In the introduction to this blog, I warned that I might say things that defy conventional wisdom. Well here's one example. The single life is not, as you might expect, all about meeting people.
You might think so, with all the hype you hear around you. Your friends and family are always asking if you've met someone yet (and offering to arrange a meeting if not). Subscription-based matchmaking services make billions of dollars every year providing creative and even scientific ways of getting people to meet each other. Hundreds of organizations put together singles events, often with a fee, to provide a forum for people to meet each other. Social networking sites rake in buckets of ad revenue, all surrounding people that are meeting each other. Bars and nightclubs around the world look forward to each weekend, knowing that lost singles are going to come by and pound drinks back until the wee hours of the morning, all driven by a desire to meet people. If you add it all up, the money behind the business of meeting is staggering.
"What's wrong with that?" you ask. "As a single, I want to meet someone so I don't have to be single anymore, damnit!" Yes, of course, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. If the options in your daily life are limited, and you do eventually want to find that special someone, you will need to expand the pool and meet more people. But it's not about meeting people. Let me explain.
We all meet people everyday, but the differentiator we're talking about is whether a person we meet can be considered a romantic option. That is a very complicated formula which changes from moment to moment. Ever tried to aim at a moving target? Think about the last time you were trying to swat a fly or mosquito in mid-air. Frustrating, isn't it? It's the same thing when it comes to finding the right person at the right time. When you become preoccupied with finding the right setting to meet someone, it just adds to the frustration each time you come away having not met them.
The perspective you must take, then, is simply that you'll have a good time, whether or not you actually meet anyone. So, go ahead and attend that book club if you really do have a deep-seated interest in analyzing the soul of Emily Dickinson, or attend that mixed martial arts demonstration if you are truly interested in studying the finer arts of causing physical pain. But if you're going simply because you think you'll meet someone, and wouldn't be caught dead in the place otherwise, do yourself a favor and don't go. What if you show up and find that the club is composed entirely of women that look like your ex-girlfriend's grandmother, or that the MMA demonstration is attended by guys who look like your ex-boyfriend's scary half-brother? You'll sulk through that whole session, looking at your watch, wishing you had opted to spend your time on something much more pleasurable, like cleaning out the fish bowl. Even worse, what if you run into one of those women or men a month later at the grocery store and are asked why you never came back after that first meeting. Awk-ward.
There's another negative side effect of this compulsive need to meet — desperation. In a recent relationship article I read (yes, I do read them — call it research), the author, Dr. Gilda Carle, stated "The irony of love is that those who are not desperate for it find it readily. Those who are overly anxious for it can end up alone." A harsh statement, but generally true according to several of my married friends. It's very easy to become desperate when years go by with no results in the love department. But the focus should be on loving life, and doing the things you love, not finding the one to love. Does this low-key attitude guarantee that you will find love faster? Not at all. It is still a possibility that you will never meet the right person. However, at least you'll be doing things you enjoy, and if you just so happen to meet someone doing that same thing you enjoy...that's icing on the cake. Common interests are a good way to start a relationship.
1/26/2011
Tip #1: Love yourself
This is the first and most important step in coping with a single life that goes on forever. If you can't do this, none of what I say from this point forward is going to matter. As a single adult, you must learn to love yourself first, because the person you'll be spending most of your time with is the person you see in the mirror.
I don't mean that you don't have a social life. Indeed, you probably are — and definitely should be — whittling hours away with other folks. You might even live in a big city, have a roommate, carpool or use public transportation to get to your job, and work in teams so that "alone time" is quite rare. That's not what I'm talking about. You can feel lonely even in a crowd, even when engaged in conversation when the conversation is about surface topics like the weather, current events, work, sports, politics, and other things that allow you to stay comfortably behind your shield. A shield is not necessarily a bad thing. In some ways, we must have shields to protect ourselves from bad people who look to exploit the weak for their own selfish gain.
But that shield isn't who you are as a person, deep inside. We have our vulnerabilities, our shadows, our skeletons that we don't share publicly. A caring and supportive significant other can be instrumental in bringing your dark patches into the light and helping you work through those issues in ways you could never do on your own. Likewise you, as a caring and supportive partner, would (should) return the favor.
