‘Will I Be Single Forever?’ and Other Pressing Questions

I’m 25 years old girl and I was in 3 relationships before. Never engaged or married, I’ve been single now for 2 years and I’m studying a second major. I was sure I’m ok with being single until recently questions started popping up “what if I never found the right one?” or “what if I stayed single forever?” and “could this happen to me?”. I enjoy being single and I’m not desperate to be in a relationship but still, I want to feel loved and cared for. I now have problems sleeping at night thinking about whether I would stay single forever or not. What is your best advice on that problem? Thank you

I loved this post and all of the comments. And I am a huge big fan of you.

Im a 42 year old female and have never been in a relationship or had sex. I know society laugh at older virgins @ I hate myself. I feel its too late to experience love or sex and I know I will never be a mother. Its interesting how much emphasis society puts on what age a person looses their virginity and being inexperienced is a bad thing. I feel sadness frustration and depression on everything I missed out on.

Being single is the worst of all since everyone needs love at one time or another.

My biological clock ticking forced me to get out of a long relationship that was not going to end in a happy marriage. It was Incredibly heartbreaking, but being brave enough to do that (the cumulative effect of work I’d done in therapy) made all the difference. I ended up with a man almost a decade younger than me who’s an incredible husband and father. He’s flawed, as am I. We spent some very productive time in couples therapy. We grow together and are in it for the long haul. In my experience finding someone is part luck and part being ready to make use of that luck when it shows up (having your emotional ducks in a row). I had to feel worthy of someone who was not ambivalent about me. I was used to yearning for a man to be more emotionally available, but I was still picking out ones who weren’t. For those interested in a wonderful story about a couple who met in a very random way, I’d recommend finding KarenBritChick on YouTube and watching her video about meeting her husband. It is a wonderful story.

Jess, I never really dated and never kissed anyone until I kissed the man I wanted to marry. We got married at 30 (he hadn’t really dated either) and have been happily married for more than 4 years :)

I would love a post on creative/new/interesting ways to meet people (to date)…!

I would love to hear anything and everything about dating long distance. I recall that a writer/editor at Cup of Jo (or maybe a previous writer/editor) had moved to NYC from the mid-west and she and her boyfriend were doing long distance. Would love any advice, as I recently moved away from my boyfriend for the next couple years for work (and I’m newly living alone), so feeling all the feels! Thanks!!

I am heterosexual, and I’ve never wanted marriage or to share a household. I’ve had and raised a child on my own (extremely happily), and have had the same best three friends for 40 years (and, “new” close friends for 10, 20 and 30 years) so I don’t think I’m commitment phobic – I have a fantastic friend family. My best romantic relationship was with a boyfriend who I lived next door to for many years. I know myself well and I’ve stuck to what makes me happy. I do care what people think, but not enough to compromise. So, if you want to have a life-partner work to make that happen, but if you don’t want one, that is OK, too (more than OK – be true to who you are).

I loved this post and all of the comments. I’ve bookmarked articles and other recommendations.

I divorced when I was 31. At the time, I thought, “I might regret this if I am single for the rest of my life.” Now, at 36, I am 100% certain I would rather be single than stay in that marriage. I’ve been single for 5 years, which isn’t as long as some other commenters. I know being single is better than being in a bad romantic relationship. I know I have grown a lot as a person. Even still, I have a strong preference for being in a good romantic relationship and I am afraid I may never marry again.

Most people will get married around the average age. Some will get married later. Some may never marry at all. I imagine not everyone who never married intentionally made that choice. There probably aren’t too many young people who decide they never want to get married. At least not enough to make a dent on Collective Consciousness. It takes women who have suffered loneliness and marginalization from society to point out the idea of having marriage as an end goal is an outdated concept. Also outdated is the idea that there is a reason perfectly deserving people are single when they are simply unlucky.

In the 1920s, the average age at first marriage was 21. By 2019, it was 28. The women who helped turn 21 into 28 were pioneers. For those of us who are wondering when our turn will come, I believe we are as well. Acknowledging yourself as a pioneer won’t take away the long-term yearning, but I hope you will feel some pride for participating in this unorganized project to raise women’s value in society.

Thanks for this! After years of first dates and bridesmaids dresses, the final straw was being ghosted on a Zoom date (yes, I was willing to try socially distanced dating and yes, even with the whole world on lockdown, he still had a better offer). The very idea of another first date exhausts me. I have a pretty good single life, so I’ve decided not to waste more effort trying to persuade someone to share it. I still want my person, but it isn’t going to happen for me. As you say, sometimes there is no reason. My partnered friends, neighbors, co-workers aren’t better or more evolved people. They are not even more fortunate, because they all have their own battles and disappointments. They are just, in this one regard, luckier than I am.

