Feedback: I’m unmarried and happy!’

Dear Nadine Blair,

l have read your testimony and I want to know why you gave up your wedding and what your secret is for being happily single. I am desperate to get married; I have waited for 30 years. How can l be strong after this period? Can you share your secret? I am an ordained prophet.

— Prophet’Faitha

Dear Nadine Blair,

I truly enjoyed this piece and thought I should put my two cents in. In North America where I have lived for elephant years (my term), beauty is [based on colour]. I can only imagine what plain or people deemed as unattractive are going through! I have heard grown men, whether black, white or Spanish, talk about women [who look a certain way], saying things like “she will have a good life”. So, she will have a good life based on her looks alone! I do not remember anything about having brown or ‘yellow’ skin being any [significant] topic in my home at all. Education was stressed.

I can remember when I was a young teenager going to church in New York City, the pastor from a smaller Caribbean island used to tell about four girls to stand up because salvation had beautified them. I realised that the four that he called “pretty” had brown skin – but this was his taste, not God’s. Life is funny. It cannot be looks alone.

I must admit, though, that I still think marriage is a good thing. The older one gets, the better you can see the benefits of marriage, like a sense of belonging and someone to travel with. It is really God’s design so I want to be part of it; it’s just that I don’t want anyone who drinks and has no vision.

— HR