The Unexpected Joy of Being Single (and enjoying it in public)
I challenged myself to do something that I would be previously ashamed to do in public. I challenged myself because of all the times that I heard people say that ‘we’re all in our own heads’, ‘everyone is thinking of themselves not you’, ‘you do you girl’, ‘fear not being judged’, etc, etc. I wish I could say they were right. The truth is, they were horribly wrong. My worst fears came true. I was judged, criticised and laughed at. So here’s what happened.
Three weeks ago, one of my best friends messaged me excitedly and suggested (more like raved about) Catherine Gray’s new book, namely “The Unexpected Joy of Being Single”. Having recently been through a breakup, I was more than keen to find out some of those ‘unexpected joys’. Nevertheless, picking up and reading a book with a self-announcing title like this in public came along with the admittance of imperfection to an extent. Not only was I announcing to the world that I was single, but also that I must not be okay with it since I happen to be reading this book. Thus, what could be a healing process of learning something new and working towards being a more independent and wiser version of myself was instead an inner battle to be okay with the idea that some imaginary critic might be judging my self-actualisation progress. However, I persevered. I took on the personal challenge first and foremost because I wanted to change my own perception of self-help books, especially ones that are targeted towards women. Here is what I learnt from the book itself and from the act of reading it in public.
Public Humiliation and its implications
I read most of the book in public: at the beach, in a coffee shop/pub/bar. People looked, but people always do. Attempting to share the way their looks made me feel would be fruitless. The way in which I myself perceived those looks is entirely my own and based on my own experience and insecurity. But the reaction I received was unfortunately not limited to funny looks.
My worst fear came true when my flatmate who works in a bar where I went with the book told me of her colleagues’ reactions. I was called a funny cliché and was laughed at. A woman, alone in a bar, reading a self-help book SEEMINGLY about finding love???
The self-help seeking woman has been vilified in popular culture, most evidently present in hit sitcom FRIENDS. A notable number of spiritual and self-help books were read by and discussed amongst the characters over the 10 years of the show’s running. From ‘The Art of Happiness’ by the Dalai Lama to ‘Practical Intuition in Love’ by Laura Day, none have gotten more air time than the fictitious ‘Be Your Own Windkeeper’, an empowering self-help book targeted towards women that urged its readership to see themselves as ‘wind goddesses’ and ‘not let men drink from the pool of their own inner power’. In this context, not only was female empowerment discussed exclusively in the terms of individual (rather than political) transformation, but also the entire political issue of gender inequality is deemed as worthy of mockery.
Popular comedy has branded women’s attempt to become better, more independent versions of themselves as funny, as pathetic. This is a view that was engraved in me as well, which was so clear in the way I spoke about Catherine’s book to anyone who asked me about it. “It’s not self-help, it’s autobiographical! — it is just limited to her experience in the dating department”. I am slowly realising that this can be interpreted as a massive attack against the feminism movement. As a feminist, I want to empower women to not only seek independence and power in themselves, but also to be able to read about it in public without being judged.
The personal is the political.
Gender empowerment as well as self-actualisation processes are multi-layered. They require practical experience as well as theory. A political understanding of inequality and institutionalised misogyny as well as tips and tricks for dealing with personal issues. The path to emancipation is long and windy, and every woman is at her own specific stepping stone. Sometimes that will be a feminist anthem like ‘A Vindication of the Rights of Woman’, others it will be something they found at the self-help section. They should be able to choose whichever one they think is most useful at the time without fearing judgement.
Empowering people to be the best version of themselves is beneficial for all of us as a collective.
5 Things I learnt from the book
Textbook Love Addition
Either it is “clinging to an idealised relationship, despite a different reality”, “placing responsibility for emotional wellbeing on others” or “craving attention from many different relationships”, I’ve been there. In fact, all of these behaviours have led to my being unhappy in previous relationships and making my partners unhappy in the process. While under no circumstances am I an addict, it is not all that pleasant to realise that expecting someone to be there for you constantly either in real life or virtually is not only unhealthy, but a symptom of a serious addiction.
Digital Self-Harm
Digital self-harm is a great term for what we do to ourselves post-breakup in the digital age. You do it, I do it, there’s no need for me to further explain it. So here is a play in 5 Acts, if you may:
First of all, “Rejection is the universe’s protection”.
Secondly, “You can’t begin to heal until you cease all communication”.
To further illustrate, “If we don’t feed or water a fixation, it will eventually die”.
Last but not least, “All that social media tells you about a person is what they want you to think”
To summarise, Just block them already. For your own peace of mind.
Being Single is a Choice
One of biggest shifts that happened in my thinking after reading this book were that I realised that it is entirely my own choice that I am single. Not to sound vain, but it is my standards that are keeping me single, not my looks or personality. If I wanted a date, I could join a dating app and have a few arranged for the end of the week.
“Fervent romantics should be especially careful of ending up in mediocre relationships” — Alain de Botton
In addition, I have realised how much time being single opens up for me. In her words, the time between one relationship and the next is a “golden opportunity” for enjoying your relationship with yourself. What that means for me is that instead of doing things in unison, I can now spend as much time as I want on solitary activities like exercising, listening to podcasts, reading, watching obscure films and the list goes on.
“Skin Hunger”
As my friends did not fail to mention when I talked to them about this, the phrase “skin hunger” sounds like it came straight out of ‘The Silence of the Lambs’. And yet, it is a concept that I had never come across and perfectly describes my experience. The need for physical or skin-to-skin contact is something that I overwhelmingly crave while single. Having not read about this before, I had just assumed that what I was craving was the intimacy that comes from being involved romantically with someone. Interestingly, I now realise that a platonic snuggle has the power to fulfil that craving way more than being involved with someone romantically but without cultivating the intimacy between you. Following from that, there are so many more types of love than just the romantic kind.
“We are becoming the men we wanted to marry” — Gloria Steinem
Oh. My. Goodness. This has got to be the wisest sentence in the whole book and unfortunately for Catherine, it is not hers.
Over the last year I have realised how many men that I thought I had fancied, I actually just fancied to be. For some reason, I believed that what I needed was a sensitive, intellectual, well-read, political, handy, adventurous boyfriend to complete me. Turns out I just needed to be political, handy, adventurous and all the other things myself. I was looking for characteristics like these in my partners because they were indeed missing from my life.
“We consciously or unconsciously don’t complete ourselves. Is it any wonder we then feel incomplete?”
What I thought was romantic infatuation was in fact a platonic admiration. It is great to live in an age and a part of the world where women can be independent and autonomous. It is such a waste to auto-restrict that experience by allowing others to supposedly complete us. Learn to sew that button, to change that lamp. Even though it is great to have people to depend on, know and believe that we can fulfil our own sense of safety and security.
Conclusion
It is called a personal challenge because you know it won’t end up being a piece of cake. I went in fully aware of society’s view on self-help books for single women and the women who read them, but I can’t say that I wasn’t disappointed with people’s reactions nonetheless. I wanted to be proven wrong. I hoped that small, progressive Brighton and the young people that I confer with would be able to look past the cliché and recognise my action for what it was.
I am a single woman ready to fight against society’s anachronic paradigms and I am not afraid to show it.
PS. Everything quoted but not accredited is from the book “The Unexpected Joy of Being Single” by Catherine Gray.
