Why is it so weird to want to be single?
One day, I was talking to an old colleague of mine who was known to obsess over finding a boyfriend.
Our conversations would occasionally veer towards fashion, food or plans for the weekend, but they would always revert back to whether her most recent Tinder date could be ‘the one.’
My colleague, let’s call her Andrea, seemed to always find it strange that I wasn’t obsessing too. And when I said I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, she looked at me as though I had spontaneously grown three heads. ‘You don’t want a boyfriend?’ She said, ‘That’s a bit weird, isn’t it?’
Personally, I find it strange that we’re pressured into always being in a relationship. If we’re not in one, people want to know why? What is wrong with us, they think? If we don’t find someone to settle down and buy a house with by 28, then why? If we don’t want to have kids and get married by 30, then why? My question is, why is it so weird to want to be single?
Perhaps there are some people who are drastically unhappy being alone, and that’s absolutely fine. But it doesn’t mean that every single person is drunk crying to rom-coms, mainlining Ben & Jerrys and singing All By Myself to their ten cats, every night. I can do what I want, when I want and I don’t have anybody to answer to. I can focus on my career, without someone getting annoyed or cheating on me, because I’m busy.