Introduction
When I first wrote this article a couple of years ago, I was so optimistic:
“I was single for 6 years between the ages of 18 and 24, and now that I’m single again at 25, it could be at least a year before I find another boyfriend.”
Lol. I am 29 now, and apart from one relationship that lasted 9 months, I’ve been single ever since. Another 4 years of singlehood, equivalent to an era of a US presidency, was bestowed upon me. At least I got one thing right back then:
“Because you might be single for a very long time, it also doesn’t make sense to delay becoming who you want to be or to wait for whoever the next guy is to come along. Done properly, being single is fantastic.”
This is still 100% true. There are plenty of bright spots and unexpected joys of being single. Even if our cultural narrative about finding “the one” tries to convince us otherwise. Even if we must justify our relationship status to other people regularly.
I’m rewriting this article to include what little wisdom I’ve gained in my late 20s on how to be single and happy, expanding on my other piece, “My Accidental Celibacy.”
Here are my tips:
- Spend your time how you bloody well please.
The great thing about being single is that your time is your own. For example, I am a bit of a night owl; I do my best work between 7 pm and 12 am. I thank the stars every day that I don’t have to keep a man happy in the evening (mansit, if you will), and I can do my client work at whatever time of day suits me. The barista who used to eat me out, bless him, finished work at 5 pm and always wanted to hang out with me all afternoon. It’s a miracle I got anything done while we were dating.
Being single, you don’t have to worry about any of that. You can go out if you want to, or you can stay in and focus on what you need to do. Without a literal time-parasite (boyfriend), you have enough time to study, work, and advance in whatever is important to you. You don’t have to be a complete workaholic like me and take life so seriously. But this is the time to put yourself first.
As soon as you’re in a new relationship, your time won’t be your own anymore. So, I hope that as a single pringle, you are taking your time to do whatever you want, at whatever time of day you want to do it.
- Oh, the places you’ll go!
When you’re single, you are only responsible for yourself (and your relationships with family and friends), which is awesome. This is the time for you to grow and take risks. When I was 19 and single, I took the train from Moscow to Beijing. I dyed my hair purple. I moved from London to the United States. Yes, I was wild. But it was awesome and exactly what I needed at the time.
My biggest advice for traveling alone and being single is to go to the places you want to go. On that same trip across Asia, I went to Thailand because everyone had always raved so much about it. But I didn’t end up liking Thailand that much. I much preferred getting lost in the jungles of Laos and watching the train snake through the abandoned Russian countryside. Single life is an opportunity to get in touch with what makes you happy and act accordingly.
- Be the light of your own life.
Being single can be hard if you want to find a significant other. Maybe then, when you have a boyfriend, you’ll have the finances, the resources, the access, the whatever to start doing what you want to do. This is false thinking. One of the most challenging and interesting parts of being single is learning that no one is coming to save you. It is up to you to be the light of your own life.
A great exercise to test this is as follows: pick a potential partner or a person you are attracted to. What do you like about them? Do they have a cool job? Do they speak lots of languages and travel to foreign countries? Do they camp out in the woods regularly? Make a list of all those qualities you admire about them. Now, take a look at that list. I bet you a million bucks: are these qualities you wish you had? Might these be things that you want to develop in yourself? You bet.
So, rather than trying to find a partner who will make up for the qualities you think you lack, singledom is the time for you to take a good, long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself: how can I develop the qualities that I admire in that other person? What can I build for myself that would help me go there?
Now, go out there and become the person you dream of dating!
- Make the big life decisions because you’re worth it!
Single life is all about making big life decisions that benefit you. This is when you can dedicate entire chunks of your life to what matters to you.
In my life, I’ve been blessed with a couple of big choice points toward having a fucking fantastic life that I wanted. I got a hormonal IUD when I was in university. This decision promised me 6 years of protection against pregnancy. It also stopped my painful periods. It was the best decision I have ever made.
Then, just last week I finally got my residency here in Mexico. I love living in Mexico. I love my apartment. My residency lasts for four years. It’s exciting to think: what will I be doing in four years? Where will I be living? Of course, I have bad days. But overall, I am 1000% excited and grateful to wake up and live the life I want every day.
Being single, you get to make the big life decisions that are best for you. You get to relish in the awesomeness of the path you’re creating for yourself. Who will you be when you finish your master's in London in one year? Where do you want to be in 3 years when you get your birth control implant taken out?
