"Do you know what's more important? It's freedom. I can fully support myself with everything. I enjoy traveling with friends. I don't need to worry about household chores. I see my boyfriend once a week. He has his own apartment, which is close to his parents upstairs. Usually we have lunch and dinner with his parents and go back to his place. We both like it that way - free and peaceful."

She sometimes thinks about what married life would mean for her, including spending two hours a day commuting, having to act in a certain way in front of her parents-in-law, doing household chores and cooking.

"No, that's not what I want. The only thing I see in marriage is trouble."

With those kinds of thoughts she is apparently not alone, because millions of young people in China seem to be blissfully single. Government figures suggest that of those eligible to marry, about 200 million are single. More women choose to live alone, especially in big cities. Some have stable relationships, and some are looking for their Mr Right. And some enjoy living alone. Presumably many of them are smart, have good jobs and earn enough money to live comfortably.

Yet even though they are as independent in their living as one can be, their parents cannot disabuse themselves of the notion that they need a man, and their children have a certain degree of privacy.

Young men are not immune from overbearing relatives, and many have resorted to paying young women to pretend they are their girlfriends just to get these meddlers off their backs. But that sham can last only so long, until the next big lie has to be told, that the relationship has unfortunately broken up.

So will getting married shut the busybodies up? Not quite.

"My mother keeps on asking me to have a baby," says a friend who married three months ago. "I'm sure it will be the subject of much discussion over the Spring Festival. That's what you call life and its pressures."

As for my friend from Guangzhou, she has a lot to be preoccupied with as Chinese New Year's Day and those "serious talks" approach.

linjinghua@chinadaily.com.cn