Why Do I Hate Being Single?

I admitted something that no girl should ever admit to in one of my last posts and it’s been bugging me a little so I feel the need to explain it. Slash talk it over.

I HATE being single. I actually hate it. But why? Why do I feel the need to bounce from relationship to relationship, often having the next guy lined up before I’ve even ditched the one I’m with?

What’s up with that?

I actually Googled this and I found one article which I feel the need to share. It was written by a guy who was asking the question – Why can’t girls just be single, before going on to list a whole bunch of reasons why being single rocks.

The article under scrutiny: The Security Of Relationships: Why Can’t You Just Be Single?

Being single is cheaper. OK, I can’t deny that one. I seem to spend a fortune on my dates even when we don’t do anything at all. Every single one of my male companions has destroyed my bank account. Big Love was one of the worst but Jock was something else entirely. That guy couldn’t manage his own money if he tried.

“Being single allows you to feel more in control, more present within yourself. Most importantly, it allows you to get to know yourself; it introduces you to the real you.”

I DON’T feel more in control of things when I’m single. I feel like my life is running away from me and I’m powerless to stop it. I’m going to be thirty next year and then what? They say that life begins at 30 or 40 or whatever age you happen to be hitting at that time. They say that “30 is the new black” and other such bullshit. I’m meant to be happy about the fact I’m now in the last year of my twenties but all I feel is dread. Fertility goes down after you reach 30, or so every single godamn daytime TV show is telling me. In the midst of a cervical cancer scare / situation, I’m now faced with the dilemma of whether or not I should freeze my eggs and I’m starting to question whether my internal bits even work at all.

I get asked if I’m married, being one year away from thirty, and when I tell them no, well actually yes, but on my way to being divorced, they look at me like I’m some sort of weird alien. Almost thirty with no kids and no husband in tow? Shocker. In fact, that reminds me of my interview for the job I just quit. One man and one woman, both in their 30’s or over were interviewing me and one of the questions I was forced to answer was why I hadn’t got a career sorted yet, or started a family? The question made me stumble and after I walked out of that job interview, I cried. I felt like I was failing at life. Mid-to-late twenties (at the time) and childless, husband-less, and career-less.

What a fucking failure.

Women are meant to be empowered these days, taking things at their own pace and having a career and going travelling before settling down later on to have a family. Take my mother and my aunt – my mother had me at 20, my sister 5 years later, and has bounced from man to man ever since. She’s skint, miserable and wishes she was anywhere but here.

Her sister, my aunt, on the other hand, is a couple of years younger than my mother, never had kids, tried for kids with her ex-fiance but after ten years and no pitter-patter of tiny little feet even after IVF, they broke up. She’s had a wealth of shit since, dating a guy who then got a much younger girl pregnant behind her back, sending her a little crazy (or a lot), before finally settling down with the guy she’s with, that already has three kids in tow. They’re engaged now, but since she met him, I’ve barely heard from her. Bad woman.

She’s a lot richer than my mother, and is a lot more sensible with her money. They are like chalk and cheese, blonde and brunette. I always figured my aunt was my idol. I always envied her life of nice holidays, plus designer clothes, handbags and crockery. I just think she’s a bit of a bitch now.

My sister got engaged a few days ago. She’s a few years younger than me. We’re not talking so I found out from Facebook which was nice (not), and it was just another kick in the teeth – she’s winning at life. I’m failing at life. I bet her marriage lasts longer than mine did too.

I don’t have time to be single. If a cervical cancer scare does anything, it certainly reminds you of your own mortality and the fact that having children is a privilege and not a given right. Some people don’t deserve children, my absent father being one of them. I don’t care how great he is with the two kids (maybe more) that he has now. He was a waste of space father to me. I’ve always blamed his absence for my poor choices in men.

But I want children one day. I’ve had passing phases before but there’s a longing somewhere and I think it’s coming from my womb. It started when I was with Jock. It’s a shame he fucked that up.

Let’s say I decide to be single for a while though, to ‘find myself’ and other such bullshit. What would happen? That takes me to what, my early to mid thirties? I wouldn’t want to have a baby with someone that I hadn’t known for a few years first, so that takes me to mid to late thirties. And what happens then if it takes a while? Before you know it, I’ll be 40 and having children is something that will never happen for me.