Funny thing is, I’ve been coupled for most of my ‘grown-up’ life (had 4 boyfriends from 17 -29 currently dating a wonderful man) but I often wish I’d be single…? Don’t get me wrong, I love my partner, but it TAKES SO MUCH TIME to be in a relationship. Or maybe I’m doing it wrong? I just often find that I envy my single friends for all the time, excitement and possibility they still have in a way that I only read about when young parents talk about their non-parent friends. Am I doing something wrong? I LOVE sleeping alone, being the sole commander of a fridge and thinking what I’d do to our apartment if it were just me. And I love my partner but being single, or at least having had some years to relish just in my own company… I sort of feel like I missed all that?

Thank you, Caroline! You sweetheart. I really needed to hear that!

I’m 44 and just met my partner two years ago – after all my friends got married and started having kids, after I’d spent years on the dating apps, and after I’d been dating over 20 years. But more importantly – it was after I’d become financially secure (and bought a house), my career was stable, and I’d come to terms with the fact that I may never meet someone. I hadn’t had a serious relationship in about 10 years, and I had seen so much bad behavior from men (When did so many of them decide they wanted to be in “open relationships”???) that I had just stopped dating. Now I think that, while I was coming to terms with rolling solo, I was actually “removing the barriers to finding love,” as that great Rumi quote says. It wasn’t that I was “too picky” or not doing dating right or there was something wrong with me. Instead, I think it was critical for me to establish, for myself, that I *could* be on my own, before I was able to *not* be on my own. Much love from San Francisco, Sam

I have been single basically my entire life, but not for a lack of effort. I’ve gone out with guy after guy, but it feels like nothing will ever stick. After being best friends with one of my close guy friends for the last year, we finally decided to give dating a try earlier this summer, though to my utmost despair, it didn’t last very long. I had quickly fallen in love with him over our last year of being friends, but he couldn’t see it working out long-term. I’m 30, and that was my very first “boyfriend/girlfriend” relationship. I spent my 20s getting degrees, traveling, developing hobbies, moving across the country multiple times, living alone, and developing my career, but having that fleeting taste of intimacy and commitment was so tantalizing and impressed upon me just how much my heart desires a long-term committed relationship. I’m so tired of being alone (especially during a pandemic, no less), and the prospect of having to interminably continue moving forward on my own, being strong for myself when I don’t have a partner to rely on, is exhausting and discouraging. However, there is a small sense of community in reading through these posts and being reminded that I’m not the only one going through this right now.

Thank you for this post and to everyone for sharing your stories! It makes me feel less alone. I’m 34 and have never been in love or in a serious relationship. I’ll occasionally sign up on a new dating app and go through a series of rapid-fire dates like I’m hitting a quota. Within a few weeks, I’ll grow annoyed and delete the app until the next round in 2–3 years.

I dread going on dates; I act just as I normally would on the outside, but inside I feel suffocated and eager to flee. My few intimate encounters weren’t enjoyable, through no fault of the other person. I was there physically, but mentally I just checked out.

I hate to call anything about COVID a blessing in disguise, but having life pause like this has given me time to explore some things from my past that I’d compartmentalized. This is not to say that I think all (or even most) single people are suppressing something or need to do this kind of soul searching, but if you feel that awful anxiety and almost knee-jerk desire to cut and run, I’d encourage you to face that fear—when you’re ready. It took me decades and a global pandemic (!) to dive deeper into this facet of my life. It’s hard work and often scary, but it also feels wonderful to let some light in.

This quote really resonant for me about the change in mindset that happens right before you somehow magically meet someone: “your task is not to seek for love. Your task is to remove the obstacles to finding love you have build up within yourself.” Paraphrasing Rumi.

Indeed! So many funny signs on my road to dating my now-husband but a big one is that the day before we got together, I went to Nordstrom and dropped hundreds of dollars on beautiful, functional lingerie. I was sick of wearing shitty, dumpy bras that didn’t fit right and I finally had the money. And the next day I was like, you know, maybe we should be more than just friends! Not a conscious decision at the time but the dots connect so clearly in retrospect!

I’ll add my two cents, which is that after five years of online dating, I did absolutely nothing different and happened to meet my person doing the same old thing I’d always done, swiping through okcupid! I had it in my head that it would take a total change of approach or new dating strategy to turn my bad luck around, but really all it took was time. Maybe there were internal shifts–I was semi-fresh out of a breakup from a short-term thing that gave me some new perspective on what I DIDN’T want–but it’s not like I started doing anything differently. I just kept dutifully online dating and one day it finally worked. I offer this just to help underscore the idea that YOU may not be doing anything “wrong.” It may just not have happened yet.

