To All The Lonely Single Girls; from Someone Who Used to Be

Hello there. I know what you’re going through. I was there for over 20 years. Wanting to be deeply loved, held, and seen. Wanting a partner to walk on life’s journey with, someone who knows how you take your coffee, who understands where you come from and why you are who you are; someone who remembers special days, who smiles at you with that look of love, who laughs with you and who can’t get enough of you and vice versa. You want to be loved like that, and to love like that.

But yet..it’s not happening.

You keep ending up single, whether you simply don’t meet potential partners you like enough, or you keep trying to date but things never work out, you end up lying alone in bed at night and wondering: “what’s so wrong with me that nobody loves me like that?”

This isn’t an article about how you have to love yourself in order for another to love you. I don’t believe that. I believe that we learn to love ourselves by being loved by others. But it is an article about how I became happy after over two decades of searching for my “life partner”, and how you can be, too.

I was a lonely single girl once. Socially awkward, maybe not that pretty, and bookish, I didn’t meet many men in real life. I remember the first time I took out a personals ad in the newspaper, when you had to call a voice mail system and punch in your code to access messages people would leave you. Then I graduated to online dating, which is how I ended up meeting most the men I’ve dated. And there have been many. I think I’m up to about 7 actual relationships and many more casual ones. As I gained confidence in myself and got out more, I did start meeting dating partners in face-to-face situations, but the relationships never worked out, for various reasons. I’ve been dumped, I’ve done the dumping. Both of them suck. And for most of my life, I was just as miserable single as I had been in my relationships.

You might be expecting me to say that finally, when I stopped looking, I found the love of my life, the man I’d been dreaming of for 20 years. Nope. What I did find, after 20 years, is that the thing that was making me miserable was the wish that things be different than they were.

In relationships, I would want things to be different (without actually entering into the relationship understanding what my partner wanted out of a relationship), and when I was single, I would want to be in a happy relationship. When a relationship ended, after a proper period of mourning (sometimes), I’d get up, dust myself off, and look around for the next romantic adventure. I became quite good at starting to date someone new when I was just almost over, but not completely over, my last breakup.

It was a recipe for disaster: not checking in with dating partners to see if they wanted what I wanted, becoming enmeshed quickly as I fell in love with the person, trying to be who they wanted and trying to make them be what I wanted, and then the inevitable crash and burn of yet another hope, and crushing grief as things ended. What a circus!

It’s ridiculous in hindsight, and kind of embarrassing.

But I did these things because I was so desperate to be loved and valued, that I forgot the person whose love and value I needed most was my own.

And then, after yet another breakup, I just stopped. I stopped searching. I stopped expecting to find someone to make my life complete. I stopped wishing I had a loving, present, committed partner in my life. I stopped looking around me wherever I was to see if men were admiring me. I stopped checking out every room I entered for attractive men who seemed to be there alone. I stopped being friendly to men with the intention of getting them to flirt with me. Now I’m friendly because I’m genuinely happy.

And though at first I stopped out of resentment and defeat, I started to notice that, at my core, I was really happy.  Not fake Polyanna happy, but  content and satisfied with me. Just me. I love being alone; in fact I need it for my own sanity. I love being in my bed and not having to put in earplugs to drown out the sounds of snoring. (And yes, I have cats, and I don’t care if that’s a cliché). I like eating consistently healthily, when every man I’ve ever dated ate badly (I would inevitably gain weight in a relationship). I like going out and doing things I and my friends like to do, and not worrying about how my boyfriend comes across to others, or how I come across to his friends.

I’m not telling you need to be single to be happy. But to be happy, you need to be happy single. If you’re happy single, you’ll be less likely to do what I used to do: jump into the bed and the life of anyone who throws you a bone, and then waste months or years being unhappy before one of you is brave enough to end it. If you’re happy single, you consider a potential dating partner with your logical brain: does this person want what I want out of a relationship? Are we compatible? Is this person worth giving up some of the things I love about being single? What will this person bring to my already full and satisfying life? (and hopefully, that person also has a full and satisfying life and you can ask what you will bring to it, as well).

I can hear your arguments now: “But, I really just prefer being in a relationship”. “I’m OK single, but I’m ready to date now”. “I’m not getting any younger, if I stop looking I might grow old and die alone”. “I wish I could be happy single but I don’t think I can be”.

Those are excuses. If you are searching for anyone or anything outside yourself to make you happy or content, you will be disappointed, eventually.

I know we all read this kind of thing and resignedly nod our heads “I know, I know”, but I’m here to tell you from the other side of loneliness: it’s genuinely better out here. Happy, productive, social, restful, peaceful, and creative.

So do what you can to genuinely be a happy single woman, instead of a lonely single girl. Don’t do it because you’re trying to be more dateable, do it for yourself. So that whatever happens in your life, you will have lived to the fullest, worked towards your personal goals, and spent more time being happy, productive, and content than being worried, miserable, or afraid.

If I could go back to my 20-something self and tell her one thing, it would be this: “Don’t spend 20 years looking in vain for love. Spend it learning to love yourself.”

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