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A thread for those moments in life (serious or not!) when you wish you had a partner.
A few that have come up for me since yesterday:
– Having to walk into a party by yourself… even when I know a lot of people there, I always find myself approaching the front door and thinking that it must be so much easier to do this as part of a couple.
– Waking up on Saturday morning after a crazy week, looking forward to making coffee and finally relaxing for a few hours, then coming downstairs and finding a ginormous moth flying around your kitchen. So gross!! Me:1 – Moth:0, but it wasn’t fun!
Great topic mariposa!
I long for a partner at parties as well, but it’s usually at the end of the night when it seems everyone is leaving to go home with – or to – their partner and I know I have no one waiting for me at home. There’s always a small sting for me there.
This also pops up for me a lot during the holidays.
+ When you’re out with a group of coupled-up friends and you’re the only single person.
+ When you have something you want to share, and you think of the last person you were romantically involved with (whom you can no longer share these things with). “Having something to say and no one to hear it is so lonely.” – Love Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton
+ When you’re being harassed by douchebags at a bar or wherever.
+ When you’re travelling and doing all kinds of exciting things with your life, but still feel like there’s a big piece of you missing.
Doing every single load of laundry, making every single meal, washing every single dish, buying every single grocery, loading every single grocery bag…
I actually feel very fulfilled (most of the time) being single, and the more I study it and my coupled friends, the more I revel in being single. But it takes so much work to LIVE when you don’t have someone to split the practical stuff with that’s easier to scale up. I commute a lot between New York and Connecticut, and I don’t have a doorman in New York, and I swear sometimes I’d have a fling just to get a guy to carry my suitcases to the car a few times! Ha!
Jacqueline that’s so true!! I would add cleaning to the list as well (that “Clean all the things?” meme from Hyperbole and a Half comes to mind here!). And not to play into gender stereotypes too much, but also mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, taking my car in, and fixing things around the house. I know there are lots of women out there who do all of that, but I also know that many of my married friends have the luxury of never having to worry about any of that stuff. I’m not big on traditional gender roles and that’s not the type of relationship I want, but if I have to shovel the driveway it would be nice to have someone else to clean the bathroom. Having to do everything yourself all the time gets exhausting.
Misstree, I can definitely relate to #1 and #4 really resonates with me as well. It’s crazy how life can feel both full and empty all at the same time.
And mamey2422, I totally agree about the holidays. We’ll have to start a thread here for that when the time gets closer.
Thanks for your thoughtful response, Mariposa! Having read your replies in the other threads, I must say I really like how you always take time to craft such warm, heartfelt responses :)
What you said is so true “it’s crazy how life can feel so full and empty at the same time”. Just wondering how do you make space / make peace with that?
I’m asking because it so often feels like a struggle, and I tend to beat myself up for “not being grateful enough” or “not being in the moment enough”.
Thoughts?
I think I can pretty much agree with all the statements above. I feel there isn’t a day that goes by now that I don’t think about how something would be alleviated if I had a partner. When I travel I think about going through the travel alone and how nice it would be to have someone with me. Or if I still want to travel on my own to have someone watch the cat while I’m away. Or just have someone to talk to, to have dinner with, to help out with chores. To have someone attend volunteer activities with me, drive with me somewhere far. To be there during the high and low points of my life. To go to weddings with or to gatherings (WHERE EVERYONE IS MARRIED!) with. Moving. The list goes on.
It’s been really hard to get through each day with these heavy thoughts on my mind, but I think it’s pretty natural to feel this way. I know Sara wrote about it in her book that we feel bad or look down on feelings of loneliness, but you wouldn’t say the same for someone who’s hungry. And that’s how it feels, like a hunger for companionship. We’re human and we are (I believe) made to be paired up. So it’s hard when you have to go through every day things alone, especially when everyone else around you doesn’t. We still have to make the most of the situation we’re in (clearly none of us are just sitting at home doing nothing but moping) while still hoping for it to change.
Thank you so much Mistree, that’s really kind of you to say that. I’ve appreciated your thoughtful responses too, and loved the thread you started with the Alain de Botton quote.
That’s a great question and finding that balance is something I definitely struggle with. Some days I’m at peace with my life as it is and other days I’m really not, but overall I’m more accepting of those ups and downs than I used to be and I think the reason for that has mostly come from another experience in my life. My mom was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, and while it’s been really hard going through that, the time since then has also been the source of some of my family’s best and most beautiful moments. Living with that has helped me to see that it’s possible for good and bad to exist within the same experience, and I think to some degree I’ve been able to apply that to being single as well. And now when I’m feeling happy or grateful one day and then sad or frustrated the next, I think I’m a little less hard on myself than I used to be. I still wish my emotions were more consistent (well, consistently happier at least), but I think I’m more accepting now of the fact that life is messy and that’s okay. I can still be pretty hard on myself for the same things you mentioned, but not quite as much as before, and I guess in some ways that’s been a silver lining to a difficult situation.
Hi mariposa
Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It’s so true what you said – how something so life-altering can force us to reshape our perspective. Having experienced the deep grief of losing loved ones, it’s a constant personal reminder of how temporal life is. At the risk of sounding trite, “this too shall pass”.
Another thing that reminds me of how fleeting everything on this earth is Carl Sagan’s reflections on the pale blue dot.
It’s hard to read that and not feel a sense of awe and humility towards our existence :)
Oh yeah, forgot to mention another helpful piece of advice. In his book “The Antidote: Happiness For Those Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking” , Oliver Burkeman talked about examining the worst-case scenario.
Often, when we say things like, “What if I never get married?” or “What if I’m single and alone forever?”, people will quickly dismiss these fears by saying, “That’s impossible. You’ll find somebody.”
By saying this, they are actually REINFORCING the notion that yes, it WOULD be terrible if you never got married or was alone for the rest of your life.
A more helpful way would be to EXPLORE these fears – break it down into pieces and examine it. Would it really be that scary? Would we really be unable to cope?
When we shine the light on the dark corners of our deepest fears, we realise hey, maybe it’s not as bad as we thought. Sure, it may be lonely and occasionally depressing, but can we still find joy and meaning and fulfilment in this so-called “monstrous existence of alone-ness”?
Food for thought :)
Thanks misstree. That’s so interesting about peoples’ responses and the hidden messages that their reassurances provide. I’d never thought about it that way before but that’s so true, and reflecting on that makes me realize that I’ve been interpreting those comments that way without really ever being aware of it. Some great food for thought for sure. I’ll definitely have to check out that book. :)
Love Reflections on the Pale Blue Dot too… it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that but a great reminder.
I definitely relate to waking up alone on a Saturday or Sunday morning. When you’re not seeing anyone and you suddenly have an excess amount of free time, waking up alone and wondering what to do all weekend is a little daunting.
I live several hours away from my family and my close friends are in long-term relationships. Don’t get me wrong, it can be nice to have a whole day of possibilities ahead of you, but when almost every weekend is like this- you miss sharing it with a partner.
I love waking up next to someone I care about, cuddling in bed, and lazily getting up and having breakfast together.
I mentioned this in another post, but there is almost nothing I do in my life that wouldn’t be better with a partner. I miss having a partner every single day. This is a bit of a “first world” problem, but I can relate to having an excess amount of time to myself when I’m not working, and having to find things to fill that time does feel daunting.
In my heart I feel I should be married with a child, and that would be the best use of my time. I’m sure there are many moms who kill for the amount of free time I have, but I’d also wager that their children are priceless to them and they’d never trade their lives for mine. Since the husband and child haven’t happened for me, I find other ways to fill my time. But starting and ending every day alone is just sad sometimes.
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