Learning To Love Being Single

Sometimes being single is a blessing, and at other times it is a total curse. It's a blessing when you get to chose what movie to watch without having to consider the feelings of a partner who doesn't like romance/blood and gore, or when you want to read in bed without worrying about having to turn the light out because he 'can't sleep with that damn light on.' It's also nice not to have to constantly put the toilet seat down, or explain why wet towels don't live on the floor, or why its not okay that he just spent your last $40.00 on a lava lamp and a bag of onions, or that you hope she has a nice recipe for leather, because those shoes she just bought on your credit card used up the last of your disposable grocery money.

Then again, there are the times when you're lonely, and all you want is to be held by a nice boy or girl and make sweet sweet love all night long. It seems as if everything would be okay if only you had a partner, someone to share the load with, someone to pleasure you when you wanted pleasuring, someone who would make you laugh when you were down and dry your tears when you cried.

When those times come around, you can take heart by reminding yourself that nobody like that actually exists. After the first frantic splurge of love making, most couples tail off to between two and zero, yes, you read that right, zero times per week. When you're in a relationship, its much more likely that any tears you shed will be because of your dolt of a partner, and that they're more likely to be out with friends, shopping, watching the game, or furtively arranging to meet an ex than to be drying any tears you might happen to shed.

Does this sound cynical? Sure does, but it more accurately represents reality than the sugar coated fantasies that single people torture themselves with whilst waiting for that perfect partner to come along. Fact of the matter is, no matter who you end up with, they are going to be just as needy as you are, just as full of flaws, just as likely to forget to pay the power bill, just as likely to be unfaithful, and those romantic road trips are only likely to occur once or twice before you both get to the point where you can't stand to be in the car with one another for more than an hour at a time.

The void you feel inside yourself is not caused by being single, and it won't go away if you get married and start popping out kids. Fact of the matter is, if you're not happy with yourself now, that's not going to change magically just because you now have 2.5 mini versions of yourself running around scrawling on the wallpaper and throwing up on the new carpet.

You're probably familiar with the sort of women who go on talk shows like 'Oprah'. In their forties, with their kids starting to become increasingly independent, they suddenly freak out saying things like 'I don't know who I am anymore', and 'I lost myself in being a mom'. Fact of the matter is, there's a pretty decent chance that they never knew who they were to begin with, and that fifteen years ago they were simply relived to find someone to marry and have kids with, thinking that would make them feel better, thinking that the niggling ache inside their hearts would be assuaged by becoming a wife and mother. The same applies to men too, of course, but they tend to be less vocal about it, and more likely to have an affair with a twenty year old secretary.

Enjoy being single, because it is your opportunity to truly discover yourself, and to learn to live with yourself, and love yourself. If someone comes along and you fall in love, that's wonderful. But if you have learned to love yourself first, and to truly enjoy your own company, and appreciate what you can give yourself and do for yourself, then you can truly enjoy your relationships with others, because you're not being driven to them out of the fear of being alone, and the desperate hope that somehow the relationship will 'fix' you.

Love is a wonderful thing, but the old adage has never been more true. You must love yourself first before you can truly love another.