Being single is a bit like wearing Crocs in public.
Strangers judge you, family members think you’ve given up or let yourself go, and society in general wants you to feel embarrassed about your bold personal choice.
But I’m not embarrassed. I refuse to be.
What on Earth do you do when everyone yells ‘I can’t believe you’re not taken.’ Listen to Love Life, Mamamia’s podcast for all things relationship-related. Post continues after audio.
Being single is liberating, sexy, confronting, and awesome. But most of all (ATTN: inquisitive relatives, writers of rom-coms and the general public), it’s a deliberate state of being. “Single” is a relationship status in its own right. Not a waiting period between relationships.
Truly. I shake my metaphorical Crocs violently at anyone who thinks that right now, I’m just filling in time till someone loves me again. This is the most emotionally, physically, sexually independent I’ve ever felt and you will not take that away from me with pity.
(At a friend’s wedding recently, an unpleasant married acquaintance nearly stopped breathing when she noticed I didn’t have a date with me. “Oh, honey, don’t worry, it’ll happen for you,” she said, moving conspicuously between me and her husband, as though he needed shielding from my wanton independence. Fuck that, man, I’m happy as a clam.)
So, I’ve been single for eight months. For the first time since I was 19.
At the start of the year and the end of my relationship, the idea of being single was terrifying. I thought about not seeing my boyfriend every day, and it stung my heart and closed my throat. I was part of a pair, and while I always knew my own head and my own worth, I felt like I came as a package deal. Being apart from my then-beloved made about as much sense to me as separating matching salt and pepper shakers. Just… wrong.
These salt n pepper shakers mate for life.
But that’s because when you’re in a relationship, you actually can’t imagine being on your own. You’ve forgotten what it’s like. You’ve given your heart to someone, and it’s agony to think of them giving it back to you. What are you going to do, put that heart back in your own chest, wait till it beats again, and work out how to feel complete in your own company?
Well, yeah. That’s exactly what you do.
You hold your breath, wait for the broken feeling to pass, and you go looking for who you really are. You make your own decisions – sometimes recklessly, just because you can. You nestle back into old friendships and find new ones because you’ve got your eyes on everyone, not locked in one other person’s gaze. You build your career and build your confidence.
You get to be loyal to yourself, you get back your sexual curiosity, and you go to the movies on your own one time just to see if you survive (and you do). You take an offensively hot French lover, like your own body naked, and listen to Taylor Swift on Shuffle All Repeat because you can.
An offensively hot French man.
And if anyone looks at you like you’re wearing rainbow goddamn Crocs to a black tie event, you tell them it’s none of their business… unless they want to make friends, make love, or eat ice cream in the bath with a good podcast on.
Top Comments
This was not my experience of single. But then I think there is a huge
difference between enjoying 8 months of freedom for the first time since
adolescence, and the yawning gulf that was most of my twenties. Being
told by guy after guy that he wasn't looking for a relationship, only to see him in one two months later...or moving cities...or doing time. While being told by fiends, sagely nodding their heads, that I should really get to know myself, or find myself...the same friends who had been with their partners since age 16 or 18 and wouldn't know themselves if they had an accident in a time machine and bumped into last-week's self in Target.
I consoled myself, I had plenty of interests, work, and family, I dated, and had work colleagues accuse me of pricing myself out of the market. I had fun, and I told myself I would never put up with an unhappy relationship, but then I wasn't really given the chance. I wasn't looking for Prince Charming, just someone I had a deep emotional connection with. It was a huge relief to finally find that with someone, to feel that my life had finally begun, to share in what everyone else around me had. I can appreciate that being single in between long term relationships is a breath of fresh air, but when it's year after year after year - I'm just glad it's over.
I hear you...except my single status hasn't ended yet. I doubt it ever will!
It definitely will.
Can i ask how you met your partner?
I can relate to this - especially needing that great vibe. I have enjoyed my single status, and now, at the 5 year mark, I'm opening up to the idea of being in a relationship again.
I recently held a birthday party for my child and one of the guests was a single lady in her 50s. She propositioned every man there, single or not and let every man know she was looking for her next husband. Desperation is not a good look. Try being happy with yourself for awhile. I have been single for almost 5 years and have only just started to rediscover the real me again after losing myself in an abusive relationship.