Scholarch's Blog

ABC01 – What's worse than being single

This is post #1 of my homebrew April Blogging Challenge. Words: approximately 1,900.

Right then, it's April and I'm eager to write a post to kick off this month with momentum. I've got a bunch of sketches/outlines for upcoming blog posts, but here I want to reply to a trending post that caught my attention: "Jesus, please lobotomize me" by Tuesday's Child.

To go through the trials of finding love is something I can relate to. I vaguely recall feeling the same frustration that TC shares in her post. Granted, I'm a 30-something-year-old dude and while the context of dating was different for me, the feelings of not being good enough were a constant in my early 20s.

This post isn't one to dish out traditional love advice. I'm not positioned to dole it out; I'm still single myself. But what I can offer is this: a list of what's worse than being single. To be fair, there's a bit of prerequisite work one needs to do, to question the idea that being single = not being good enough for someone. On this front, consider:

  1. The logical argument: We're each born single. Our innate worth as an individual human being is not determined by a relationship status that is socially constructed rather than naturally assigned.
  2. The emotional argument: If you've ever accomplished something for yourself that you were happy with, you have the capacity to be good enough for yourself. It wasn't dependent on validation from another person, let alone a partner in a relationship.

I could try to come up with more, but then realize that life experience is the best teacher. Certainly, my younger self needed many repeat lessons until the insight was earned; I was a slow learner in that regard.

Once it's accepted that singlehood is no evil, and that it's got no bearing on one's worth as a person, we can more clearly see that there are, in fact, things worse than being single. How do I know? Again, I owe my younger self for going through the growing pains. Here, I draw on my personal experiences.

A relationship in which you feel less than your partner

Surprise! Being in a relationship does not immediately solve issues of self-esteem. One can feel less than their partner either by (a) being demeaned by said partner, or—in the case my first relationship—(b) having low self-confidence. See, my first relationship entailed dating a girl who was going off to college while I took a gap year after high school. Sure, today I can appreciate the choice to take a gap year for me to figure things out, but at that point my younger self felt inferior for not having some semblance of direction. It is worse than being single because one inflicts double damage to their self-esteem: the first from negotiating/maintaining the relationship as a way of avoiding singlehood; and second from the constant feeling of not being good enough for said person. Whether condition (a) or (b) as described, constantly feeling less than someone is an onslaught on one's sense of worth.

A relationship in which your partner gaslights you

Lol. I acknowledge that this one appears similar to the previous. This is less attributable to my writing ability and more to my ability to choose partners. See, in my second relationship, I was with someone who in retrospect was manipulative. The sort who doesn't want you to hang out with your friends so they can have you for themselves. The sort who will hide things (not just the truth itself, but physical objects) to aid in their deceitful stories. The sort who will not respect your request for space, and who (can this ever be confirmed?) will admit themselves to a hospital and use suicidal ideation to gain attention/sympathy from others so that you are compelled to be a better partner who sticks around. Yeah, this one was a real doozy. It was worse than being single because at least when I'm single I have my solitude and sanity.

A relationship in which your partner's parents are bigots

I grant that many parents hold outdated/conservative views. So to add some nuance, I mean when you yourself are a target for their bigotry. This relationship was particularly painful for me, because my partner was otherwise my best friend at the time. In my heart of hearts, I still miss her. But because she valued family (and I dug that), it meant that our being together would cause friction for her. Her parents would not accept me into the family. I recall a burning desire to prove them wrong—to demonstrate my worth.

But that desire is now mere ash. In the end, it was for the best: the romanticism of overcoming the Romeo & Juliet type of odds is a young person's ideal (or of those who base their notions of love on Disney movies or rom-coms or sitcoms); one eventually learns that life is too short for that bullshit. It was worse than being single because of the unnecessary pressure. Even if relationship statuses were correlated with self-worth (and they aren't), then why oh why oh why would one want to enter a relationship in which they not only have to "prove oneself" to their partner, but also their parents who already regard you in their eyes as inferior?

A relationship in which you aren't ready to commit

This one I feel shame over; I was the villain in this story. During the pandemic, I met someone online and we clicked. Perhaps even fell in love. Once the broader pandemic subsided, when there was an opportunity for me to relocate to be with this person, I froze. I delayed making decisions, and grew distant over time. In retrospect, I didn't have a good sense of what I really wanted in life (remember when the pandemic surfaced such thoughts?). Like my first relationship, I allowed my need for feeling confident and independent to supersede what it meant to be someone's partner. I now know that being a good partner necessitates being vulnerable when there's no confidence, and reliant & reliable because that's literally the role of being a partner.

What I've learned is that one's readiness to commit in life is not a linear function. Rather, it's a product of one's current circumstances, which of course change over time. In some ways, I was more ready to enter a relationship in the latter part of my college years, and again about a couple years ago, than I am today. The tricky thing is figuring out what those circumstances are, and how much bearing they have. It's a matter of values. For instance, some people are career driven, or else desire some aspect of their life to be in order before allowing another person in. This is healthy, I think, because it means one is negotiating with themselves before opening up negotiations with others on how they go about living life.

Even so, the point is that I could not commit because I was indecisive about other aspects of my life. I could not agree with myself on what to maintain as my purpose; my soul was incongruent with itself. How could I involve another person? It was worse than being single because I hurt someone through my incongruity. When I'm single, I attend to myself. When I'm in a relationship, I have the capacity to inflict pain.

A relationship in which you're unattracted to your partner

I meant it when I said I'm a slow learner in matters of the heart. Even after some devastating relationships (with me as both the devastator and the devastated), my most recent two relationships were repeat lessons. In both scenarios:

I haven't figured out if I'm shallow or if I have standards. What I mean by this is expressed in this confession: I wish I could go back in time to my younger self and tell him,

You are, in fact, attractive and loveable. You may feel lonely now (and frankly will on many days), but don't let the loneliness lead you to hurt others just so you can get away from the feelings of insecurity.

But because I did let the loneliness lead me to hurt others, I haven't quite figured out what I really want (hence my wondering at if I'm shallow or if I have standards). See, sometimes I embrace the idea that I'll be alone for long stretches of my life (not that I'll be alone forever—my history suggests that I could be in love with a person). Then other times I allow myself to luxuriate in the feelings of crushing hard on someone; I secretly like being down bad.

Sorry, that was all tangential. Where were we? Oh, right: being with someone when you aren't attracted to them is worse than being single because you've now guaranteed a bit of heartache for at least one person in the relationship. I remember feeling multiple modes of awful. First, the drain of faking attraction. (Ever really like being around someone? That's effortless interest and I now know that's the cue to look out for.) Next, the guilt. After each phone call or date, I would feel disappointment with myself as I was leading someone on (rather than feeling, say, the absolute elation that comes from having a great date).

In turn, these feelings transformed and transferred the heartache in me onto the ex: in both cases I broke up with the person and left them heartbroken. In the first case, I did it over text. (I know: I can be a downright ass.) To atone for that sin, I sat with my ex in the second case right after breaking up with them. I forced myself to sit through the discomfort, the pain, the sadness—to really register the idea that for the rest of my life I should quite like to minimize heartbreak, both felt and inflicted by me.

That was... therapeutic. I think I got a lot more out of this post than any of its readers will. To recognize what's worse than being single required me to relive some difficult experiences and regrets. But I think that on this end, I can find the peace offered by singlehood: I protect my heart from heartache (again, it's doable when self-worth is detached from being in a relationship), while I avoid being the active cause of heartache in another. If I could bend through spacetime and appear in front of my exes right now, at the point of each break-up, I would say to each,

I didn't mean to cause you malicious harm. I didn't enter our relationship to hurt you. I'm sorry I let my insecurities and the fear of being alone get the better of me. I relied on you to give me a happiness that cannot exist as long as my soul is fragmented. It wasn't fair to you.

(I'd want to say this to even the gaslighter. The only exception is the one with bigoted parents. I've different words for her.)

And yet like all good spacetime paradoxes: the beginning and the end are the same. I can only wish to express my apologies, having gone through the regrets and lessons that created them.

If I told you I consumed a weed pill before I started drafting this, could you tell me at what point it kicked in?