For five years now I’ve been single. Really single. Not like the last time, where I fell in and out of love a thousand unrequited times with the same person, always believing that the perfect relationship was just around the corner.
I’ve been single in the sense that I haven’t dated. I’ve been single in the sense that I haven’t even tried to date. I’ve been single in the sense that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had romantic thoughts about another (real live) person.
The first year or two were hard, but necessary. I was done pandering to men, doing whatever I thought they wanted in order to win their attention. I was done defining myself by whether I was loveable or fuckable by another person. I was done trying to build a white picket fence life in an overgrown garden of a world that I’d only just begun to explore.
It got easier. I became my own beloved, caring for and supporting myself, creating a wonderful, vibrant, dream of a life. The idea of being in a relationship like I had experienced in the past was laughable. Why would I settle for a relationship when loving myself was the happiest I’d ever been?
But tiny tendrils of doubt have started creeping through my being. More and more I hear my thoughts say things like: ‘I’m so tired. I’m so tired of looking after myself.’ ‘It would be so nice if someone was thinking about my needs and trying to meet them for one day.’ ‘I just wish I didn’t have to do everything on my own all the time.’ Sometimes it’s little things, like taking out the rubbish. Sometimes it’s big things, like trying to figure out where my life is headed. Sometimes it’s every single thing in between at once, until I feel like I’m drowning under the weight of life’s vagaries.
It’s not that I don’t want to be single anymore, it’s just that I don’t want to be alone.
The thing is, having been alone for more of my life than not, I don’t know what to do with these feelings. I definitely don’t want to get into a relationship just to stop feeling this way. But I’ve moved beyond the point of meeting my own needs and being satisfied. In the past, I’ve just worked harder at being self-sufficient in order to get through the tough times. Something tells me that’s the opposite of what I need to do right now.
So how do you stop being alone without being a burden on other people? How do you have your needs met without having unrealistic expectations of other people knowing what your needs are in the first place? How do you ask for what you want when what you want is not to have to ask for what you want?
What do you do when being your own beloved just isn’t enough?
I don’t know the answers, but I do know that just the possibilities raised by the questions make me feel scared and uncomfortable, like I don’t fit inside my skin anymore.
It’s not my favourite place to be.