“Woah you don’t have a girlfriend?” “Why don’t you go out with girls?”
This is what I get from family or even friends sometimes when l tell them that I am single. Well, l get that and a big gasp.
Yes, l am single and I am happy. Contrary to popular myths, single people can be happy and thriving. People associate singleness with waiting for “the one”. I really don’t currently want to be in a relationship. The idea of a romantic partner doesn’t sound very appealing to me. I don’t want just one person to love me. I want to deeply know myself and love myself. Plus, my family and friends are quite enough (this includes my cat, by the way).
Romantic intimacy wasn’t always idealized and there was a time when community was a vessel of love.
“Where once the tendrils of love and affection reached out to family, friends, and community, reached back to ancestors, and reached up to the heavens, now they surround and squeeze just one other person,” says Dr. Bella DePaulo, a researcher and author on romantic relationships and single life. The idea of loving just one other person is actually really recent. The love hierarchy that Marisa G. Franco, author of Platonic, talks about didn’t exist before the 20th century. Recognizing the history of friendship allows me to understand that intimacy shouldn’t be compartmentalized to just one relationship. I’m personally recognizing the healing presence of friendship in my life.
Being single allows me to put energy in my relationship with myself and be invested in my interests and growth as a person. Not to say that you can’t do that in a romantic relationship, but being single allows one to focus more acutely.
A romantic relationship isn’t the only place for love. A lot of my blogs are about masculinity and men’s friendships. I can find love in men’s friendships. Over time, homophobia distanced men from each other so we just relied strictly on women for emotional support.
Overall, l like singleness because I get to know myself and what l want in my life. I don’t want to live by the standards of what other people say should make me happy. I’m learning to be ok with that. I’m not against romantic relationships by any means, I simply don’t want one. Plus, I think singles are a bit stigmatized by culture because they are perceived to be lonely. I think we forget that everyone experiences loneliness.
What do you think? If you enjoy singleness, do you think we should stop shaming it? Do you think we need to expand our definition of significant other to include friends and family?
