Being Single Does Not Mean Failure

Why can't a woman be single without meaning she is failing?

Haven't you gotten a boyfriend yet? Why not? Oh my God are you going to be single forever? Are you a lesbian?

I have heard and answered these questions many times. Some people ask them because they cannot understand how an attractive young woman can still be single at the age of thirty. Some other people ask as if being single was the worst thing in the world, and of course, there is also the group of people who ask those questions because they feel sorry for you. In any of the mentioned situations, my first reaction is to get mad wondering why the fact of being single in my thirties bothers so many people. I am an independent young woman living my life happily without asking for anybody's opinion; besides it is not their business the reason why I am not dating. My second reaction is to try to find good excuses as if, in fact, I had to be ashamed of not having a boyfriend.

The Brazilian composer Vinicius de Moraes wrote:

Like the ocean that is only beautiful in the moonlight. Like a song that only makes sense if someone sings it. Like a cloud that only happens if it rains. Like the poets that are only big if they show pain. To live without love is not living. There is not you without me and I do not exist without you

The poem is a little dramatic and I highly disagree with it once it shows a reliance on somebody else in order to find happiness. Love seems to be what runs the world, the missing thing in the life of who feels sadness and emptiness. It is everywhere and anywhere you look. Millions of songs have been made to try to describe this incredible feeling. Movies only seem to make sense if there is a love story with a happy ending.

I have spent many important years of my life seeking for love or just for a relationship hoping that as long as I had the so-called love I would be happy, but none of the relationships I had worked the way I expected. I felt like being alone was the ultimate sign of failure when the truth was that I never wanted to be in a relationship. I never wanted to get married or be part of the ideal, sociable and acceptable model of family. Over time, I found so many things about myself that I would never have noticed if I continued to think that life would only make sense if we love or are loved. I learned about things that were much more interesting to do and enjoy alone, like traveling, going out to a bar, or even just sleeping by myself in a king size bed.

I also loved to be free to choose who I would have sex with and that could be a different guy on each day of the week if I wished. Traveling by myself was not only one of the best things to do but was also a good chance to date and hook up with guys from the places I visit.

Serious relationships are boring and do not complete me and this is, just for the record, a personal choice. I am not going to lie and say that there are not times when I wonder if I should be like the other girls who settle down and get married, have children and these sorts of things, but then, I get to the conclusion that this type of life is not what I want.

It is not selfishness to pursue my dreams alone or to go on a journey by myself. Being in a relationship does not often equal happiness. Happiness for me is to feel comfortable in my own skin. Happiness has nothing to do with having a companion but with knowing myself so well and deeply to the point that I become my best company. I do not need anyone to validate my existence and certainly do not need anyone to complete me because I am already a complete human being in every single way even when I feel empty.

Being alone does not have to mean to be lonely or broken.

"A woman will never be complete without marriage” or “If you do not have children who will look after you when you get old?"

From both sides of my family, mother and father, I am the only young woman who has never had any long-term relationship and the only one without children.

“You are becoming too old and in a while, no man will want to marry you, they like young girls”

My grandmother repeatedly said this to me on my last visit to her. That was the first time I begin to reflect on the factor age and how it could possibly affect my love life. I was about to turn thirty-years-old when my grandmother told me that and the guys I had dated before, in fact, were dating much younger girls.

I had always had a crush on a guy I had met in my early twenties and he was also dating young girls. Aging is crueler for women than it is for men in so many different aspects. Why is it okay for a guy who is thirty years old to date an eighteen-year-old guy but for a woman at the same age it feels too old? Even though the age factor picks me on sometimes, I still do not feel like having a relationship. I am not going to lie, sometimes I miss some company, I really do. However, I sort of got used to being on my own.

I do not believe in monogamy and this is another reason why I cannot be in a serious relationship. I could never be happy having sex with only one person for the rest of my life, that for me is not faithfulness, but imprisonment. when it comes to sex, I need variety. There's also the fact that relationships are time-consuming and we have to be willing to invest in them and I do not feel prepared to do that.

Sometimes it is difficult to handle criticism whether coming from others or self-inflicted. Am I really too old? What if I turn forty-years-old and still be single? What if nobody wants me anymore? Well, in case I turn too old for the socially acceptable age standard to have relationships I will keep living my life the same way I do now, and that means not worrying about what people think about me and mainly not caring about what they think I should be doing, none of them pay my bills. If I become a single forty-year-old woman it will just mean that I made different choices and I shall be proud of myself. And last but not least, if no one wants me they are the ones losing, not me, I will be as happy and complete as I am now in my thirties.