Your Life Is Not Incomplete Just Because You Are Single
Your relationship status is just a label, not a determination of your value.
At some point in our lives, we’ve all wanted a fairytale ending. We romanticize the day we will finally meet the person of our dreams and start building a life together. Even those of us who are skeptical of happily ever after hold this glimmer of hope that someday it will happen to us too. How can we not? The narrative that our life will only be complete if we find someone to spend it with is pushed onto us everywhere we look.
They say if you find your person, get married, and have kids then you’ll fill all the missing pieces of your life. We start to believe the most important part of our life won’t begin until we find someone to spend it with.
But happy endings only exist in movies. Life doesn’t begin with being single and end with being in a relationship. There is so much life that happens before, in between, and after. Because life isn’t a movie even if I sometimes fall prey to this narrative too.
Being single should not be defined as a lack of something in your life. It’s a chance to get to know yourself on a deeper level and to truly find out what you want. Being in a relationship is just a part of life, not the purpose of it.
Don’t Just Live for Romantic Love
One of the questions I get asked about the most is whether I am in a relationship or not. Relatives ask “how come?” and friends say “if you just put yourself out there more then maybe you will find someone.” People make it seem like it’s impossible to just be by ourselves and be happy, never failing to constantly remind us of it.
For young girls, we are raised to dream of the day we will finally get to walk down the aisle. Most times it seems like the wedding is more important than the marriage itself. Because we have this fairytale image in our minds that a wedding is so important, we fall in love with the idea of finding someone rather than the reality of being in a relationship.
Society creates a stigma of being single, even if you’re single and happy. They forget that not being in a relationship is just as valuable as being in one. It’s more important to find out what is important to you than to settle with someone in order to meet society’s expectations of what your relationship status should be.
Embrace Where You Are Now
We need to embrace all phases of our life, including being single. By allowing yourself to be single, you have time to figure out what you really want. It’s when you can grow as a person, without being attached to another person’s expectations of who they need you to be for them.
If you spend your life trying to fulfill someone else’s needs before knowing what yours are, you might expect this person to fill any “gaps” in your life. But this is something only you can do for yourself. Being with another person shouldn’t make you whole. You have to be whole on your own. It should feel like an addition to your life, not a missing piece that they are filling.
Change Is Inevitable
Most of us are expected to be married by our late 20s to early 30s. By then we have only lived 1/3 of our lives. We are beings who are constantly changing. I know the person I was just 3 years ago is far different from who I am today. Every day I am still figuring out who I am and am constantly learning and growing.
I don’t know where I’ll be or who I’ll be 5 years from now, much less 20 or 30 years into the future, yet we are expected to find our soulmate and spend the rest of our lives together. There’s a reason divorce rates are so high. The pressure to settle down and marry can lead to rushing through life before we even know who we are or what we truly want.
After graduating college, I finally had no outside distractions and was able to focus on myself and who I want to be. Throughout these years I have discovered things about myself I never imagined would be true. I went from a consumeristic to a minimalistic lifestyle, unhealthy to healthy habits, and I’m an animal rights activist.
Years ago, I would’ve never expected to be here. But these significant changes in my life dictate who and what I am looking for. While yes I want my heart to be open to different people, I also have to acknowledge my wants and needs. I know it would be difficult for me to date someone whose values are too far from mine, especially if it gets in the way of the type of life I want to live.
As more time passes I am only becoming more and more sure of who I am, and specifically what I want in a partner. My values are different than they were when I was in my earlier 20’s and because of this, I am happy I have been single all of these years.
Would I still be the person I am today if I was in a relationship? Maybe, maybe not. But this is why I don’t mind not being in a relationship. It’s true what they say about working on yourself and figuring out what you want first helps you know what to look for in a partner.
I want to figure out who I am outside of a relationship so I don’t lose parts of myself when I do get into one. I want to be my own person while being able to share who I am with a significant other.
Figure Out What You Want First
When you get into a relationship you usually bond between the things you have in common and grow from the things you don’t have in common. I think we can all agree that there are certain basics we have to agree on to have a functioning relationship.
Three things I know will be deal breakers for me is that I don’t want to live a highly consumeristic lifestyle, kids, or a partner who doesn’t share my beliefs about animal rights. These are highly important things I would be very upfront about with any potential partners. Had I realized these things during a relationship, I’m not sure what would happen.
What’s crazy is how I was the sheer opposite just 3 years ago. I wanted a big house, two kids, and ate animal products every day. I can’t imagine how much this would shake up a relationship if I had changed this drastically while in one.
I know exactly what I want for my life regardless of if that’s with or without a partner. I am willing to make slight compromises but not if it means ignoring a part of myself. You should never let go of a part of yourself to make someone else happy.
Don’t Let Other People Measure Your Value
We live our lives looking for outside validation. That’s what society makes us think is the only way to determine our value. This can look like a college degree, a marriage/partner, kids, a job, or the things we own. It makes us chase after things, not truly knowing why or if we even want them.
You don’t have to spend your life proving to other people that you have your life together and that you are happy through tangible, external things. People don’t believe contentment is valuable because they can’t see it but it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
We carry the general belief that we won’t be happy until we find someone to make us happy. That it’s someone else’s responsibility. But a person can’t make you feel something only you can do for yourself. Sure they can make you a better person but at the end of the day, you are still you, just a better version of yourself.
That’s why I think society should embrace these moments when we are single, not ridicule or judge us. Because these are the moments we learn to love ourselves, enjoy our own company, figure out what we truly want in life, and just be the person we want to be before deciding to spend the rest of our lives with someone expecting them to love us when we don’t even love ourselves.
How can you truly give your partner what they need if you don’t first take care of yourself? When we prioritize our career and life before having a family, it is somehow looked down upon. But it’s not selfish to not be in a relationship regardless of what society thinks.
So whether you are in a relationship or not, embrace each moment. One is not better than the other. One does not mean you are a more valued member of society or that you have a better chance at having a happier life. How everyone else fits into that equation is not your concern.
We grow up believing that being in a relationship is going to be the best thing to happen to us in our lives, so we live just waiting for this moment to happen.
Being single is not a limbo state where you are just waiting to move onto the next stage in your life. You are living, breathing, and thriving as much as you would be in a relationship. Your relationship status is just a label, not a determination of your value.
Let’s call being single for what it is: just living your life like everyone else.
So whether you’ve been single for a week, a year, or 20 years, don’t let your life be controlled by the expectations and limitations others place on you. Let’s take away the negative stigma of being single. You are so much more than your relationship status.