But what happens when you don't have a caring and supportive person to lean on? Well, in that case, you only have yourself. In fact, I would venture to say that self-love starts with yourself even if you do have a significant other, because human beings are flawed creatures, and no one human being can rely on another human being to completely fulfill their needs. This step to love oneself may be extraordinarily difficult for some people, especially those inclined to negative thinking. You may be your own worst critic. You know all the bad things that you did, thought, or said. You have dirt on yourself that would send you into a pit of shame and infamy if it ever came out into the open. You may hate yourself for all the mistakes and missed opportunities that have shaped your life for years. In extreme cases, your self-loathing may have snowballed to a point where you thought about doing harm to yourself.
That's the kind of thinking you must stop immediately! Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses. Look at the positive aspects of you: talents you have that others don't have, qualities of your personality that make certain people like hanging around you instead of running for the hills, emotional gifts that you can and are willing to offer others. Stop dwelling on what was and concentrate on who you are now. If you can't even love yourself, what makes you think other people will want to love you?
I can hear someone laughing already, saying "Here we go. Another one of those 'positive-thinking' morons." In fact, that someone sounds an awful lot like me. No, I'm not saying "think positive." I'm saying "choose to like yourself." We can't control who likes us, but we can control who we like, and we can choose to like ourselves.
Personal note: I can't wrap up this entry without mentioning this at least once. I personally believe that no human being is born with the innate fortitude to completely love oneself. The power to do that, I believe, comes from beyond the physical realm. I believe it ultimately requires the assistance of a spiritual guide. I respect that many people don't believe that, and that they think they are perfectly capable of reaching this point of self-love completely on their own without any help. Maybe they can, but I never had that kind of strength in my own life. I needed help and still do today.
I don't mean that you don't have a social life. Indeed, you probably are — and definitely should be — whittling hours away with other folks. You might even live in a big city, have a roommate, carpool or use public transportation to get to your job, and work in teams so that "alone time" is quite rare. That's not what I'm talking about. You can feel lonely even in a crowd, even when engaged in conversation when the conversation is about surface topics like the weather, current events, work, sports, politics, and other things that allow you to stay comfortably behind your shield. A shield is not necessarily a bad thing. In some ways, we must have shields to protect ourselves from bad people who look to exploit the weak for their own selfish gain.
But that shield isn't who you are as a person, deep inside. We have our vulnerabilities, our shadows, our skeletons that we don't share publicly. A caring and supportive significant other can be instrumental in bringing your dark patches into the light and helping you work through those issues in ways you could never do on your own. Likewise you, as a caring and supportive partner, would (should) return the favor.
But what happens when you don't have a caring and supportive person to lean on? Well, in that case, you only have yourself. In fact, I would venture to say that self-love starts with yourself even if you do have a significant other, because human beings are flawed creatures, and no one human being can rely on another human being to completely fulfill their needs. This step to love oneself may be extraordinarily difficult for some people, especially those inclined to negative thinking. You may be your own worst critic. You know all the bad things that you did, thought, or said. You have dirt on yourself that would send you into a pit of shame and infamy if it ever came out into the open. You may hate yourself for all the mistakes and missed opportunities that have shaped your life for years. In extreme cases, your self-loathing may have snowballed to a point where you thought about doing harm to yourself.
That's the kind of thinking you must stop immediately! Focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses. Look at the positive aspects of you: talents you have that others don't have, qualities of your personality that make certain people like hanging around you instead of running for the hills, emotional gifts that you can and are willing to offer others. Stop dwelling on what was and concentrate on who you are now. If you can't even love yourself, what makes you think other people will want to love you?
I can hear someone laughing already, saying "Here we go. Another one of those 'positive-thinking' morons." In fact, that someone sounds an awful lot like me. No, I'm not saying "think positive." I'm saying "choose to like yourself." We can't control who likes us, but we can control who we like, and we can choose to like ourselves.
Personal note: I can't wrap up this entry without mentioning this at least once. I personally believe that no human being is born with the innate fortitude to completely love oneself. The power to do that, I believe, comes from beyond the physical realm. I believe it ultimately requires the assistance of a spiritual guide. I respect that many people don't believe that, and that they think they are perfectly capable of reaching this point of self-love completely on their own without any help. Maybe they can, but I never had that kind of strength in my own life. I needed help and still do today.
1/22/2011
"I'll never get married!"
