Today’s goal is to dump those unhelpful thoughts about you being the problem in your search for someone to cuddle up with and call yours. No one will ever understand exactly how you feel because they are not you. After we stay single for a while, the thought eventually creeps into our heads that there’s something wrong with us. Maybe you never have a problem with finding someone, they just never work out in the long term. Or maybe you’ve felt stranded on your very own island for a while and all you can see in the future is the same. There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just single.
The fact is that you’re not officially dating anyone right now. Name another fact, like the color of your iPhone case, or the fact that your phone has no case. Those are facts. What’s not a fact is your O.C.D. will never land you a man, because it wasn’t for this long, and it never will. What’s not a fact is that your inexperience in bed has pushed people away once before and it will happen again, you’re sure of it. Those used to apply to me. And there’s no easy way to get yourself out of this hole than what I’m about to share.
The time we have to be single and not intertwined in someone’s life is time we can either choose to lament on, or take advantage of. Even though it looks like all that surrounds us is the taunting of couples out to eat, and two-somes holding hands on sidewalks, there are hella singles walking among them that we choose to ignore. You’re tasked to turn-in on yourself and use this time to get more enjoyment out of being YOU. One of the first things that can hit a newly officialized couple is how each person can begin to feel like they give part of themselves up to keep the other person happy. Your time single can be spent continuing to feel what it’s like to be you. Do you like to go to the beach with your shoes on, and walk on the sand just to be there, and then go back home ‘cus you have sh*t to do? Are you working on the next great American novel, and wouldn’t have time for someone that wants your attention? The time you’re single is an unassuming gift for you to work on your confidence as you, not your confidence as a person fulfilling other people’s expectations of you.
Something special happens to you when you least expect it. When you’re obsessing with your own progress as a confident individual, someone from afar will see it and want to get to know it. Singles largest attribute is confidence. They have the time and space to do more of what makes them happy.
It’s difficult not to match ourselves up against the unlikely stories that are insinuated under every social media post and the underlying favoritism of cut and muscular body types on advertisements. It’s not f*cking easy to believe that someone else’s opinion of you does not affect who you are. It’s hard to listen to millionaires tell us how to pay off our debt the same way it’s hard to listen to people in relationships give advice to singles, the same way it’s hard to listen to your friend tell you to calm down when you just snapped your arm in half and the world feels dead. We will live the rest of our lives comparing ourselves to those we aspire to be like, instead of become. Try to catch yourself the next time you start comparing and ask yourself if that feels good. Ask yourself if your assessment is helping you be more content with who you are. It’s not comparison in my eyes, but motivation that will be our helpful force against the unhelpful thought that there is something wrong with you.
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