People say they just know. Something in their head pops up and says, “Yes, that’s him/her”.

Sometimes I ask these things quietly. In my head. In my journal. Into the air.
Because saying them out loud usually earns a look of confusion, concern, or worse, pity. People tend to look at me with worry. Sometimes, they pray and shout dramatically that I shouldn’t talk about marriage like that.

They make marriage look like a big achievement. One I’d never understand.

There was never a time I believed I’d get married. Or in marriage itself. Never a time I sat down and envisioned myself in a house, with a man who would obviously be my husband, and a kid running around.
I was meant to believe in Marriage, not because I deeply wanted to, but because it was part of the script. You’re born, you grow, you learn, you fall in love, you marry. That’s the formula.

I remember learning to cook at a very young age, mainly because I was the first girl. And also because I was a “girl”. While everyone was sitting, watching a movie, I would be asked to go join my mum in the kitchen to cook for the house, as a way to prepare for my home. For my husband. It explains why I hated the idea of cooking for anyone as I got older. Because I saw it as a chore, as a practice. And I hated it.

But somewhere along the line of thinking about this performance called marriage, I started to question the reward at the end of the story. I began noticing how often marriage demanded silence. Sacrifice. Disappearing acts. Pain. Suffering. It began to smoothen my hatred on the whole idea.

I watched brilliant women trade in dreams for duty.
I watched joy shrink beneath titles like wife and mother.
I saw too many “successful” marriages that looked more like quiet wars with good PR.

And I started to ask:

Is this what everyone is rushing toward?
Is this what I’m supposed to aspire to?

But then it clicked that everyone rushes to it because they believe theirs is going to be different. And that isn’t a bad thing. In fact, it’s a beautiful thing.

In my culture, if you’re not married by a certain age, there’s a silent panic. No one says it outright, but it sits in the air like humidity. The comments start soft, then sharpen:

“So, when are we coming for rice?”
“You know you’re not getting any younger.”
“All your friends are married, what are you waiting for?”

Sometimes they put it out blandly:

“So, when are you getting married?”

No one cares if you’re healing. Or building. Or simply choosing peace.
All they see is a missing ring and a womb on standby. You could be thriving in your own way—writing, creating, learning, evolving—and it still wouldn’t be enough. Until someone claims you publicly, romantically, permanently, your life feels like a draft that hasn’t been submitted.

And I’ve never liked that. The idea that nothing else matters if I’m not taken. If there’s no ring on my finger.

I don’t like the idea of marriage. I don’t understand why it’s a need to be conjoined with another and come together to populate. I don’t get why it has to be that way. Why you have to spend the rest of your life living with someone that you might get tired of, 10 years into the marriage? Where’s the fun in that?

I don’t want to live on anyone’s timeline but mine.

But let me be clear:

I believe in love. Just not in the myth of forever.
I believe in deep connection. In intimacy. In growth.
I believe in quiet mornings and inside jokes and staying up too late talking about nothing.

But I also believe in change.
I believe in becoming someone new every few years.
And I don’t know if I want to promise someone that I’ll be the same person at 45 that I was at 29.

They say the beauty of love is to hope that 'your' someone will love every version of you—the you at 29, the you at 45, the you who changes and grows with time. But why? (I sound like a sadist atp but anyways…)

Why do we treat forever like it’s the only valid outcome? What if loving someone well for five years is just as beautiful as a lifetime of tolerating them? What if the truest form of love isn’t endurance, but presence?
What if it’s okay to walk away when the love runs out, instead of clinging to vows made by past versions of ourselves?

So, is there something truly wrong with me?

I used to think so. I used to wonder if I was broken. If maybe I’d been hurt too much, or expected too little, or dreamt too wildly. Or seen things I shouldn’t have seen.
But now I think the only thing “wrong” with me is that I’m honest. I want something real or nothing at all. I want love without labels, connection without pressure, partnership without performance.

It’s why I will always preach the sermon of divorce when nothing works anymore. Because it’s always better to choose yourself and go your separate ways than spend the rest of your life with someone you can’t tolerate anymore. All because of a signature on paper, or the whispers of people who don't care about you.

And maybe I’ll change my mind someday. Maybe I’ll wake up and want the dress and the vows and the shared apartments. And the human.
But today? I want the freedom to ask these questions without being shamed for it.
I want women like me, who move slowly, who question loudly, who aren’t rushing to belong, to feel seen, not sidelined.
There’s nothing wrong with walking a different path.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting more than society offers.
And there’s definitely nothing wrong with being a woman in her late twenties who still asks:
Why?

Maybe something is indeed wrong with me, because what is seen as the norms in society feels like a performance to me. A performance for the society. But I believe that sometimes, the most radical thing you can do is choose yourself.

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