Originally published October 2023
What even is self worth? Has anyone ever defined it for you? Have you ever defined it for yourself? If not, save any stressed feelings for your next murder podcast, you won’t need them here. Right now, you’re in exactly the right place, at exactly the right time, you’re not doing anything wrong, and you’re not behind in any way. We’ll walk through the meaning of self worth together. I hope that the next time you scroll past a social media post mentioning self worth, you won’t have to rely on a meme to define meaning. I think self worth means the most when we figure it out for ourselves, anyway.
In my view, self worth is the understanding of one’s own value and right to authentically exist in the world. It’s our inherent permission to move through life without apologizing for all the ways you naturally think and behave. The knowledge that your existence is not an imposition upon humanity, that you are not a burden. Self worth is available to you–whether you’re establishing it for the first time or reclaiming it from societal single shaming and a dating culture that want to rob you of it at every opportunity.
I think single women should do what we want with our adulthood. I think we should spend it working, building, creating, interacting, learning, resting, enjoying, making choices that are important to us, doing the things that light us up. I don’t think single women should spend our adulthood under the weight of singlehood sadness or presumed partnership pursuit obligation, and the diminished self worth that can result from both. I don’t want us to spend our lives lacking and longing for one thing we don’t have, pressured to fix something about us that isn’t actually wrong. You don’t have to spend your one actual life assuming you’re less-than or less whole just because you don’t share a bed with someone.
Of all the things in the content creation world that annoy me (and there are many), my least favorite might be hollow advice that sounds nice in theory but when put into practice crumbles like a sandcastle meeting a wave. Other work created specifically for singles is almost entirely limited to “dating tips” for use in a dating culture that’s slowly dissolving in battery acid. I want to help single women feel better, all the time, and I think we deserve support that actually works.
It’s been years now, and I still never know what to say when someone asks me what I do for a living. I typically say “I’m a writer and podcaster,” but inevitably that’s followed with, “Oh, so what do you write? What’s your podcast about?” And honestly, “I’m changing the narrative around how single women are viewed and treated, I’m also working toward improving the ways we respect ourselves, so that we can see the value in singlehood while we have it, as opposed to feeding into a modern dating culture that perpetuates negativity while stealing our sanity and money” takes too long to say. They’re already looking over the top of their cocktail at the person they came with, eyebrows raised. Then I get a wilted “Oh…that’s great” in response that never leaves me with a lot of dignity. I do this for a living and it still stings when someone’s shame narratives around singlehood happen in front of my face.
I’ve realized that I get stuck on the description of my work because I’m trying to make other people understand and praise it, when instead I should focus on simply being proud of it myself. See? There’s your first example of self worth in action. Here’s what I’m going to say from now on:
I give single women permission and tools to enjoy their lives.
You wouldn’t think we need these things, but we do. They haven’t been widely distributed before. Instead, all we’ve been raised and socially groomed with are messages that tell us how pitiful, wrong, and undesirable single life is. We’re programmed to avoid it at all costs, tunneling our vision to a singular focus: find a partner. Maybe if “finding someone” was even remotely as enjoyable or easy as we were led to believe it would be, changing the narrative wouldn’t have dawned on me. But I looked around after a decade of struggle-laiden singlehood and finally asked myself what the fuck I was doing, and more importantly: why.
I was destroying myself in the dating space because I’d never been given permission to stop — by me or anyone else. Not only did I not know how to stop, I didn’t know stopping was allowed. I thought you had to date until you found a partner, which meant I wrote off all the difficulty, disappointment, frustration, and pain of dating as simply the “way things are.” Isn’t that maddening? I never thought to question how awful dating was because I was so trained to believe my participation was required. Dating is not a prerequisite for partnership. More on that in my book.
Something’s not right. There’s a space in between a single woman’s capacity for self worth, and what the world reflects back to her as her value in society. They’re like two puzzle pieces that don’t fit together, and the void between them is the space where I work. The pieces don’t fit together because one of them is lying. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks of single women, or how it portrays us, or where it seats us at a wedding. Our value is infinite, our self worth is within our exclusive possession, and it is my job to prove that to you — even better, to help you learn to prove it to yourself.
For those of us who haven’t found partnership through dating — even after a decade of it, hi — we deserve another outcome, one that isn’t societally viewed as throwing in the towel and committing to singlehood for all time, because that’s pure, unnecessary nonsense. When the preferable course of action is us continuing to slog through hell into infinity, lest we face the shame and stigma of being someone who “just couldn’t seem to make it happen,” instead of shining some of that sour spotlight on dating culture itself, as a society we have work to do in terms of the ways we think about, talk about, and treat single women. I think that work starts with the ways we think about and treat ourselves, and I also think those things really start to change when we connect with our sense of self worth — when we start to understand that our worth has nothing to do with our relationship status, and never did. From there, we become reflections of how single women will require society to treat us moving forward.
