Single Pringle

By Nicki Fudge

This year I began to do the one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I stopped actively looking for a relationship, and started to turn down anyone who asked. I deliberately chose to be single.

And by single I don’t mean that giddy, overcompensating, wide eyed “Wohooo!! Being single is the BEST FUN IN THE WORLD” kind of single. That type of fake enjoyment is usually accompanied by repeated sips of alcohol, alongside simultaneous scanning of the room for anyone mildly eligible with the potential to fulfil all your hopes and dreams.

I mean the single that involves learning to just ‘be’- stepping off that seemingly endless treadmill of searching for ‘the one’, and just relaxing and loving life! Stopping myself from constantly wondering “Could this be it? Could this be that special someone?” or, more dangerously and regularly, “Did I just miss the one? Did they just sail past me on the train platform, or were they that completely dysfunctional past relationship? HAVE I MISSED MY ONE CHANCE AT TRUE LOVE?”

Because, if I am honest, I’m not sure that our culture’s (and my past) overwhelming fascination with ‘all-consuming’ ‘all-completing’ love is at all healthy. The idea that you are made whole by another human being who you are mutually eternally fascinated with is one that is rarely, if ever, questioned. I don’t think that it (just) comes from a completely jaded part of me to point out that this is quite a strange, and unrealistic, concept.

The idea that at some point, someday, through school, university, hobbies, church, or spontaneous conversations on public transport, you will meet someone who is going to complete you. They are going to make you a real, wholly fulfilled and deliriously happy person.

That’s all very well if that does happen for you, but what if you are single for long periods of time, or, (dare I even whisper it) forever? What if you never settle down, meet the one, or relationships don’t turn out like you expected? What if you don’t even want them to?

Our society screams that that is impossible! That without ‘true love’ you are unfulfilled, lonely and missing a huge amounts of life achievement points.

But the longer I stay out of a relationship the more I start to notice this pervading societal message that we NEED to find someone. Practically every song, every beauty advert, and every film has a romantic element to it. We are fed on a diet of Disney, of happily-ever-after fairytales, repeatedly told that happiness comes from that ‘special someone’.

So many songs are about being completed by love, being lonely without love, and losing love and it being THE END OF THE WORLD. Take Whitney’s highly balanced view of love that “I have nothing, nothing, nothing if I don’t have you”, or One Direction’s “You light up my world like nobody else”. I could go on, but I’m sure we can all think of plenty of massively over-exaggerated lyrics in songs because they are the constant background music to our lives.

And for women, there is the added fascination with female literature: Mills and Boon novels sell over 200 million every year globally, and since the emergence of the kindle, the buying of chic-lit is on the rise. And, without wanting to totally bad-mouth my favourite author, every famous Jane Austen novel is about the struggle for love and marriage, usually ending in her characters achieving both of them.

This obsession with all-consuming love is why we have speed dating, online dating, and, let’s be brutally honest here, clubbing. Let’s face it, it is why women buy crazy high heels, make up, perfume, jewellery- it’s why the fashion industry exists. Women are absolutely desperate to find that one special person who will make their dreams come true, and the older they get without finding this the more pressure society exudes on them to do so.

We are not supposed to be happy single, as it is not meant to be a permanent state, just an interim period before we settle down. Even Bridget Jones, the heroine of single women everywhere, is utterly desperate for a man. All of her diets, clothing and behaviour choices are not for herself, they are so that she can attract that ‘special someone’.  

We are afraid of ending up as spinsters, left on the shelf. I hate the connotations of that word, mainly because being a bachelor sounds fantastic compared to spinsterhood. Bachelorhood conjures up images of flitting around the world Bond style, working and travelling, too busy and exciting for love. Spinster implies a bitter old woman, in the corner of the party: a lonely old maid.

Now I know, as all of us who have been single for a while will know, that every now and then one of us will roll our eyes and sigh (or think) “I am clearly going to be single FOREVER, and live with cats/ a small farm of micro pigs, for the rest of my life. Where are all the good men? The Prince Charmings? WHERE?”.

But let’s gently challenge this for a second. The real problem is not the lack of good potential men, the problem is that we not letting ourselves be happy alone. Living within that desperate perspective puts pressure on some poor man to suddenly swoop in and make you a whole person. Learning to be happy by ourselves, un-doubtably means that we will stop even bothering to look, because we are very much enjoying life unattached romantically.

If anything, being single for a while has really opened my eyes. I don’t want to look, I don’t feel I have to look and, quite frankly, there is more to me than who I have chosen to be with. I am my own person, and no less of a whole human when single. In fact, I rather enjoy it!