I want to start this article by saying: there’s nothing wrong with being single at any age, as long as someone wants to be single and makes it a conscious choice.
For me however that has never been the case. I always longed to find that special someone, a loving teammate who would walk through life alongside me. Someone to share my most intimate thoughts, emotions, and life experiences with, who understood me and saw me for who I was. I was always looking for my match in every romantic encounter I had. Yet I never did. I had love stories, but none of them lasted past the 3-year mark. And so when I reached that big milestone 30 I was left to wonder why.
A few months ago when I opened my Audible App it gave me a book recommendation that said “How to Not Die Alone” by Logan Ury and it made me feel so humiliated that I immediately deleted it, but not before sending a screenshot to my friend saying:
“Wow, even my algorithm thinks I’m miserable now”
How dare my phone call me out like that?
That was 6 months ago. Three months later I turned 30 and while I spent years preparing to be the woman who bursts all the cliches of the 30s birthday freakout, I couldn’t escape this crippling fear of not finding my person in time. And oh, the world isn’t short on reminding me.
Where I’m from, being single at 30 automatically raises questions.
Do you not want a family?
Have you been too picky in the past?
Maybe you should’ve stayed with that last person after all.
And the most important one:
Aren’t you scared of dying alone?
The fact that I started working as a full-time cat sitter in recent years just added to the whole idea of me becoming that old cat lady who couldn’t find a mate.
I hate living in a society that seems to define our whole worth through having a partner and building a family. I hate that we get taught all these awful ideas of a woman spoiling in beauty and attractiveness as soon as we hit 30 and for as long as I can think I have wanted to rebel against those ideas and prove them wrong.
In many ways, I am proving them wrong. As a 30-year-old single, I am living my best life. I have been full time traveling the world for 3 years now, spending months living close to beautiful beaches, meditating in the mountains, and healing my inner child in retreats. Being single brought peace and healing to my life. So I don’t have any complaints.
Life is good, and I agree with all those who call their 30s the land of milk and honey. There is so much more excitement waiting in the next chapter of life — I feel it. I also agree that it is most important to find out what makes us happy in life first, before expecting to find happiness in a relationship, so my years as single were most definitely not wasted. I see them as an investment in myself.
Yet here I am anxious about the fact that even after 12 years of dating, and wanting to find that special person to walk through life together with, I am still alone. The more I read about the experiences of fellow singles my age, both men and women, the more frightened I get at the fact that even though we have more opportunities than ever to meet people and connect, dating in our modern-day world seems to get harder instead of easier, while time passes quicker than ever.
After months of misery, I finally decided to go back and give this book a try, maybe my algorithm does know me better than I think:
“You might think you shouldn’t have to buy a book on love. Love is something effortless, natural, organic. You fall in love, you don’t think your way into it. It’s a spontaneous chemical reaction not a calculated decision. And yet here you are, listening to this book because you want to find love and so far it hasn’t worked out for you..”
Ouch — that hit home.
Listening to this book made me realize the major dating mistakes I made in my 20s and what I will have to work on to change the future outcome.
The following tips are meant to prevent us from the unimaginable faith of spending the rest of our lives alone, searching for that special someone, or drowning in the wild ocean of online dating.
1. Unrealistic relationship ideas
Relationships are hard work, we probably all know that.
Yet many of us — including me — carry this idea that there exists somewhere a perfect match, a soulmate, someone that is by nature so suitable to us, that they intuitively understand us, agree with us on almost anything, and always make us feel good and loved.
In reality though, only someone as determined and manipulative as a narcissist will be able to create an impression of perfection in the early stages of dating, and we all know how that ends. A healthy love, one that withstands time, is something that grows. Close relationships much like family aren’t meant to be perfect and without friction, they are meant to challenge us and reflect back to us where we can learn and evolve.
When we have an unrealistic idea of the perfect relationship it is way too easy to give up with the first big crisis or disagreement, and the overwhelming pool of options we have these days makes it even harder to stay focused on that one relationship we already have in our lives. But to find lasting happiness it is crucial to carry a “Work-it-out”-mindset and learn to build the healthy relationship we want, instead of waiting for it to fall into our laps.