That aside, I don’t think I need to ‘find myself’. I’ve found myself and I quite like the person I am right now. I’m just me now, no pretence, no bullshit. I’ve had too much crap over the years and I’m too tired to have a drama-filled life. That’s exactly why I’m not talking to half of my family, and also why I just quit my job. I just can’t handle the drama anymore, and neither can my body.

There was one paragraph that really stood out for me. It actually made me quite mad.

“But you can’t force love. It simply doesn’t work like that. So why force relationships? What’s the point of having a partner for 6 months at a time? You can’t get to really know most people within 6 months — at least not enough to date them, get fed up with them and have a reason to split up. If you can’t stay in a relationship with someone for at least a year then you shouldn’t have been dating them in the first place.”

OK, so to some degree I can understand why this guy would say this. But, and there’s a massive but here, the REAL WORLD doesn’t work anything like that.

I’ve been dating Someone New for five months now and I’m still in the in-between stage where I’m just not sure if he’s someone I would want to be with long-term. There is NOTHING wrong with him, he’s not a bad guy and he’s been nothing but a great boyfriend to me but there is something missing. If I break up with him now, I’ll be saving him a whole world of pain. I’ve been at the receiving end of someone dragging out the end of a relationship and I’ve also given someone else that same awful treatment. It’s not nice. If I stay in this relationship, continuing to be unsure of whether we will work, he’s going to fall in love with me. He’s already made it clear he is falling. Why would I want to wait for that to happen to ditch him? Isn’t that much crueler?

Plus he’s older than I am by a couple of years. Why would I want to waste his time? He’s told me he doesn’t want kids but at times he talks as if maybe he would change his mind. But surely we are doomed right from the start? If I kinda want kids and he kinda doesn’t, isn’t that just a time-wasting recipe for disaster?

Plus, the writer kinda criticises his own point when he says this:

“One of my least favorite feelings is that feeling when you understand the relationship isn’t going anywhere and you can already see it crumbling at the edges, yet still being reluctant to end things — or maybe just scared to do so.”

#JustSaying.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not bashing this guy. If I wasn’t in my current situation right now, I’d probably totally agree with him. I know that relationship-hopping isn’t good. I’m not deluded enough to think that this is a healthy approach to dating. But at the same time, what other option do I have? Sit back and wait for love to find me? Because I’m an anonymous full-time writer with social anxiety and a weird bowel disorder. I barely leave my house. In fact, I barely leave my bed. I’ve never been happier! 🙂

But yeah, unless he’s my postman, Mr. Right’s gonna have a hard time finding me. And my postman is a prick. So I wouldn’t image we’ll fall in love.

Being single scares me.

I’m a woman approaching her thirties and I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to say that. Loving yourself – yeah, that’s cool. I love the fact I love myself now, even though I am fine-tuning and tweaking a few bits around the edges. But surely having someone else love you, warts and all, is the ultimate validation that you are pretty much a decent person? The fact that I’ve failed at every relationship I’ve ever been in, and there have been more than a few, doesn’t bode well for me and although I know I’m not entirely to blame for all the shit that went down, I can put my hand up to a great deal of it. I was a bitch. I was a crazy bitch.

I don’t have time to be single.

I don’t want to be single either.

I like being part of something – a special little partnership for two. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean I’ll stay in a relationship even though I’m not happy, but if I’m single, it generally won’t stay that way for very long. It never has.

Plus, circumstance plays a massive part. The day I ditched one of my last boyfriends, I went on to POF to delete my dating profile and up popped my Beautiful Tattooed Jock into my life. My heart might be pining for him right now but he was a very big and beautiful part of my life. I wouldn’t change a single bit of it. Well, apart from the horrid ending of course.

I guess that answers the question – Why can’t I just be single? I’m too scared of not having kids to be single; too scared I’ll miss what might end up being the love of my life. What if I’ve already met him and passed him by? What if he is living and breathing right under my nose with each and every that passes?

Who knows?

I can tell you this though. I’m not waiting around to find out. I’ll be moving on.

Next.