Originally published November 2021
Everything’s fine until you’re tired. Until fatigue sets in, single women are on board for quite a lot. You’d be impressed by the very volume of dating advice, dating services, dating strategies, and dating coaches that single women will seek out before we’re no longer willing to go along with this shit. Everything’s fine until you’re tired. And at some point…maybe a year, maybe five years into a single woman’s actively dating life that hasn’t moved the needle on her relationship status even a hair, a new mood takes hold, and it has no more patience for your dating advice. That mood is: Enough already. Where the fuck do I meet my husband?
Enough. When is it enough? When have you taken enough advice, rewritten enough profiles, retaken enough photos, gone on enough first dates god knows—when have we done enough work in the single space to just meet someone already? When you hit this place, this frustration and exhaustion fueled by years of unanswered effort, you are my audience, and I’m so happy you’re here. You did “enough” the day you were born, no further effort was required of you after that for the love you inherently deserve as a human being. I’m sorry we were groomed to believe something different.
Effort is not required to meet the right partners for you. I know that in saying this to an exhausted community that’s been steeping in a tea of unfairness for years, I risk you throwing digital cabbages. That doesn’t mean it isn’t true. We don’t actually have to grind it out in the dating space for years on end assuming that eventually we’ll have “earned” a partner through our struggles.
You know how I know? Think of the reasons you’re still on the dating apps. It isn’t because you’re having fun there, I know that for fucking sure. It’s because you know someone who met someone on a dating app and now they’re married, and that’s the carrot that keeps you coming back to—I’m sorry coming back to and paying for—a dating app that loses money the minute you fall in love and therefore has no incentive to actually help you do so. You’ll believe the stories of how people met after clawing their way through the festering crap in a dating app, but why won’t you put just as much faith in the stories of people who did absolutely nothing and met the loves of their lives?
People didn’t meet because a dating app worked. They met because they got lucky and fate did its thing. They met the same way you’ll meet someone someday, app or not. I don’t think we deserve what digital dating culture has become, so I don’t app anymore. Fate can figure my shit out another way.
No one can tell you where the fuck to meet your husband, wife, or spouse, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry that no one can unlock that mystery for you. I’m certainly not going to try. Instead, I approach the problem from the opposite side. I could care less about how you find them, and instead I choose to focus on how you treat you.
If effort doesn’t match reward in the dating space, as evidenced by the fact that you’ve already put forth piles of effort and haven’t met anyone while Susie Creamcheese over in Marketing met her partner in line at Panera, we’re allowed to see that as something other than just unfairness. We are allowed to see it as freedom. If we are not in charge or in control of when and where we meet our future partners, that doesn’t make us helpless, it makes us free. This isn’t up to us, so why are we devoting our lives to making it happen?
There’s something we’re allowed to have that isn’t talked about much, in fact it’s belittled. It’s seen as “not doing enough” about our little singlehood problem. This is because—gasp—being single is so wrong! Oh my god! You’re single! Ew! Pathetic! No one loves you? How sad! You’d better search for someone until you come home screaming and crying after your 132nd useless first date and remember, even after that, you’ll still be single! We don’t have to live in this endless cycle of horseshit. We’re allowed to have something they shame us for, and not give a damn about what others think about the lives we live: We are allowed to have trust.
I think we can trust. I think we can trust that at some point, whether we’re trying to dig our way to it with our bare hands like wild animals or just like…living our lives in peace, we’ll connect with the future relationships that are right for us. I think what we’re asking for is something incredibly simple that happens to billions of people around the world every day. We’re asking for love, not a mansion in Malibu, I think we can all calm down.
We already know we can’t force it. We’ve tried that, perhaps for years, and all that forcing leaves us with is frustration and an internal rage that can’t be soothed. We’ve convinced ourselves that the only thing that can soothe what’s wrong with us is a relationship. We can’t have all this effort, searching, and trying amount to nothing—that doesn’t sit well. But what if we let go of the need for all this effort to be rewarded, and started redefining what a reward looks like for ourselves? Does that not sound like a use of our time that might actually produce a result?
I became satisfied in the way that I thought a relationship would satisfy me, and I didn’t have to “find someone” to get there. I decided that instead of putting one more morsel of effort onto the pile that had netted me nothing over ten years of trying, I’d let go of this need to solve my singlehood with someone else, and find out why I hated my singlehood so much in the first place that I was willing to continuously hurt myself in the dating space. As it turns out, I don’t hate being single, not at all, because being single isn’t actually bad. It’s a lie we’ve been told, and it’s one more thing to let go of. I’m sorry that list is getting longer.
