The Importance of being Earnest(ly Single)

Ooft, let me tell you when I say I’ve been thinking and working on this one for a while. Years in a sense, but practically for weeks and the writing of it finally began on a hungover Saturday. 

Just a little ‘I’m kind of tired and queasy and shaky’ hangover, nothing so serious, but a definite skate through when I downed a collection of different pink and clear drinks with my two best men in the city. 

So I’ve been thinking for quite a while about being single. I’ve talked about it many times before, I’m sure none of you are shocked that I would bring it up again. But what I want to talk about now is kind of that I’ve been going about this…well, kind of wrong. 

I’ve been single for most of my life, with only one real (bad, but brief) exception. And I’ve both looked at it and allowed others to look at me being single as if that’s in anyway a shame. That was wrong. 

I’ve been thinking more and more for the past few years that being single is rough. As all of my friends, especially the straight ones, have settled down around me it’s gotten tougher. What was wrong with me? I’ve thought. You need to work on yourself! It’ll happen when you least expect it! Put yourself out there more! My well meaning friends and family have told me - among other frustrating, empty and sometimes condescending things. Enjoy being single! Why can’t you just enjoy your own time? 

I’ve said this for a long time and I will again - I do! Even before we entered into a rolling yearly global pandemic I’ve done virtually everything under the sun on my own from purchasing cars, property (sort of) and a dog, to travelling, events and all manner of other experiences. Spending time alone is neither new, unwelcome or hard for me. 

But the grass is always greener right? I had one difficult relationship with someone who wanted to leave me every month - isn’t it only natural for me to dream of meeting someone who genuinely loves and wants to be with me, especially when all my friends seem to have already? 

I’m not alone in this either - it’s kind of universal for now just women but people in general. Everyone wants someone to love at some stage - there’s nothing wrong with that. 

It’s really unfair the way that I get called out for expressing that - as do many single women even in this day and age. 

Do you know what I’ve learnt recently though that’s changed my life? You can both be single and love it and have a great time on your own whilst still also want to have a great relationship at the same time. These are not mutually exclusive things. Revolutionary, I know! And yet for such a long time I’ve felt like I couldn’t be both, and people have told me I can’t be both. 

If I said I wanted to meet someone? Well, I must not have been as happy being single as I seemed and I must be secretly miserable. Why couldn’t I just be happy being single? 

But…I was. And I am. I’m both happy being single and doing my own thing whilst still hoping to meet someone really special in the future. Is that so hard to believe? 

It’s also really important here to point out, before someone tries to call me out for ever having been sad in the past, that just like someone in a relationship I can have down days, too. Being single is not 100% amazing every minute of every day - yes, I freely admit that sometimes it does suck and it does get me down. But the rest of the time? I’m good. 

People in relationships aren’t happy all day every day within themselves, their life or their relationships. Firstly, if they were no relationship would ever break up, and if you think my friends haven’t bitched to me about their partners over the years I have news for you. Hell, sometimes they don’t even like their partners. 

But you know what else? They also express to me from time to time that I, the single one, am lucky. I’m not married and I don’t have kids and I’m the lucky one? Sometimes, I for sure agree - because being single can be pretty fucking great far more often than it sucks. 

I don’t credit all of my recent musings to myself either -

Many, many other women (and men and non-binary people) feel the same as I do. 

On Tik-Tok one day I came across a woman who has significantly helped when it’s come to changing my point of view. 

New Yorker Shani Silver started a podcast in 2019 specifically because she was so tired of all the bullshit that not only comes with being single, but the pressure all single people feel (especially women) to find a way to not be single by any means necessary. Her podcast, called A Single Serving Podcast, has had all many of guests - gay, straight, bisexual/Pansexual, married, single, etc - to talk about the single experience and the way the world frames and treats it. 

She also published a book which I’ve recently bought and read called A Single Revolution - which I can’t recommend enough. But some of the most valuable takeaways I’ve gleaned from her are the following:

- You can be happy being single and want to meet someone at the same time (they’re not mutually exclusive).

- Society is framed to treat single people as secondary, in lieu of coupledom being the ultimate goal.

- Society encourages us to be miserable being single and to see it as a temporary life which we should be working to change. 

- Being single can be temporary if we want it to be, but we don’t have to treat our life’s as being in limbo whilst we are.

- Being happy being single doesn’t mean we’ve given up on love, even if a lot of single people fear this. 

Essentially being single is great, it can last a little while or a lifetime, but it’s not a bad thing. We don’t have to be miserable, we also don’t have to give up on meeting someone if that’s what we want, and being totally happy being single doesn’t mean we can’t have off days. Being single can be hard, but it’s important, rewarding, and sometimes the best times in our lives - or should be. 

So what is the importance of being earnestly single? 

EVERYTHING.

Look, I don’t want to be single forever - I think I’ve historically been pretty clear on that. But I’m not actually miserable, I’m mostly pretty happy being single. I love living on my own, I love being able to spend as much or as little time with my friends as I want to, I love having the end to myself, I love not having kids and a disposable income. I love travelling alone, meeting new people, not having to run things by someone else, or having someone else in my space when I need space. I love that no one else messes up my house (except for when my mother visits) and I fucking love not having to ever fight with anyone about household chores, money, or whatever else couples fight about. 

But you know what else too? My love story is still yet to be told - all the butterflies are still to come. 

Single people, like me, are just as much adults as people in relationships are, by the way. But I still feel very young at heart when the crushing reality of the harder side of relationships has yet to hit me (the last one barely counted). I’m not naive or unaware that relationships take work, but I’m very optimistic about what my future could look like. 

Enjoying this time now whilst I’m single is so important - and I hate the times that it gets me down and I take it for granted. There is so much more about being single that I love than I dislike. 

I don’t really know what’s in store for me in the future - or if a relationship even is - but what I do know is that reframing my thinking with regards to being single is the key. Embracing the best of it doesn’t mean I give up on love forever (or at all) but why should I wish the best years of my life away because I don’t have a man to sit on my tiny couch and eat all my snacks? 

I shouldn’t. I won’t. 

There is so much more to say about being single, the way society treats single people, and all the preconceived assumptions and fears that are instilled into all of us (at least in the West). Being single isn’t scary, we haven’t failed at life, we aren’t unlovable, we aren’t wrong, we aren’t broken, we aren’t alone, we aren’t desperate or lonely or desperately lonely. Being single is amazing - but it’s just life. It’s not a sentence we have to work through or do our time in. It’s time to stop thinking of it like it is. 

And that goes for all you couples out there, too. Change your point of view. Pity me and I’ll pity you - or we can all just be happy with the best things we have. If your relationship is bad - leave (if you can - this is a whole other conversation).

Being single isn’t scary - remember that. 

Sam xox