Rant on Questions

Ok, this is going to be a bit of a quick rant because I’m feeling a little over it. 

 

I really need for people to stop telling me I need to learn to ‘love myself’, I need to ‘work on myself’, I need to ‘enjoy being single’, I will ‘meet someone eventually’ and anything along the lines of ‘just because my relationships ended doesn’t mean they weren’t an experience’. There’s more, but we’ll get there. 

 

First of all, I do love myself. I like myself. I think that I am amazing and I have spent a lot of time over my life time working on myself and doing my absolute back out to get to a stage now when I am not only happy with who I am as a person but my physical self. Many people struggle with self esteem and I am no different – there have been many, many situations and circumstances that have really shaken me and threatened to ruin me. Yet I persevere. Just because I am more vocal when I am not doing ok – a normal thing, I assure you – does not mean that I am not strong, worthy and or that I love don’t myself. 

 

I know that I deserve love, I know that I am a good person (and I do my best to try to be one), and I know that there is much more to life than love and romance. 

 

But what I really need people to understand is this: there is no end in working on yourself. You can love yourself but have times of doubt, times of pause and times when it’s a little harder than usual to look on the bright side. It’s the same for everyone and I am no exception. I really need for people to stop telling me that if I am ever experiencing a hard time its because I don’t love myself – you don’t know what goes on in my head and it frustrates me to no end that my hard work is constantly invalidated by the fact that I’m expressing that I’m struggling. 

 

Working on yourself and loving yourself are not linear – stop trying to discredit my very real feelings by assuming its because I don’t care. We’d be having a very different conversation if I didn’t. 

 

The next thing is about people, usually people in relationships or ones who have had many, telling me that I need to enjoy being single, that I’ll meet someone eventually, I need to put myself out there etc etc etc. 

 

What I need people to understand is that in my life time I have had one relationship – and he didn’t want to be with me. It caused me a lot of psychological trauma and it picked at a lot of very real insecurities that I have. And yet besides that one relationship I have never even experienced any kind of genuine mutual feelings with someone. I’ve had crush after crush, I’ve loved and I’ve been heartbroken but not once, including that relationship, have I ever known what its like to be loved in that way. Friends and family – yes. Absolutely. I have always had people around me that loved and cared for me but its not in the same way. No first love, no young love, no great love – nothing but one disappointment after another. 

 

Romance and love and relationships in that context are not the be all and end all. I know that, I am very aware of that, but I really, really need people to stop patronising me if I ever express that it would be nice to experience that – because I never have! 

 

Do you have any idea how traumatic and damaging it is to be condescended to every single time I say anything about being single? If its not ‘oh you just need to be happy on your own’ or ‘you should just enjoy being single’ or ‘oh you’ll meet someone eventually’ but then respond to me like I’m a child if I answer to the contrary. 

 

I am the queen of being single – I have essentially been single my whole life and I have made the most of it time and time again. I have done everything alone from travelling (both internationally and interstate), to road trips, to theme parks, to fairs. I frequently go to dinner, movies, events, walks, and shows solo. I have been out for drinks on my own, moved away from home on my own, and I have spent the majority of the last two years alone in my apartment with my dog. I genuinely don’t understand what people are even thinking anymore when they tell me to enjoy my own time – except that they don’t think and they are only knee jerk responding to me as if they don’t know me at all. 

 

Fortunately I don’t feel the pressure of my biological clock and I am not the woman who wants to get married and have children asap. Marriage – sure, if the right person ever came along and that was what we both wanted. Children – a little less so, but the same sentiment goes that if it was the right person, right time and what we both wanted. But just as well that I am not – I can’t even imagine how much worse it must be for the other people out there who feel as I do but have that added hurt because they want those things so badly. 

 

The purpose of this rant wasn’t to lash out or make anyone feel bad or embarrassed or sorry for me. I know what I am and I accept that – I will love myself even if romance never comes to me. But what I want people to understand is that words hurt. You wouldn’t ask someone infertile when they’re having children, why is it ok for people to say all the things I’ve mentioned to me? To needle me about my past, to make me question if I am good enough – which is a very real insecurity that takes a huge amount of work for me to keep in check. What’s the purpose? 

 

I love myself, I am the queen of single and I’m ok with that. I’d love to meet someone but life has no guarantees, its not something I have control over, and honestly so far not so good. I have a lot to offer both romantically, to friends and family, to my career and to the world around me. It hurts me that my romantic history has been so disappointing but I’m more than that and all it does is invalidate my experiences and my feelings when people make stock, baseless comments to me. 

I only want people to stop talking to me like im a teenager and understand why it’s not ok.

 

Sam xox