Does never having to compromise with anyone sound bad to you? Does the ability to never have to get someone else on board with your plans or ideas actually sound better than having to do that multiple times per day? I just want to eat dinner, I don’t want to have to agree on where we’re going or what we’re having first, and I don’t want the cooking and cleaning up to be chores requiring intense negotiations and taking turns. I’m not a fucking child. Do you not enjoy getting the entire bed without anyone else’s body heat (or smells, I said it) involved in the situation? Do you find it somehow harder to fly your freak flag, judgment free, around your own home when you’re alone as opposed to when someone else is present? Seriously? I’ll do these things someday, if they come with genuine love and a relationship that’s right for me, but until you’re just as good as my singlehood or better, fuck all of this.
We’re ignoring it, we’re ignoring the preciousness of singlehood. We’re treating it like a disease to cure instead of a like a treasure to soak up before it’s gone. Ask yourself if it’s working, this endless grind. Instead of mindlessly pushing forward with more of the same effort, take a look back at all the effort you’ve already contributed to a goal that never seems to give a shit. That’s because a relationship and love aren’t goals. They can’t be achieved, they can only be experienced. They’re not items on an agenda to tick off once accomplished. That’s so gross. We’re talking about actual love and the actual person you choose to spend your actual life beside. These things are wonderful, but they’re not something we can orchestrate, and they’re certainly not things we can force—or would want to. Instead, they are luck, fate, chance, timing, the Universe, whatever you want call it. We’re not driving, we’re along for the ride. And if we can’t map the route, maybe there’s no point in the road rage.
You’ve tried everything else, why not give letting go a chance? You have so much hope for a future relationship, why not turn some of that hope into trust? Why not let go of the need for control, trust that relationships happen all over the world, all of the time, and start living more of your life than what the world encourages of single people?
Let’s try letting go of a few things in the new year:
The need for all the effort you’ve put into dating to be rewarded with a partnership — nothing is ever for nothing, everything is an education.
The lie that being single is a wrong, shameful thing to be — I’m sorry y’all, but this is patriarchy, and…more recently, capitalism (the dating industry makes billions, and some of those dollars are yours—you’re allowed to back out of an investment that never gave you a return).
The lie that being single sucks — honestly, please look around at your single home, your single calendar, and stop seeing these things as missing another person. Instead, start seeing them as abundantly full of you and whatever you want to be doing at all times.
The search itself. You don’t like it when a person strings you along, so why are you letting the search itself do the very same thing? You don’t have to only put your faith in dating app “success stories.” You’re allowed to believe in the people who never lifted a finger and met someone, too.
In letting go, I gained so much. Not to be dramatic but, (okay fine slightly dramatic) I got my life back. In thinking I had to date until I found someone so that then my life could actually start, and I was so desperate for my life to start, I’d narrowed my life’s focus down to a space so small that all I could see was swiping, dating, searching, trying. Try try try try try try try. You can’t stop, or that’s giving up. You can’t be single, because that’s sad. Your life isn’t real until you find someone, so it’s your responsibility to date until you find someone—and you can’t stop until you do, no matter how punishing the experience. Nothing can begin until you find someone. Go go go! These fucking lies, you guys. Let go of them. You’re allowed to.
I don’t want anyone to “give up on love” or “swear off men” or anything as ridiculous and unnecessary as that. I don’t want us to stop wanting relationships, I want us to start living our real, valid, single lives. I want us to stop seeing those things as two feelings that can’t coexist. I don’t see giving up in letting go of what’s been really, really difficult. I see happiness, fullness, opportunity, possibility, creativity, authenticity, and fun. You’re telling me those things sound worse than dating?
Live how you want. But if you’ve been trying to find someone, taking advice, and coming home after dates disappointed for far longer than a human being should be expected to, you’re who I want to talk to. You’re who I’m interested in. I don’t know where the fuck you’ll meet your husband. And please don’t pay anyone who says they can show you. But I do know where you are, where I was, and I know that our happy, abundant, and valid lives are a lot easier to find than someone else has ever been. Beyond that, I trust that the right relationships will find me, because while I’m not in charge of the future, I am worthy, lovable, and alive. So are you.
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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.