Originally published June 2023.
Relationships are hard work. You’ve heard this. Someone’s said it to you over dinner, maybe when you’ve expressed exasperation with your singlehood. Instead of showing you empathy, someone centers their own experience and lets you know that the very thing you’re looking for is “no picnic.” Maybe you’ve heard “relationships are hard work” so many times that it registers as little more than an eye roll for you at this point, because it’s always said as though people think they deserve a reward for maintaining a relationship when they choose every day to remain in it. I don’t know I’m just spitballin’ here.
You know what else is hard work? Hope. We don’t talk about it much, we kind of just fold it into the batter of singlehood’s job requirements. The hope of a single person is being actively eaten away by the desire for and pursuit of partnership on a daily basis and yet we’re expected to magically replenish every little nibble all by ourselves. Why don’t we acknowledge, and similarly provide empathy for, those of us who exist in a world for years — maybe decades — where all we’ve ever received in exchange for our hope is nothing?
It’s a tough concept in the abstract. I’m talking about crushes. I’m talking about the cute new guy at work. I’m talking about the barista you’re pretty sure has been flirting with you for a year or the bartender who’s been doing it for the last two hours. The friend of a friend you met at a wedding and sure, the bride can go ahead and give him your number, why not? The guy you’ve been texting with for two months that you’re sure is going to ask to hang out any day now. To say nothing of the hundreds if not thousands of human beings we swipe into our spheres via the digital dating space. A lifetime of maybes that result in absolutely nothing, over and over again for years — that’s what I’m talking about. That is unrewarded hope.
Relationships are hard work? They’re not nearly as difficult as an infinite nothing, darling, I promise you. To keep going, to keep believing, keep hoping, keep trying — in the face of nothing more than no’s? For years? Don’t fucking talk to me about hard work. Retaining the desire and energy for connecting with human beings despite what the single and dating world has done to us — is still doing to us — is an accomplishment unrecognized and I see no reason not to dance upon this shortcoming in cleats.
Never having your interest reciprocated is exhausting. Meeting new “potential people” (you know who I’m talking about) only to discover that all — yes I said all — of them are already partnered, that’s exhausting. Something you want to go somewhere going nowhere every fucking time for massive swaths of our adulthood is exhausting. It’s more than exhausting, it’s maddening. How any of us have a crumb of sanity left is a miracle itself.
You know how it feels to abruptly push the brake pedal on your car? The feeling that activates the Soccer Mom Save across the front seat? That’s what it feels like to keep your hopes up as a single person. Over and over again, something mayyyyybe starting, and then an abrupt halt. Until it’s happened so many times you assume it will always happen. Until it’s happened so many times that you stop giving a shit. That is what exhaustion feels like, when your brain and your heart barely notice people anymore. When the only message your own body can send you is “what’s the point?”
Depressed yet? Me too! And listen, reframing singlehood and centering our self worth isn’t going to be all kittens and gummy bears, I’m sorry to say. I don’t see anything wrong with acknowledging the difficult bits. In my experience pretending the difficult bits don’t exist only ever contributes to us feeling worse, and I don’t think we need more help in that department, dating has it covered. I think it’s okay to say something sucks when it sucks. Especially when it’s something that’s unlikely to change. And when something’s unlikely to change, we have a choice regarding our thoughts and feelings around it. When the unmovable thing won’t move, remember that you can.
So let’s reframe some thoughts and feelings. Because honestly, I don’t really think the energy around “Oooh, maybe this one!” is how me and my future partner are going to get started. I personally believe that when I meet them, there will be none of that anxious energy at all. I don’t think it’s going to feel like getting my hopes up, a reel of past false starts playing in my head as reminders of the inevitable. I think instead it’s going to feel the same way making new friends feels. I think it’s going to feel relaxed, void of expectation, and easy. I think when I meet someone I’m meant to be with it’s going to feel nice, and while it won’t erase a history of starts and stops, I think it will offer an entirely new perspective on my future that doesn’t give me anxiety. I think we deserve that, don’t you? If not, what the fuck is our hope even for?
