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I am sin­gle. Why is that so hard to say for some peo­ple? There is an episode of Sex & The City where Miranda buys her apart­ment & has to con­tin­u­ously check the SINGLE box. She has a panic attack. That is not a nor­mal reac­tion. So far being sin­gle hasn’t caused me to have a panic attack.

I know women who can­not be sin­gle. Not even if their lives depended on it. I have been sin­gle (in the sim­plest def­i­n­i­tion of the word) since Octo­ber 2018. Yes, I have dated men since then & I guess if you really boiled it down you could call some of them rela­tion­ships. But the last time some­one called me his girl­friend & I called some­one my boyfriend was in Octo­ber 2018. Since then I’ve dated and met some really won­der­ful men, made friends, had my heart bro­ken & even been monog­a­mous, but none of those rela­tion­ships lasted long enough to gar­ner a title or a rela­tion­ship sta­tus change. Why is so much empha­sis placed on one’s rela­tion­ship sta­tus? Why is being sin­gle often times con­sid­ered an ill­ness or rea­son for pity? How can you make the best of being single?

In the movie The Social Net­work, Mark Zucker­burg has an aha moment when his friend asks him if a mutual friend is sin­gle. His final touch to the Face­book is adding rela­tion­ship sta­tus. The Social Net­work clip He is genius because peo­ple are lit­er­ally obsessed with updat­ing their rela­tion­ship sta­tus. They want every­one to know that they are now taken. Maybe it’s because they want their exes to know or they want to broad­cast their love to the world. I do not list my rela­tion­ship sta­tus at all. Why? Because the peo­ple who need to know already know. Fur­ther­more I think it’s some sort of jinx to a fledg­ling rela­tion­ship when you post your sta­tus. I listed mine once & we almost imme­di­ately broke up. Also when you break up & you have to change your sta­tus to sin­gle & notify every­one how crappy is that feel­ing? Best advice, keep your pro­file rela­tion­ship sta­tus free until there are vows involved. I’d rather be sin­gle than be this girl.

Two of my room­mates are in rela­tion­ships, so often times I’ll come home & the happy cou­ples are all here hang­ing out. It is in that exact moment that I detest being sin­gle. It’s a bit sad not hav­ing a con­sis­tent per­son that I can include in my life. It’s tough being sin­gle when you’re sur­rounded by cou­ples, happy ones at that. This hap­pens dur­ing the hol­i­days as well. I’m the last sin­gle per­son in my fam­ily. I am lucky to have a fam­ily that doesn’t pres­sure me to get mar­ried & pop out babies, how­ever I do get asked the dreaded ques­tion, “Why are you still sin­gle?” I always answer it the same way “If I knew I wouldn’t be sin­gle.” On the flip side when my friend’s who are in rela­tion­ships are fight­ing or hav­ing issues I’m grate­ful to be sin­gle. I don’t have to coor­di­nate hol­i­day sched­ules with any­one, I don’t have to check in with any­one & the only per­son I have to fight with is my ter­ri­ble land­lord. I’d rather be sin­gle than have a ball & chain.

Sin­gle­ness is not a dis­ease peo­ple. Some mar­ried cou­ples I know aban­don the friend­ships they have with their sin­gle friends as if they might catch it. Well if I catch the mar­riage virus I’m send­ing you the bill! Just because a per­son is sin­gle doesn’t mean there is some­thing wrong with them. Per­haps it means they are picky. Any­one can find some­one to call their girlfriend/​boyfriend. Trust, with all the mes­sages I get on OkCupid & Loveawake I could be “In a Rela­tion­ship” tomor­row. But I don’t want them. I am look­ing for the right one, not just a warm body. Recently a moron guy mes­saged me after I told him about this blog. He said “if you are that good at dat­ing you shouldn’t be on here Loveawake.” That’s why I’m sin­gle, because I meet men who think that because I write about dat­ing that means I need to be in a rela­tion­ship. Maybe he missed the posts where I explain that I am not an expert. What­ever, either way there are tons of idiots out there & us sin­gle women have to sift through them. Just like the men have to wade through the bitches. I’d rather be sin­gle than date some­one who I am luke­warm about.

So how do you make the best of being sin­gle when it seems every­one is in a rela­tion­ship? Spend more time with your sin­gle friends. Get­ting out with peo­ple who can relate to your dat­ing adven­tures makes you feel less alone. When you’re sin­gle you can do what­ever you want, when­ever you want. Sure you might not have a stand­ing Sat­ur­day night date but that means your week­ends are always going to be inter­est­ing & dif­fer­ent. Those pesky plus one sit­u­a­tions, take a guy friend. I took a male buddy to a wed­ding with me recently we had the best time. There was no under­ly­ing pres­sure that wed­ding dates gen­er­ally imply. Being sin­gle means you can book a one way ticket to China & travel. There are no restric­tions or other peo­ple to con­sider when you are mak­ing plans for your future, imme­di­ate or dis­tant. Being sin­gle allows you to be self­ish & some­times that just what you need in order to fig­ure out what it is that you want. I’d rather be sin­gle than miss out on some­thing I’ve always wanted to do.

I’m sin­gle & happy. I have been sin­gle long enough to know what I want. To be secure with who I am. I am self reliant & I’ve never needed any­one to take care of me. Well except for maybe my par­ents occa­sion­ally. A guy who I used to date & am now friends with told me that the rea­son we split was because I didn’t need him enough. Mean­ing that I was too inde­pen­dent. Well sure I could have played the damsel in dis­tress role but, why? Isn’t the attrac­tion for some­one to want you not need you? Per­haps being sin­gle for too long can take it’s toll & you need to adjust behav­ior. But in the end I think that sin­gle­ness is some­thing peo­ple should not be ashamed of. Single-​​hood is impor­tant because you need to love your­self before you can love any­one else. After all “The most impor­tant rela­tion­ship in your life is the rela­tion­ship you have with your­self. Because no mat­ter what hap­pens, you will always be with yourself.” — Diane Von Furstenberg