2. Unrealistic expectations of our partners
Speaking of too many options, I read more and more experiences of people who seem to feel option fatigue. This is a problem that might’ve always existed for some of us, yet nowadays with online dating and social media, it’s something we all can experience. Because even when we’ve found someone that we truly like, we can never be sure that there isn’t still someone else out there who could potentially match us even better and that we can have even more “chemistry” with.
Too many of us feel like we want to make sure we’ll find our best option, yet the truth of our dating reality is that even our best option doesn’t guarantee a successful relationship. What is guaranteed though, is that whatever relationship potential we do have with someone will inevitably be destroyed by the constant comparison and chasing for more. If we cannot pause the chase and focus on growing the best option we have at hand, we will never grow any relationship to a meaningful degree.
To me, it seems like those exact tendencies lead to the increasing frustration we see in singles on the dating market these days. Our generation might be the one with the biggest attachment problems, as it’s experiencing the highest rates of loneliness, while the general tonus of dating is to keep our options open to make sure we don’t miss out.
What we are truly missing out on by living this way, is the vulnerability and depth of a true commitment and experience of arriving at a relationship and partner that is “good enough”. Sooner or later we will have to realize that the perfect match is nothing more than a carrot in the sky.
Good enough doesn’t mean settling, it means getting clear on what is truly important for us in a partner and then committing with confidence and contentment, whenever we find that in a person — without spending the rest of our days looking for an upgrade and thereby leaving the door to drama wide open.
3. Unrealistic expectations of ourselves
Another way in which perfectionism paralyzes us and keeps us from finding love and building that relationship we want, is by creating too high expectations for ourselves. So many of us are devoted to self-development work these days and have this idea that we need to have it all figured out before we’re ready to attract the partner that truly suits us.
I am one of those people.
Ever since leaving home at an early age, I swore to myself, that I would be the cycle breaker, and that I would heal and build a life worth sharing before ever thinking about children and a family. While I still stand with that choice and do agree with those that say, we need to find fulfillment in ourselves first, before expecting to be happy in a relationship, I don’t think that we have to stay single until we’re perfectly healed.
My mom once gave me a relationship advice that stuck with me ever since. She said the most important thing to figure out when it comes to seeing if someone is a suitable partner is how the two of you are able to function through crisis. If everything is easy and all is sorted out by the time you meet someone, you will never know for sure if they are able to stick with you through challenges and growth which is an inevitable part of life and any relationship.
The truth is life will never stop challenging us and there will always be a deeper level of healing and a next goal to achieve. A suitable life partner is someone who can stick with us through those times and love us even with our imperfections. So an important mistake to avoid when it comes to dating is the trap of waiting for the perfect time and the perfect moment.
When I devoted myself to being celibate and being on a healing journey a while ago, I had good reasoning for that choice. Yet I learned over the years, that even when we’re not in a relationship or don’t feel ready for it, active dating shouldn’t be neglected as it gives us important time to practice and learn about our preferences, but it also keeps the door open for someone to enter our lives and accompany us along the path of healing.
So the key takeaways to maximize our chances to find that suitable life partner are:
- Date
Set yourself a dateline for when you want to start dating actively and get out there. Don’t wait for the perfect person to approach you at the supermarket line. Dating Apps can be very useful if we know how to use them. Make sure to put intention into your profile or appearance to increase your chances of appealing to the kind of person you desire to attract. - Commit
Get clear on what you require for a healthy and happy relationship to work and then commit to the person who meets those requirements without questioning whether there might be better options. If your requirements are met this option is all you need to build your happiness. - Work it out
Once committed, make it a point to fix problems instead of throwing the towel. There is of course always a limit at which we shouldn’t force ourselves to stay in relationships that won’t work. But if we’ve chosen our partner with discernment and they are able and willing to work on things with us, we owe it to both ourselves and our partner to give the relationship a fair chance and try our best. This is the only way in which we can be sure that we don’t ever have to look back in regret feeling like we might’ve lost the one, even if we end up alone for some reason.
So after contemplating these tips and incorporating them into my life, I made a conscious choice to leave my celibacy bubble and date with intention. And my results didn’t disappoint.. but those are stories for another day.
To be continued…
Thank you for being here! 🧡
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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