I just read through almost all of these comments and wanted to share my own in case they are ever helpful :)
I got divorced at 31 and was moving back in with my parents while most of my friends were married, pregnant, engaged/seriously dating, buying houses, etc. I felt like a failure and that I had just punched my card to be single forever — and with a scarlet letter of “divorced!” on my chest.
Over the next year I didn’t date, enrolled in some great therapy, enjoyed time with friends and family, and found my own apartment.
Now at 35 I am in a wonderful relationship of about a year with a man who treats me like gold. A man I never thought I’d find! Plenty of frogs were kissed and dated before meeting him, but I did do a lot of the things in these comments – said “yes” to new experiences, went on countless 1st dates. In fact when I met my now boyfriend, he was one of five first dates I had lined up over the course of two weeks. But I think the thing that helped me the most was getting comfortable with my own company. I really like myself and am proud of where I’ve landed, and I no longer feel like I have a scarlet letter on my chest.
My timeline looks very different than most of my friends, but I’m getting ok with that because honestly… what else can you do?!

Last thing, to any other divorced/separated folks out there: I used to say, “I’m divorced,” like it was my whole identity. But in actuality, I was single and had gone through a divorce. Once I thought about it that way, I was able to take a lot of pressure off myself.
Hugs to all <3

I didn’t have sex until I was 29 and I was very shy about my inexperience as well. I was often the only single friend in my group and it made me feel less-less desirable, somehow less adult. I’m now 40 and have been with my husband for 11 years. Honestly, being single for that long made me appreciate myself, I realy learned to truly like myself. And I’m not going to tell you to wait for the right person or to just go out and get it over with, that’s none of my business and what worked for me might not work for you (I went on a few dates with a mutual friend, there was a spark, we’ve been together since). I WILL say that making sure you feel comfortable and safe with your sexual partner is caring is important, if only because the experience is sort of mind altering. It was hard for me to focus because I kept thinking “Oh my god, I’m having sex!”

Being sexually inexperienced is much more common that you may think, and I hope you don’t spend too much time obsessing or defining yourself by it.

I was single until the age of 29 because it turns out I’m gay. By finally embracing the fact that it really wasn’t them, it was me, I was able to access the correct dating pond and find my true love!

Until that point, I was dating men relentlessly, scheduling 2 dates a week, while trying to follow all the dating advice from articles and movies and just feeling like I was hitting a wall every time.

Not to say all single people are actually gay or that all gay people magically find the one immediately, but I think it is a good idea to honestly look at your dating patterns and see what isn’t working and figure out what you actually want.

Thank you for sharing :)

At 32 I had an attitude of really wanting to meet someone but really not wanting to online dating (again). I went on holiday with a friend who dated relentlessly on the basis that “it’s a numbers game”. So I downloaded a couple of books (one was the School of Life’s “How to Find A Partner”, went home, signed up to Bumble and 2 weeks later met my now-finance. I don’t know if it was the change in mindset that did it, but something shifted. I totally agree being told to work on yourself constantly is annoying. Especially when you can see coupled up friends who clearly need to do some work on themselves haha! Often I do think it’s a numbers game, but finding the balance of giving people a chance/being open minded and knowing yourself enough to not give them too much of a chance is the tricky bit! Also – sometimes there’s no reason why some people couple up before others and some never do. It’s just the way of the world. Which sucks. It’s ok to recognise that!.

Looking forward to going on this journey with you, Kim! I am recently divorced and starting my life afresh too.

I am a single mother with wonderful school-aged children, and while I spend 95% of my time with them, especially now, I still hope I will meet a partner to share in the things that bring me joy. I don’t need full immersion, I am content, but it would be nice to exist together side by side. I no longer yearn for a partner because I want to be married or have more children, or attend couple’s dinners, or any other boxes, but because I enjoy being in a long-term monogamous relationship. I enjoy having an intimate relationship with one trusted partner. Yet each day passes and the days turn to weeks, and surprisingly have turned to years, and I am surprised that I haven’t even had to decline bad dates. Each day is fine, some are even wonderful, but it is lonely not sharing space with an adult partner, not having that connection. I am not sad or longing because this isn’t enough, or because I judge being single as less than, but it is sad because I loved being with someone. I love sharing a bed, holding hands, and doing things with a connected partner by my side. So, while I don’t have a list anymore, I do have a feeling I want to feel again; however, that does not mean I am trying to reenact the past. I don’t want to settle, and I do want that love that comes from the connection of being with a committed partner. And, although I have male friends who are single as well, they have a sense that when they choose not to be they have so many options and feel it is easy to meet people without ever going online, and I often wonder why it is that way still? Anyway, I suppose what I have realized is there is always risk, and at my age, with children, with loss, I don’t feel ready to take a risk and lose anything else, and I only want to gain something, and I understand that is probably not a realistic approach.