Originally published in December 2022.
Singlehood self worth, or a significant lack thereof, can impact the decisions we make. More importantly, the decisions we think we’re allowed to make. It might feel uncomfortable to realize that some of your behaviors and thoughts have been influenced by societal single-shaming narratives, and that you’ve been subscribing to them without realizing it. I never say what I say to shame any of us, because I am us, and I’ve been where you are. I never realized so many freedoms and truths about singlehood because I was never encouraged to think beyond the societal norms that were telling me how wrong and bad my single status was. I hope that you find encouragement in my words, never shame. We are all reframing our mindsets and building our self worth together. This is a process, one that has big “get there when you get there” energy. You’re not doing anything wrong, I promise.
I kindof equate an absence of self worth with being in the backseat of a moving car, and there’s no one behind the wheel.(As an aside this is literally one of my recurringnightmares. There are others, I’ll tell you about them sometime.)When we aren’t driven by internal worth, and instead sort of hand over that responsibility to how we think we’re perceived, or how we’re actually treated by society, it can feel like our life isn’t up to us.This can lead to immense feelings of unfairness and frustration. We know what doesn’t feel right, what makes us feel like downright shit, but we still think we can’t do anything about it, because we’re not in charge of our own lives untilafterwe tick that “finding someone” box off the list. Until we find someone, anyone offering any sort of insight into what “our problem” is,mustknow something we don’t, because we’re still single. Right?
But our lives actually are up to us, and alerting singles to that fact is why I get out of bed in the morning. We don’t always know we have a choice —especially if we were never shown that we did. So of course we feel stuck in between a shitty dating culture and advice that just wants us to get back in there, kid! Our choices and freedoms as singles are rarely praised, and celebrated even less often. So how would we know to hop in the front seat and take the wheel if we’ve never known that’s allowed?
Worse still, what if taking ownership over your singlehood and living life in a way that doesn’t try to end that singlehood at any cost has only ever been described to you as “giving up?” Do you think you’d be likely to assert that ownership? I don’t, because I didn’t, for over a decade. Deciding that my singlehood wasn’t a bad thing and leaving a punishing “search for love” behind never even occurred to me, because I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop looking until I found someone because finding someone was the only acceptable outcome of singlehood that I’d ever been shown.
To illustrate this, I’ll use our favorite little pearl,“It’ll happen when you’re not looking.” These days I can’t even type that with a straight face. Honestly if you know how to not look for something when someone has told you not to while you also really desire that thing you’re not supposed to look for will you let me know? Because until then this sounds like an absolutely discount remake ofInception.
Why don’t we laugh in the face of people who tell us “I’ll happen when you’re not looking?” Why don’t we challenge them, why don’t we scream “Nonsense!” square in their face? Why do we let people say shit like this about single people and instead of calling it out as a complete joke? Instead, why is our default reaction internalizing our own failure for not not looking, sooner?
Because we have low or nonexistent self worth, that’s why.
Yes, this advice is marvelously stupid and should be ignored at every opportunity, but what upsets me more is the high horse it’s being distributed from. The very existence of this advice, and so many pieces of bullshit dating advice (they’re all bullshit, but I digress) is that they assume that whatever the single person is doing in the moment should be the exact opposite. It’s imparting wrongness on single people, and the actions we take, under the assumption that our singlehood itself makes us wrong.
Further, it’s imparting rightness on literally anyone giving single people dating advice. This is trusting other people’s advice of convenience over our own knowing and intuition. Of course we’ve been encouraged to do this, but that doesn’t mean we have to keep it up.
There isn’t anyone that knows you or your story better than you. No one knows what’s best for you more than you do. You don’t have to give up trust of your own instincts and place your faith in other people’s advice because you’re “still single.” That isn’t required of you. That isn’t even required of you to find a partner. The biggest trick single shaming ever played on single women was when it made us doubt ourselves just because we hadn’t fallen in love yet.
The desire for love is potent, so is the desire for companionship. You never need to feel guilty for putting these desires first, or for putting them above your intuition — not when they are very valid feelings and the world encourages partnership like it’s been paid to do so. But I point out the fallacies in trusting others more than we trust ourselves simply because we’re single because one of my favorite ways to regain self worth is through logic.
There is nothing about a partnered advice-giver that makes them smarter than you. They aren’t married because they’re brilliant, they’re married because fate and timing did what they do. Partnership isn’t a graduate degree, it’s just a decision to split mortgage payments and appetizers. People in partnerships and marriages haven’t “won,” they’ve just lived their lives on their own unique timelines, and you’re allowed to do the same. The more we idolize partnership, something incredibly common and also prone to change, the less we trust ourselves, and the more we believe partnered people know some secret we don’t. I mean…maybe they do, but it’s probably just that partnership isn’t the prize we think it is.
Instead of putting partnership, partnered people, and the random, consequenceless (for them) advice they love to give on a pedestal, put your own lifelong education up there. Polish the brass on the things you know, the things you learned through experience and repetition. Those things aren’t worthless just because they belong to a single person and I’m tired of us not giving our own histories the reverence they deserve. Life is an educator, and yours isn’t less good at its job just because you’re not romantically bound to another human being.
This is logic, this is simple truth. No one can run your life better than you can, because no one has your wealth of knowledge and feelings that you acquired by very valid means — by living your life. You’re the only one doing that, and it’s okay to realize that the decisions you want to make (or not make) in the dating space aren’t inherently wrong because they’re being made by someone who is single. Give yourself more credit than the world wants to.
Your life happens when they are not looking — and they’re never looking at a single woman’s life, not really. They’re never seeing the realities of it, the struggles of it, because those sound too shitty, and they’re so glad they don’t have to be “out there” anymore. Look if you want to look, don’t look if you’re exhausted. Whether or not you search for it, your life, and all those meant to be in it, will find you either way. They always have.
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If you liked this essay, you’ll probably also enjoy my book A Single Revolution: Don’t look for a match. Light one. Book link is affiliate link.