Originally published February 2023.
They’re coming for your hope. The dating industry, dating culture, ageism, misogyny, they’re all coming. They want you to feel small, worthless, disgusting, over. They want your hope drained like a sour keg at a frat party where men behave like giving women a morsel of attention is doing them a favor. They want you hopeless, spent, and exhausted, so that you settle for the bare minimum of effort and humanity. I’ve been single for 15 years and my hope is thriving like a fairy tale hedge maze. Good luck cutting it down.
I’ve been podcasting for near four years and I think this week’s episode, The Cockroach Of Human Emotions, is one of my all-time favorites. I cover questions from my Patrons including how to overcome the feeling that age is in charge of your physical beauty (and it’s supposed rapid decline), and how to drown out the deafening din of “coaches” and the like on social media telling singles we’re alone because we haven’t “healed” yet, all while scores of marrieds have never seen the inside of a therapist’s office. But the episode begins, of course, with Valentine’s Day, because despite my best efforts, it’s still a thing.
You’re not bound to the things you dislike. You don’t have to hate things the world thinks you should. There are no rules about what has to be a problem for you and what doesn’t. You’re allowed to like things, but here’s what’s move overlooked: You’re allowed to feel neutral about things, too. Valentine’s Day is allowed to happen without any ill feelings at all. You’re allowed to see your office’s front desk person deliver bouquet after bouquet to desks that aren’t yours and feel no shame or jealousy. You don’t have to scowl, did you know that? You’re also allowed to ask why this is the only day of the year flowers happen, but I digress.
Single people’s hope is not encouraged, but rather actively attacked. In five years of work in the singlehood space I’ve lost count of how many ways the world wants us to feel hopeless enough to settle, just to escape the shame of being alone. But the world doesn’t have to live a life you settled for, you do. You deserve whatever it is that you want, and you deserve for your hope to feel joyous, rather than desperate. Your desires are allowed to feel valid, rather than impossible. And just because the love you actually want hasn’t entered your life yet, there is literally no reason to assume it never will. Don’t believe in your future less just because it looks different from everyone else’s past.
I will believe in love on my death bed, and more importantly I will always believe in a single life without longing. I know it’s possible, because I left a life of singlehood misery and shame and found hope, purpose, and happiness instead. The love I’ll someday receive won’t complete my life, it will add to it, and until then my future is something I look forward to, not something full of fear, and void of hope. No one deserves to dread their own future just because they’re single. And if you struggle with this very thing, my work is for you. Happy Valentines Day.