I think we stay distanced from permission to love our lives, just as they are, because our self worth is so tethered to whether or not other people want us, approve of us, choose us. That desire to be chosen unfortunately also tethers us to a dating culture that’s deeply frustrating, disappointing, and disproportionately difficult. So here’s your permission, your validation, your acknowledgement that you’re not failing, you’re not unwanted, you’re not wrong — you’re just single, and there’s a difference.
When we talk about the independence of women, we’re typically still talking about it financially — make all the money you want, be independent fiscally and theoretically, but what’s the point of all that success if you don’t have “someone to share it with?” We’re taught to take care of ourselves and be independent, but never to actually enjoy a life lived alone. It’s a terrible narrative that makes success feel unsatisfying, rest feel uncomfortable, and our accomplishments feel less real, unless they’re all paired with partnership. Fucking hell.
***
At the risk of sounding exceptionally cheesy, you’re allowed to do more than just “accept” your single life — you’re allowed to love it, too. My work (hopefully) supports a narrative where a single woman’s adulthood isn’t an “alternative” way to live, or “good enough” for her, as though she somehow deserves a lesser version of good. I am ready for a world where a single adulthood, or seasons of singlehood that we experience as adults, are seen and treated as entirely real and whole, and experienced as something just as abundant and joyful as couplehood. I’m ready for a world where every relationship status is celebrated, praised, and enjoyed in equal measure.
It was never just about being single, it was always about what that said to us, about us. Without self worth, it’s really easy for society to convince you that your worth is supposed to be lower than other people’s. Beyond that, it’s easy to adopt the idea that your worth is tied to your romantic relationships, and is therefore nonexistent when you don’t have one. Singlehood is fantastic, valid, and precious–we know this now, but…what’s next? What’s going to sink deeper and go beyond reframing our mindsets, and start supporting these new perspectives as we lean into living a life that has just as much value and realness as partnered ones?
I think it’s self worth. Self worth is what supports you when you feel drawn to re-download a dating app that you’ve spent countless years and dollars on for nothing because you know that your time and money are more valuable than the never-ending “maybe” that dating apps have become. Self worth helps you decline a second date you don’t want to attend because you know that your intuition isn’t useless just because it belongs to someone who is single. You also know that you are not required to do things you don’t want to do just so someone else’s feelings aren’t infringed upon in any way. Self worth knows your feelings matter just as much and they don’t permanently have to come in second place. Self worth goes with you to family holiday gatherings and doesn’t let the entire dinner table degrade you for being “still” single when there’s nothing about your family members’ partnered statuses that mean they’re perfect. While I’m on the topic of family, self worth refuses to be sat at the kids’ table or sleep on the couch when couples get bedrooms, too — because your single self deserves just as much respect and privacy as any other adult. Self worth is how you stop participating in the negative narratives we don’t deserve. Self worth is also how we change them.
I used to feel that my singlehood was holding me back from starting the “real” part of my life, that I was somehow tethered to a starting line while all my friends were partnering up so that they could start running the race. Then I watched them lap me, over and over again as they got engaged, went on trips, got married, bought homes, all the incredibly predictable things people do when they start operating on a double income. I spent ten years of my adulthood waiting for permission for my life to start — which was of course a man coming into my life and making me feel wanted, approved, and fully “adult.” Because of course I believed I wasn’t a real grown up yet without a husband, how many examples had I been fed of that bullshit since childhood? Then there were the practical aspects reinforcing those limiting beliefs, all the things I watched the couples in my life do that I simply couldn’t afford. There actually is a big difference between splitting rent and not splitting rent, though I know if you’re reading this, you’re already well aware of that.
Self worth is the center of singlehood reframing. Without it, no amount of broadening your mindset or shifting your perspective will quiet the pull inside of you that thinks you’re not “doing enough” to “find someone.” Without self worth, changing your opinions on singlehood is just a temporary band-aid over the lack and longing, and it’ll be ripped off the next time you see someone get proposed to on social media. Without self worth, we will continually ask ourselves the question that minimizes all the reframing work we just did: “Okay, being single isn’t bad, I get it. I don’t have to date if it’s a bad experience for me, but…where the hell is my partner?! How do I find them?!” That frantic, partnership-centering panic we’re all familiar with.