To misquote the poem Invictus: You are the master of your fate. You are the captain of your soul.
- Get that bag (i.e., Make that money)
This is the perfect time to make your own money and build your mini moat of financial independence. As much as working hard is a literal pain in the ass, being single is the best forcing function I have found to invest in yourself. When you’re single, it’s up to you to afford the lifestyle you want. You will find a way to grow your business or negotiate your salary. Since being single this year, I’ve landed three contracts with my dream company, Clue, the period tracking app. I’m richer than I have ever been.
You don’t have to be making millions of dollars. You only need to figure out your desired lifestyle, and then make enough money to afford that. Until I was about 25, my ideal lifestyle was being able to afford all the candy I wanted. I was able to do that, and it was fantastic.
But what’s most important about having money is that you don’t have to answer to anyone. You don’t need to leave a good review for the misogynistic Airbnb host who treats you like shit. You don’t have to be submissive to the obnoxious tech bro who won’t stop talking about himself on your dinner date. And most importantly you don’t need to date an average dude just because he has a slightly above-average bank account.
Putting yourself forward for that promotion. Starting that side hustle of selling scarves you like to crotchet online. Setting up the podcast you wanted to start on financial female empowerment. Ultimately, you are the only one you can rely on to make the money you need. Since I’m wealthier than ever, I’ll share a secret of what I’ve always suspected: we do well on our own.
- Work on yourself and your childhood trauma for real this time.
Being single gives you the time and money you need to unpack the core of your childhood trauma. I’ve found going to weekly talk therapy and attending free ACA meetings a couple of times a week helpful.
ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families, is a 12-step fellowship that’s focused on what it sounds like. The program has helped me pick apart my feelings of abandonment from my childhood. One of the best tools they teach is non-dominant handwriting. By journaling with my non-dominant hand (in my case, it’s my right hand), I can have a dialogue with my inner child on the page. She’s about seven, and she loves junk food. Here are some things I’ve written in it:
Being single is all about unpacking your deep-seated emotional issues and making leaps and bounds with your physical and mental health. In addition to ACA and talk therapy, I’ve also tried micro-dosing and doing EMDR. So yes, I’m in my era of trying every therapy under the sun to try to work on my issues and see what happens. I’ve also accidentally been doing adulty, self-care things like going to the dentist and physical therapy.
What’s an experience from your childhood that you might need to process? Being single is the time to do it.
- Give Yourself Permission to Do Cool Things.
This is the perfect time to show up for yourself, pursue your passions, and build cool things that help you learn more about who you are.
A couple of months ago, I hosted my first-ever Sex Writing Workshop. This seems like a small task, but as I’ve mentioned, it took me months to work up the courage to host these. Hosting the first workshop was perhaps the most powerful and beautiful thing I have ever done. It also fits nicely with the other topics I like to write about, like female pleasure.
So, you’re single. Have you taken up a new hobby like knitting again? Have you taken a stab at trying to fulfill your childhood dreams? Was there something you’ve wanted to try since you were a teenager? It’s now or never, baby.
- Do things that no one else can take away from you.
While some of my friends were planning weddings or birthing babies, last September, I birthed (i.e. published) my first novel. I had spent years of my life writing that novel. When I published it, my inner teen was beyond happy. Something inside of myself felt complete.
Life can be hard sometimes. Sometimes you’ll suffer setbacks. Sometimes your boss will be a dick to you. Sometimes you’ll fall out with a friend or get fired. And that’s when it’s most important for you to have your set of accomplishments that matter to you, that no one else can take away from you.
As Meg Jay recommends in her TED talk, “Why 30 is not the new 20,” you should “get some identity capital”. You need to “do something that adds value to who you are. Do something that’s an investment in who you might want to be next.” This could mean leveling up your skills with a certification, or an advanced degree. It could mean publishing your first collection of short stories. It doesn’t matter what it is. It just has to mean a lot to you and be something you can accomplish alone. Then it’s something that you can be proud of.
If all else fails, think about these smug lyrics of the song “Chaise Lounge” by Wet Leg:
“Mummy, daddy, look at me
I went to school, and I got a degree.
All my friends call it "the big D".
I went to school, and I got the big D.”
Getting the big D, i.e., an actual degree, is more valuable to your future than getting any actual D. Good for you!
- Get choosier about men. Close the mental door to stragglers.