You thought it, said it, and/or heard someone else say it at some point in life. Then you found your one true love and now you don't need to say it anymore. Mazeltov!
This blog is not for you.
But perhaps you're one of those people who still think it, say it, and hear other people say it.
It grates on you every time Mom asks, "Have you found anyone...special yet?" or your friends say, "Have you met somebody yet?" or your mentors say "Have you been getting out more lately?"
You're reminded of it with every wedding invitation you receive and every bachelor party or bridal shower you attend, from people substantially younger than you, from high school classmates on their second or third wedding before you've even had your first.
You graduated college with a goal of getting married before you were25 27 30 34 40 before you died. You haven't been too picky, you're not bad-looking, you're in good financial shape, but somehow your plans haven't shaped up the way you expected. There's no explanation, no reason, no one thing you can point to and say "If I fix this, it will all turn around." You've tried your hardest, but your efforts have only resulted in frustration and disappointment, failure after failure.
"I'll never get married!" you cry.
You have every right to be angry. Life isn't fair. Slowly but surely, the mounting pressure of time, the noise from those you love, and your inability to deliver are leading you down into the bottomless abyss of defeatism, hopelessness, despair, and bitterness. Slowly but surely.
If you're one of those people, then this blog IS for you.
How do you deal with a single life that goes on and on and on and on and on and on without shutting yourself into a cave of your own design? How do you keep the faith when you've been missing every shot, striking out every at bat, dropping every pass, shanking every kick? How do you avoid succumbing to what appears to be the inevitable conclusion that love is not for you? Good for others, but not you.
That's what this blog is for — strategies for coping with a single life that goes on forever. It isn't from a self-help book, a sex therapist, a matchmaking service, or a counselor that's been happily married for 50 years. It won't tell you how to make yourself more attractive or what you must do to find the love of your life. It's simply relating experiences that work in forming an attitude and perspective that will help you survive each day you go without a special someone in your life. It defies conventional wisdom in some places, affirms it in others. Some of these tips will be practical in your situation; some won't be. Only you know what you can apply and what you can't.
Full disclosure: I am a heterosexual male in his 30s who has never been in a serious romantic relationship, married or otherwise. Thus, my views will undoubtedly be biased by this background and may not exactly fit the psyche of those who fall out of these categories. However, at some level, we are all human beings dealing with the same emotions, so I hope that will provide enough common ground to make these posts relevant to many who struggle with the eternal single life.
This blog is not for you.
But perhaps you're one of those people who still think it, say it, and hear other people say it.
It grates on you every time Mom asks, "Have you found anyone...special yet?" or your friends say, "Have you met somebody yet?" or your mentors say "Have you been getting out more lately?"
You're reminded of it with every wedding invitation you receive and every bachelor party or bridal shower you attend, from people substantially younger than you, from high school classmates on their second or third wedding before you've even had your first.
You graduated college with a goal of getting married before you were
"I'll never get married!" you cry.
You have every right to be angry. Life isn't fair. Slowly but surely, the mounting pressure of time, the noise from those you love, and your inability to deliver are leading you down into the bottomless abyss of defeatism, hopelessness, despair, and bitterness. Slowly but surely.
If you're one of those people, then this blog IS for you.
How do you deal with a single life that goes on and on and on and on and on and on without shutting yourself into a cave of your own design? How do you keep the faith when you've been missing every shot, striking out every at bat, dropping every pass, shanking every kick? How do you avoid succumbing to what appears to be the inevitable conclusion that love is not for you? Good for others, but not you.
That's what this blog is for — strategies for coping with a single life that goes on forever. It isn't from a self-help book, a sex therapist, a matchmaking service, or a counselor that's been happily married for 50 years. It won't tell you how to make yourself more attractive or what you must do to find the love of your life. It's simply relating experiences that work in forming an attitude and perspective that will help you survive each day you go without a special someone in your life. It defies conventional wisdom in some places, affirms it in others. Some of these tips will be practical in your situation; some won't be. Only you know what you can apply and what you can't.
Full disclosure: I am a heterosexual male in his 30s who has never been in a serious romantic relationship, married or otherwise. Thus, my views will undoubtedly be biased by this background and may not exactly fit the psyche of those who fall out of these categories. However, at some level, we are all human beings dealing with the same emotions, so I hope that will provide enough common ground to make these posts relevant to many who struggle with the eternal single life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)