You’re not alone if you’re exhausted by a lifetime of unfulfilled maybes. If you feel overwhelmed with the very idea of them as you read this, please don’t feel bad. That’s not my intention. Instead, I’d prefer it if we gleaned information from the trash pile, instead of ignoring that it’s there because it smells. I’d love it if we could let our own personal histories help us out in the future. Maybe moving forward we start to understand that the barista and bartender are flirting with everyone, because being personable is part of their job. Maybe we remember that not every single person we meet has to be pursued — because we’re worth pursuing, too, and maybe this time we take the night off and let someone else do the lifting. Maybe we remember that we can’t orchestrate someone falling in love with us. That’s not our department. Everything that will “make” our future partners love us are things we’re already doing by being our authentic selves. Anything else is just lying, and I don’t want someone to fall in love with a lie. I want them to love who I actually am, so that’s what I have to actually be. Deciding you don’t want any more starts and stops isn’t “giving up,” it’s understanding that your life doesn’t deserve to be a giant hunt for someone else.
I’ve spoken a lot about what a wide world of nothing is, but let’s talk about what it is not.
It is not an indication of what you deserve. It is not a reflection of your worth. Starts and stops aren’t happening to you because you’re not pretty, smart, skinny, witty, stylish, cool, or desirable enough. Because they’re also happening to people who are as pretty, smart, skinny, witty, stylish, cool, and desirable as you think you have to be. It’s never about any of that shit, because people of every variation fall in love all day long. The impulse is to assume that starts and stops happening to us over and over and over again means that we’re just not “enough” to find love. This, of course, is a crock of shit.
False starts and disappointing fizzles happen, in my opinion, for two reasons: First, because this is what single and dating culture has become, a one-foot-in, rest-of-body out approach to partnership. Isn’t it just the elephant’s eyebrows that a space where people are seemingly looking for commitment are encountering so many people who behave as though commitment will melt them like rain on cotton candy? You’re trying to find partnership in a space that doesn’t actually help with that — please stop operating in this world under the guise of “I must be doing something wrong.” You are not wrong — dating is. Stop letting it be terrible while blaming its bullshit on you. Open your eyes, and maybe close your phone.
The second reason I think so many starts and stops happen is that we’re human beings and shit happens all the time. Life never guarantees us anything, much less an easier time finding our next great romantic partnership. I hate to chalk things up to the human experience because I know that doesn’t necessarily honor what we’ve been through, but honestly, could anything? I’d much rather be honest with you than simply be one more voice in the single and dating world trying to sell you on some sort of coaching package to help you “find love.” Honestly for those prices they should be selling my fucking husband.
I don’t have a solution for you because a) I don’t think we need one, I don’t think singlehood is the shameful existence that’s been sold to us, and I enjoy it too much to feed into the narrative that nothing matters as much as ending it by finding a partner. Asking me to “solve” my singlehood is like asking me to leave a party where I’m having fun to go look for another party. I already like this party, if someone wants me to come to their party they can send a fucking invite. And b) no one has a solution for you. No one can tell you how to turn someone else into the love of your life. That isn’t a thing. No one knows where they’re hiding because they’re not hiding. They’re living, just like you. At some point we will come into contact with the people we’re meant to be with. I believe that, not out of romanticism or fantasy, but because I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count to people who aren’t better than me because better isn’t a thing, either.
What I have for you is empathy, understanding, and community. I’m there too. I can’t change my own starts and stops, either. Instead, I can see and honor your hope, and remind you to be proud of yourself for it. I can be one person on earth who sees your hope as healing, rather than as a sad, desperate filter over your face. Where other people only see lost causes in the hopes of single people, I see miracles. I see heroes. And I see an entire collective of people fully capable and deserving of love. My hope wants your hope to know you’re not alone.