I’m not asking, nor will I ever ask, the single community to stop wanting partnership and love. I want love, I look forward to love, and I’d never tell anyone that they don’t deserve what they authentically want. This is never about curing ourselves of wanting love. But what about de-centering the pursuit of it? It’s my belief that the pursuit of love is what sucks about singlehood, not singlehood itself. Trying to find something for years on end without results has the ability to make us profoundly unhappy — of course it does. That doesn’t mean our only option is to keep searching for something forever. It is okay, wonderful even, to believe there are other ways you’re allowed to spend your time.
We’re allowed to search less, live more, and meet people anyway. There is nothing about who we are that lowers our value as human beings. Our singlehood is not an indication of flaw or wrongdoing, not when we know this many couples who met by accident. We are not “getting in our own way” by being our authentic selves — we’re living the unique lives we were meant for. What if the time we spend single isn’t a time of lack or failure, but a time of protection? A space to connect with ourselves before connecting with future partners? Is that not allowed to be true? We’ve let some total bullshit dating advice be true before so yeah, I think we can give a little self worth a try. Self worth is what helped me stop dating and stop panicking, and I want the same for you.
***
You can always tell if you’ve reframed singlehood for yourself by how you feel about it when you’re bored. If you’re sitting at home on a quiet morning or (clutches pearls) a Saturday night, and you don’t feel compelled to pick up a dating app or wallow in self-pity for being alone, or take some other action to try and “find someone” — when singlehood no longer enters your mind as a negative when you’re in your most doing-nothing state, then you’ve done it. You’ve reframed the way you feel about being single, you’ve found worth and value in your singlehood rather than shame, you’ve de-centered the search for someone else, and you’ve graduated from Shani’s School Of Singlehood, which isn’t a real thing but can you imagine?
Also, if you find that you’re feeling good and proud about how you’ve shifted your singlehood perspective, and later discover that you still experience moments of sadness, loneliness, or urgency, congratulations, you’re human. This isn’t about achieving a perfection that doesn’t exist. Perfection doesn’t need to exist in order for a single person to live a life that’s a hell of a lot more enjoyable than the one we’ve seen reflected back to us. This isn’t about curing ourselves of ever being unhappy. It’s about not letting one thing you don’t have run your actual life.
I think the way you’ll know that what you’re about to read has really resonated with you is if you stop feeling perpetually compelled to ask yourself or anyone else, “How do I meet someone?” Not when you stop wanting to meet someone, or stop looking forward to meeting someone, but when it is no longer a sick feeling, a pressure, an internal drive that simply cannot be fed by anything other than finding a partner at any cost. When “finding someone,” stops consuming so much of your time and focus, and your energy starts flowing much more easily into living whatever life you want to create for yourself — when that happens, I hope you’re very proud of what you’ve done, because you’ve connected with your self worth, despite so much societal effort to keep you from it. If it feels miraculous to you I wouldn’t be surprised, because I believe single women are told ad nauseam how much lower on life’s ladder they are, and you — you miracle — are climbing it regardless.
In my opinion, a single person living securely in self worth doesn’t keep their head on a swivel while out in public, constantly scanning for potentials. A valid single person doesn’t need to know precisely who will be at a party and who each person will potentially be bringing, before they decide if the event is target-rich enough to attend. A content single person doesn’t go to the grocery store and scan the aisles as though stalking prey–they just go to get sparkling water and snacks like everybody else. They also don’t consider an evening or an outing a failure if they didn’t find someone to imagine a future with. I believe this because when I had zero self worth, I did all of them. Since I’ve reframed singlehood for myself and connected with my sense of self worth as it relates to romantic love and so much more, all of these scenarios seem unfathomable to me. But at one time, they were real.
I didn’t say I was embarrassed of all the things my low self worth used to lead to. I don’t see a benefit to me in bearing even more shame. I reframed embarrassment, too, so that now I’m able to value my past as part of what led me to where I am now. I can see it for its educational value, I can thank it for being a part of my story, and I can hopefully use it to help others feel less alone, too. Embarrassed? Fuck that, I’m motivated.
Self worth changes the way you look at the world around you, and even how you choose to participate in it. Life becomes so much less about “finding someone,” and so much more about leaning into joy, pleasure, curiosity, work, friendships, growth–pretty much anything other than the pursuit of partnership. And as much as I love being one person who doesn’t focus…kind of at all on “finding someone,” I would be telling less truth by omitting the fact that pursuing joy, pleasure, curiosity, work, friendships, and growth are all great ways to connect with new people.
Why do I even care whether or not you actively pursue partnership? Honestly, if you enjoy pursuing partnership, if it’s fun for you and you’re having whatever you deem to be success while doing it, keep going. As ever, I’m not speaking to those who love dating, I’m speaking to people dating has kicked the shit out of.