While I’ve been single, sometimes it has taken me months to accept that I am alone. To avoid facing this, I often torture myself with fantasies I have about men who live abroad, or I tell guys like Luís that if he gets his shit together, we can hang out again.
The reality is that you have a limited amount of time and energy. And whether or not you are fully dating them, any person in your life is directing your energy. This can mean that you might be better off keeping the mental barn clean and rejecting all situationships so that whoever they are can’t come and go as they please. Your energy is sacred and limited. So please don’t waste it.
I cut Luís out of my life, I never imagined that there would be no one waiting for me on the other side. Setting boundaries with these situationship guys felt weird to me at first. But doing so made me painfully aware of just how much I had let people that sucked the energy out of me walk all over me in the past. It has felt weird to set boundaries, and yet that was when I realized my therapy is probably working. I may be dry as a desert, but I was slowly starting to make healthier decisions for myself and break the patterns of my past.
Part of being single is remembering that you’re probably better off alone. I liked Luís, but have you ever dated anyone who got high on marijuana all day? Who would wake up in the morning and message you, and then you wouldn’t hear from them for the rest of the day? It is the worst. Then there was the time that three of my friends in Mexico City were dating depressed English men named Chris. My female friends had different backgrounds (one Mexican, one Argentinian, and one American), and all the men were different. Where did they find these depressed English men named Chris? I have no freaking clue. But they sure did know how to waste my friends’ time and resources and suck the living daylights out of them, even though they were seeing each other casually.
Also, don’t believe everything you see on social media: people in relationships are not necessarily happier. Single women are supposedly happier than women with children or spouses. Because romantic relationships take a lot of time, you should be in a good relationship or a healthy relationship, not just any old long-term relationship. And for god’s sake, stop fantasizing about your ex!
- Go to parties to enjoy yourself.
For much of my singlehood, I went to parties to try to hook up with people. I have wasted countless nights getting all glammed up, being anxious about whether a guy was interested in me, and then trudging home because I didn’t find “the one.”
Then I listened to the wisdom of Cindy Gallop for StyleLikeU:
“At some point in my early 30s, I thought, sod this, I’m not looking for the one anymore. And then oh my god, that was so surprisingly freeing because basically, you can go to social events and not give a shit. Honestly, the moment you decide you don’t want to be in love, that just takes a whole layer of crap out of your life.”
Precisely. It’s important to remember that our worth and our ability to have fun don't depend on our ability to attract and keep a mate. We are whole, expressive humans. We are enough as we are, just on our own.
- Get your emotional and sexual needs met elsewhere.
You don’t need a boyfriend to meet your emotional needs. That’s what female friendships are for! This time of being single is the perfect opportunity to deepen those friendships and invest in the types of people who make you feel seen and heard. You might even meet people and make new friends out on the town and at dinner parties. It helps if these people are single friends themselves but they also don’t have to be. A surprising number of my friends in relationships miss having fun girl time, so we hang out together.
It is normal to be horny as fuck during your extended time being single. This is especially the case for me, as I’m 29 now, and I feel physical changes in my body and attraction level when my baby fever collides with the time I’m ovulating (it’s a fucking shit show).
It’s okay to be celibate for a while. It’s okay to sleep with your friends, sleep around, or give up on dating apps. It’s whatever floats your boat. I’m not going to sit here and tell you how to acquire dick when you’ve been wandering around in the sexual desert for months at this point. I don’t have those exact answers for you right now. But what I can tell you is that whatever feelings of horniness you have are normal, and you should feel empowered to acquire dick in whatever way and at whatever consistency works for you. Amen.
Conclusion
Being single is a great opportunity to live your best life and be truly happy. Whether you’re backpacking through Southeast Asia or curling up with a good book in the autumn rain, this is your time to experience the awesomeness life offers. I might not have a boyfriend, but I am happy being single. I’m focusing on my mental health, personal growth, and well-being in a way that I never could have done in my past relationships. If anything, after this phase of self-discovery, I’m sure that if I do find myself in a relationship, it will be a better and healthier relationship that better meets my needs.
Sure, you might need to find a way to get your sexual needs met. But even those feelings of horniness will rise and fall. Meanwhile, you are the only constant in your life. An extended period of being single is the best way to build the relationship that matters most: your relationship with yourself.
Sometimes, we need other people to help us grow. But more often than not, I am learning that we need ourselves.
Good luck! 🍀
