Being single in during the holiday season is hard. Not because you’re sad or lonely, but because every other bastard assumes you are. No matter what you say, how earnestly you stress to family members ‘no, I really do enjoy being single,’ you can never escape the patronising half-smile response that tells you: no one believes a word you’re saying.
Not even Emma Watson, with all her success, can escape the judgement: so much so that she’s taken to calling herself ‘self-partnered’ as oppose to single. ‘It took me a long time, but I’m very happy [being single]. I call it being self-partnered,’ she told British Vogue this week.
It’s understandable why, after all the word single implies you’re alone, and being alone implies your unhappy. Self-partnered on the other hand, sounds as if you’re fulfilling your own needs in the way we typically expect from another person.
But isn’t it sad? That a word used to describe someone without a romantic partner has been reduced to such false, pathetic tropes when it adequately describes over one third of the UK population? Are 34% of us really just lonely, miserable bastards?
Not as far as single people are concerned. Contrary to popular belief, being single is a not a curse burdened by the unlovable. In fact, a 2017 study found that 61% of single women are very happy with their relationship status – and 75% do not actively seek a partner.
It seems that actually, the negative perceptions of singledom are being drawn from those in relationships rather than those actually single. And while some of those assumptions may come from people so happy in their relationship that anyone else MUST be unhappy alone – it seems likely it also comes from a place of fear.
When you’re in a relationship, it's so easy to be illogically clouded by love and lust to the point where losing it can seem like the worst possible outcome. Being single then, as a result, can sound terrifying. Naturally, that fear is then placed on to the single friends and family members that represent everything people in love are scared of.
And because when we’re in love we are so consumed by it, it’s understandable why no one would believe a single person when they say they’re actually happy: because people in love often can’t possibly imagine a world where their just as content without their partner.
Of course, it depends on the person. Some of us might be aware that actually, time does heal all wounds and you will be happy without your partner eventually (or, just know that they don’t need their relationship to be happy) - but when society places huge pressures on getting married and following the traditional family route, it’s clear that losing the potential to fulfil a goal we place on a pedestal can be terrifying.
Actually, what we should be doing is recognising that getting married and having children as part of a typical family dynamic isn’t the be and end all of life. Finding one person to share your world with isn’t the ultimate key to being happy. When you’re secure single, life can be just as great as when you're partnered up - if not better.
We are all surrounded by people who fulfil our needs in different ways, be it colleagues who provide intellectual conversation, family members who provide unconditional love or friends who bring us fun and humour. In fact, over the course of our lives we are often loved much more unconditionally by those people than those we are romantically attached to. And while some friends and family demand certain things of you, in the main those relationships demand much less of you than romantic partners do.
Being free from commitment and the burdens relationships can bring, but still receiving the love and validation of friends and family, makes for a happy, stress-free life much of the time. At least, that’s what 61% of single women have clearly found.
And then you also have the time to realise the other life achievements that will bring you happiness, whether it’s career success, giving back to others or just finding small pleasures in everyday life.
It’s time we stop assuming that finding a ‘one true love’ is a sure-fire way to live a fulfilled life and stop treating being ‘single’ as a dirty word. When the majority of women are perfectly happy without the pleasures and pain relationships can bring, perhaps it’s time to look inwards and realise that everything you think is wrong with being single comes from your own insecurities, not theirs.
Read More: