This is not a spinoff of the write-up which went viral and garnered over 24 million views, “Marriage Isn’t for You“. Ok, so maybe it is, just a tad. Initially, I was not even inclined to read it. I mean, c’mon. Marriage is probably the last thing a 27-year-old guy wants when he has just gotten the hang of being a working adult.
However, the author mentioned something that caught my attention: “Love and marriage isn’t for you. It’s for others.”
That statement made me question the basis of being single. If love and marriage is for others, does that automatically mean that singlehood is all for me?
Does it entitle us an all-access pass to random hook ups? Blatantly scrolling on OkCupid or Skout to find the nearest hotness available?
Or is singlehood all about living the life? No inhibitions, no obligation to another, returning home at freaking 3am at my own choice, and not because my partner is threatening to flood my social media profiles with embarrassing posts.
I get to keep everything I own, I can splurge my paycheck on an iPad Air instead of impressing my significant other with a pair of Jimmy Choo pumps. I can choose to down a whole pepperoni pizza instead of sitting through an 8-course meal with a bunch of people whom I am pressured to be liked and be accepted, just because I am going out with the princess of the family.
Indeed, being single is all about me, right?
Coming from a guy who has been single for a while now, I can tell you this.
Being single can be about all the things mentioned above, if you choose for it to be. But it can also be so much more.
It is the best time to discover who you really are, what you are truly made of – your values, beliefs and the purpose of your existence.
It is the time where you learn to first and foremost fall in love with yourself. To acknowledge all the dents, scars and cracks, and truly embrace it as these are the stuff that make you, you.
Being single is a process of knowing your own worth. You learn to not sell yourself short just because you have been friend-zoned since 1997. You can either see rejection as a bright neon signage that says FOREVER ALONE, or as a period of purification to becoming a better person, teaching you the ultimate lesson in patience, that the right one maybe just around the corner. It might take 9 seasons for Ted to find his wife in “How I Met Your Mother”, but it would definitely be worth it when he finally found his soulmate.
Being single does not imply we are like a piece of vegetable stuck in between someone’s teeth, the odd one out when you are in the midst of happily attached couples. In some ways, we are still very much connected to other individuals. The community we belong to, our family, and even to the roti canai stall owner where we have our breakfast. And if we are destined to spend the rest of our life alone, there will always be little nieces and nephews who are looking up to us. And not forgetting the 7 cats that will demand our attention once they occupy the apartment.
Being single is not about looking to see if your other half is standing across the room. You won’t find a Tom Cruise in a tweed sweater, uttering with tearful eyes one of the cheesiest phrases in cinema history, “You complete me”. Being single is finding that other half within yourself, realising that while broken, you are whole because life is too short to believe that you are only half of who you are meant to be.
Being single is about first finding yourself before you find the other. It is about loving yourself so you can love the other. It is recognising that broken person you are, so you can recognise and love the brokenness in the other.
I don’t know where I am headed to, but this I know, that being single is for me.
Read also: Time to rethink your digital connections