I’m speaking to those who have spent years, even decades, in pursuit of a partner without ever finding one. It’s for people driven mad, those pushed to exhaustion by frustration, disappointment, and nothingness. It’s for those who have experienced the furthest extremes of unfair. Those who resent people they don’t want to resent, all for committing the crime of falling in love, building a family, or both, while you simply cannot find a human being to love and be loved by. It’s an unfathomable disconnect, and we may never know precisely why it’s been so hard for some of us and so effortless for others. But it’s not my job to sort that out, it’s my job to approach the way we feel from an angle that has nothing to do with anyone other than ourselves.
If you don’t want to live scowling at people holding hands on sidewalks and kissing each other hello at restaurants, if that’s not the kind of person you want to be…same. It’s my belief that when we connect with our sense of self worth, the world stops reflecting jealousy back to us, and starts to show us possibility and optimism instead. I don’t know about you but I lived as a jealous, hateful, bitter single person who was one friend partnering up away from slamming her head through glass for ten entire years. I don’t live that way anymore, and I am grateful every day for the way I reframed my thinking–because that’s all that changed, I’ve changed, and I didn’t have to “meet someone” first. I didn’t “find love,” I didn’t “give up,” I just changed the way I think, and therefore feel, about being single, and life is wildly better now. Life is the kind of better I was taught only partnership could provide.
Sometimes people ask me, in both nice and not-nice ways, why I even do this. Why bother speaking to single women, largely believed to be a temporary population? I do this because we have to hear it now, before we partner, because I have seen and heard of far too many women entering wrong partnerships for the sake of escaping singlehood. Singlehood is never, ever worse than a bad or even mediocre relationship, but if all you ever saw were societal messages about how shameful singlehood is and how a relationship — any relationship — saves you from being a pathetic, unwanted, sad, desperate loser, you might not know it, and you might marry someone you shouldn’t. You might build a life, a business, or a family with someone you shouldn’t. I’m not scared to acknowledge that this happens. I’m far more afraid of it continuing to happen, especially when it doesn’t need to. I do this work because prevention is better than a cure.
Life gets to be better than the world tells us singlehood should be. This doesn’t have to suck. Single life is just as valid and good as the partnered existence we’ve been groomed to prize. The world doesn’t want us to like singlehood because the world is far more comfortable with a woman partnered. Patriarchal messages and standards fear a happy single woman moving freely in the breeze as though she’s some sort of flaming, untethered kite with teeth.
This gets to be good, and I think self worth is a huge part of how we discover and enjoy that good; by defining for ourselves what we deserve, how much we value partnership, and why that value can’t be more in balance with how we value literally everything else. I think we’ve blown up the value of romantic relationships and devalued being single down to nothing because we’ve been trained to do so by a society that doesn’t give a shit about single women unless it can find an opportunity to take their money.
We’re painted pathetic, desperate, angry, unattractive, difficult, all the things a woman in matching family holiday pajamas beaming into the camera would never be, right? We’re seen as unwanted extras, making table settings uneven and cocktail parties awkward because no one knows what the hell to talk about with us other than “How’s your love life going?” and that’s somehow seen as a mark against our value rather than their social skills. When the world looks at you with pity, and expects you to look at the partnered population of the planet with envy, that tells me all I need to know about how society values single women. Because me looking upon married women with pity and expecting their envy of me in return is considered rude, while the reverse is a completely okay societal norm. Not in this house.
Misconceptions about who, what, and why we are grow through society like stubborn vines.
Single? You must be bad at relationships.
Single? You’re probably doing dating wrong.
Single? You’re too independent.
Single? You’re too picky.
Single? Why doesn’t anyone want you?
The wonderful truth is that when you have a solid sense of self worth, you don’t give a shit about any of it. The opinions of others that relate to a singlehood that belongs to you matter very little if at all. The opinions of others also start to say much more about the person saying them than they could ever say about you.
I hope you know how vital it is to understand and live the value of single life while you have it, and that singlehood is too precious to give up for anyone other than the right people for you. I hope you know that your singlehood doesn’t decrease your value, no matter when or for how long in life it occurs. I hope you know that a miserable grind through dating culture for years on end is not required of you before you’re somehow worthy of love via “enough” suffering. I hope you know that feeling better, feeling so good about your singlehood, is real — and possible. I hope you know you have permission to enjoy being alive — not only after you “find someone,” but right now, too. I hope you know that what we are isn’t bad — it is precious. You are precious. You are worthy. You are not alone.
My book, A Single Revolution: Don’t look for a match — light one, here.
Book links are affiliate links.