solitude

some reflections on being single

I was at dinner a few weeks ago with two women, similar to me. Mid-thirties, single. Vibrant enough, attractive enough, interesting enough, smart enough. Stylish enough, emotionally aware enough, educated enough, generally well meaning enough. Perfectly nice, perfectly dynamic, perfectly practical romantic partners. All unattached, at least formally. The conversation turned– as conversation amongst singles often does– to dating. Are you seeing anyone? How is it going with the peter pan syndrome guy from the summer? Are you on apps? Convivial chit-chat and then, “I’ve come to terms with the reality that I might never meet someone.” One of my friends said it, the second woman agreed and I felt my breath quicken and my chest start to itch.

“We’ll see what happens.” I said, which is what I almost always say when I do not know what to say.

Taking part in (or more accurately nodding along politely and occasionally making a joke-in-poor-taste while the women who surround me engage in) this conversation about reckoning and coming to terms with the reality that life may not play out as we’d hoped, has become an increasingly regular part of my social interactions. Most of the women I know seem– at least from where I sit– to find contentment, empowerment in this prospect. Single women are the happiest people! I read articles, tweets, and watch TikToks with this thesis. I hear horror stories about bad marriages. I lived through a marriage that was not a horror story but was of the quality where divorce was its conclusion. I envy the women who seem so content with life on their own. I go to dinners with my friends, to parties with my sister, on last minute trips. I sometimes value that my time is my own. I am always grateful for how much I have learned about myself and how much I have grown since my divorce, since it’s been only me taking care of myself.

I like the person I am. I like her very much. She is empathetic, funny, interesting, bubbly, daring, and compassionate. She is treading water trying to learn how to function effectively, how to work more and indulge her impulses less. She is sometimes prone to debilitating depression, relationships (not romance) drive her and when she is barely functioning she still makes plans and answers messages. When she is depressed she stops working and starts feeling more and more embarrassed and insecure until she is finally forced to write even though she is mortified by her trivial, blonde lady issues because the alternative to penitent essays is too dark to consider. I like her energy and I am trying to believe that she is capable of learning how to take care of and provide for herself. She’s goofy and well meaning and unafraid to be bold. I like her so much that I love her. I love her enough to remind her to breathe and slow down and protect herself from her worst impulses, even if I only succeed sometimes. I love her enough to force her to be alone until something unilaterally better than romantic solitude comes along. I make her take things slow, romantically. Remind her to let very viable romantic connections play out on their own time. There is no need to rush. There is plenty of time! It is better to know someone before committing to them! Slow and steady and warm and unattached to outcomes wins the race! You are kind and dynamic and attractive and smart and worthy of love. I believe all of that many of the times I say it to myself.

am I ugly? be honest.

Being single is fun. It is acting on impulse and learning about yourself, the eager joy of possibility in every night out and irresponsible schedules. I am self-possessed but aware of my numerous flaws. Confident enough to be unwilling to settle for a relationship that is not well suited to me. I am not desperate but I also cannot come to terms with the idea that I might spend the next fifty-ish years without a romantic partner. I am progressively minded, a feminist! I do not believe that women need a partner, a man, to complete them. Sincerely, I admire many women who have chosen themselves and decided to remain single. And yet, I find the idea that I might be one of them so terrifying I cannot allow myself to consider the possibility for more than forty-six seconds at a time.

I am embarrassed to admit that, embarrassed to write it and to feel it. I hear many women celebrating their full, single lives and many women extolling the values of a traditional partnership. I haven’t heard much from anyone else in the mortifying middle.

I am, at my core, a domestic creature. A bit feral, certainly. But I function best in the company of others, in a family. This has become increasingly clear to me over the last two years– the first time in my entire life that I have really lived by myself– as I have struggled to settle into a productive routine with no full-time human cohabitants. I dislike living by myself so much that I hate it. I feel strongly that most of my mental health issues come from living alone when I am not well suited to it. I do not crave a roommate (though I would be happy living with my sister), I crave a domestic partner. I function well with the subtle pressure of someone else being aware of my daily movements. I miss cooking for someone, straddling a man’s back and rubbing the knots out of his shoulders and neck, mundane conversations about the contents of the fridge. I want someone to ask me how my day was and what it contained, to bring me a bottle of water from the fridge. I miss opening up about some trivial but hurtful issue in a friendship and being met with solutions rather than empathy and rolling my eyes gently and saying, “no, I don’t need help I need commiseration." I want someone to root for me while I root for him. For fear of sounding like a pick-me, I honestly really like men and I cannot imagine spending the next 628 months waking up without one. I know, cognitively, that a man will not solve all of my problems. But I cannot shake the feeling that the right one might throw a life raft that would allow me to solve them myself. A welcome reprieve, even though I am a strong and capable swimmer.

I often feel like I am alone on this island of optimistic or delusional longing. Like I am the only woman left in the world who wants these things as deeply as I want them but who is also unwilling to try to have them with someone who does not quite meet her standards. I believe that we get the love we hold out for but I feel like I might be the only person holding out. Of course, I understand that is ridiculous. Everything I feel has been felt by billions of people before me. I think we do not talk about these sorts of desires because they feel childish or silly. Or, perhaps, because the scariest thing in the world is admitting aloud that we really, deeply want something we might not receive. Do you think I am a fool for believing he’s out there? That he’s just around the corner? That it’s possible, even, that I could know him already?

I love you and I also love me,

Hannah Stella

PS: This essay is free. There will be at least one paid essay by the end of the month. If you enjoyed this essay, I would really truly appreciate it if you would comment, share it, and/or email or dm me.