Life Is Already Hard Enough; Don’t Add To The Problem
Singledom brings out the best and the worst in people. There are those who embrace it, and use it as an opportunity to live their life solely for them and no one else. They use their free time to meet new people and try new things. And then there are those that wallow in it, and don’t feel like their life will be complete without a partner. Every situation becomes an opportunity for bitterness and “Why not me?”
Before I make my main point here, let me just say that to a certain extent, I get it. Being single and seeking a relationship — even if you don’t feel you need one, you just want one — can be really hard. It can be really frustrating to feel like you are living your best life, and no one can see it or appreciate how great you are. It is hard to see people that seem to find relationships so quickly and effortlessly. It is a struggle to watch people, some of whom you know are objectively bad people, have such ease in the love department while you have nothing. It is annoying to hear people complain about their dating life, or how long it has been since they had sex, or whatever else, when you know everything for you is SO. MUCH. WORSE. No matter how happy and secure you are in your own life, sometimes these feelings can get you down. It can feel like no matter what you do — no matter how far outside of your “type” you go for, no matter how much you try to switch up your dating approach, no matter how much you work on yourself and better yourself and expand your own horizons — you will just always be single. It’s hard. It can make you question yourself and your own worth. It happens to even the most self-assured among us at times.
But here’s the thing…you really might always be single. Not everyone finds someone. Some people really are just single forever. It’s as simple as that. People can throw all the fluffy rainbows and optimism around that they want, but to a certain extent, this level of optimism is unfounded and unrealistic. Some people really just will never find someone. I feel like this is even more true for women. Most good men are taken. Single men are perpetually awful. And if older friends and acquaintances are any indication, they only get worse as they age — partly because their ridiculousness becomes even more inexcusable as they “mature,” and partly because they just start going for younger women so even the decent ones don’t want you anyway. It’s hard out here for women with a life of their own — with careers, opinions, priorities outside of dating, standards, and non-negotiables. Some of us really will just never have long-term relationships, much less marriage or kids. We can keep trying if we want, and for some of us this effort will eventually lead to something — but for some of us, it won’t. It just won’t.
So…what do we do about this? How should we go on living our lives, always feeling, at least in a small part of us, like we aren’t getting something that we deserve?
I will tell you what we SHOULD do. We should make the best of it, just like any other thing in life.
Life is already hard enough. The world can be a cruel and horrible place, on both a large scale and a personal scale. There is violence everywhere. People die of horrible diseases at far too young of an age, many of which could probably be a few steps closer to cures if so much of modern medicine wasn’t tied up into politics. We are decimating our planet and environment, to the point that future generations won’t be able to live here. Bad things happen to good people, while bad people seem to just walk free much of the time. There is racism and sexism at every turn. We are one attack away from having our entire technological infrastructure attacked and ruined, to the point that our entire way of life and communicating will have to change.
So with all of the ugly things going on in the world…why would you want to add to it? Why not take your own personal corner of the Earth and make it as good as it can be? Travel, make friends, learn new things. Help others. Be a voice for people who have less privilege than you do. Have a full life. Have goals outside of just meeting a significant other. At the end of your life, if you are still single, do you really want to look back and think how much better your life would have been with a partner? Or do you want to know you lived the shit out of your own life, regardless of what your romantic circumstances were?
When you see people who are happy in a relationship, be happy for them! They have managed to find a sliver of happiness in a mostly unhappy world. It is okay to be ambivalent; it is perfectly okay to feel jealous, or sad, or wonder if it will ever happen for you — as long as you are simultaneously happy for the people you allegedly care about. We are only human; conflicting feelings are bound to happen, it is part of what makes us people and not robots. It’s okay to feel those negative feelings, it is even okay to vent them to others, in certain audiences or spaces (or even a therapist’s office if these feelings are really taking over your life). But, if the positive feelings don’t accompany the negative ones, if you aren’t happy to see the happiness of others, or if you look at other people’s happiness and your first inclination is to find issues with it or list all the reasons you deserve it more, that is a problem.
Now, I understand that for some people, as soon as their circumstances change, they can become smug or unrealistic. Some people are in a relationship for a month or two and suddenly purport themselves to be some kind of guru. Suddenly, all the things that they used to complain about when they were single turns into a round of victim blaming or single shaming “Well, maybe if you would do this” or “Maybe you’re still single because of this” or “You just have to REALLY open your mind and heart and it will happen” (this is patently false and is weirdly advice I see given quite often). These people who so easily forget how hard it is out here in the single world can be frustrating to deal with, especially given that so much of dating involves right place/right time/luck/chance. But you can try to point these things out to them without begrudging them their happiness. I can be happy for someone is in a good relationship and also try to bring them back down to earth and remind them of how hard being single really is. Again, it is okay to feel two things at once. As long as happiness is still part of the equation. If it’s not, you need to evaluate things.
If your life ended tomorrow, would you be happy with it? Would you feel like you did your best in every way? Did you see at least some of the things you wanted to see, do at least some of the things you wanted to do? Did you work hard to achieve some of your goals; whether those goals were in your professional careers or just hobbies, did you achieve some of them? Were you constantly trying to better yourself? Did you help others? Were you a good friend? Did you not just commiserate with your friends in their sadness, but also revel with your friends in their happiness? …or did you spend most of it wondering when a relationship would happen for you? Were most of your choices and actions guided by trying to find someone? Did you always feel like a piece of you was missing? Did you spend most of your time bitter and jealous, only faking happiness for the people you care about?
Personally, I would much rather fall into the first set of questions. I know we all slip from time to time, but I would like to think I do in fact spend most of my life in that area. Because whether I get in a relationship tomorrow or whether I am single for the rest of my life (and with the state of men lately it is sure seeming like it will be the latter) I want to live a full and happy life — and I want the same for my friends. It’s okay to still feel sad or defeated from time to time, but with so much sadness in the world, let’s try to find happiness in any area we can, even if that area will never be a romantic relationship. As friends begin to marry, have kids, and so forth, our happiness may look different than theirs. Our relationships with those friends may even grow apart due to being at different places in life. It is unfortunate, but it is life. But with technology on our side, we can foster new friendships. Our potential to find like-minded people to be friends with is exponentially higher than it was for single people even a decade or two ago. The world as a whole may be in a horrendous place, but we have more opportunities than ever to make our own individual lives the best they can be. So I will be out here trying to do that, and if I find a boyfriend during that time, great; if not, I will still be out here trying to make the most of my life. I hope you’ll all join me.
