Single is just a Status not a Way of Life

Recently I have been reading all my favorite dating blogs and it seems to me that their has been a call to defend the fact that we are single and happy.  I have loved all these post.  I love hearing the I am single and happy and this is why.  The thing that really bothers me is that why does it even mater? Why is my relationship status always at the forefront of everything.  I am single and I am happy, but unlike some of the post I have read I think I would be just as happy if I was in a relationship. I am not here to say I choose to be single.  I don't choose to be single.  I just am single.  I guess I will choose to be in a relationship, but from my experience the relationships that work are with those people that don't really have to work on being in a couple.... Well that isn't true we always have to work at being in a relationship with anyone.  I guess what I mean is that the people that I see as happy couples are the people who didn't ever define themselves as single.  They are who they are regardless of their relationship status.


I don't know why I'm having such a problem with this idea that I have to defend being single.  I feel that when we go around doing this it almost is like we are trying to prove to ourselves that being single is ok. I was reading a magazine or a blog or something that was listing all the great things about being single.  While I was reading this list I was thinking, "Well all those things make me sound really selfish." All those great things make me sound like I hate all my friends that are in relationships. All of these articles basically were attacking the idea of being with someone.  Let's be honest if we really are happy about being single we wouldn't be on Match and OKc and going on dates.  We would just be living our lives.  When we list all these great things about being single we are just trying to make our single selves happy saying see being single is great.  It is, but so is being in a relationship.  One isn't better then the other.  We need to get over proving that being one is better then being the other.  There is nothing wrong with me being single and there is nothing wrong with my sister because she chose to get married.  She found someone and it works.  I haven't found someone and it works.  I'm happy regardless of the fact that I haven't found someone.  It isn't because there is a list of things I can do because I'm not in a relationship.  When I finally meet someone I'm going to be happy too. There are days that I will hate being in a relationship.  Just like there are days that I hate being single.

I have been working on the issue of defining ourselves.  What labels we have put on other people and what labels we accept.  I think for the most part that it makes us unhappy. For the longest time I was living a life that was all about the labels that I thought I needed to fit into.  This is how a 20 something in NYC should be.  This is what a single girl is like.  This is what a nanny looks/acts like.  I should be like this because I'm single.  If I do this I won't be single. All these things made me miserable.  Trying to fit into the definition that people impose on you is exhausting.  I've tried to stop this.  I took my status off of Facebook, I stooped using dating sites. I started acting how like myself again. I started living despite of the labels not because of the labels. You see I never cared that I was single until I move to NYC.  I never used it as a label until I hit 25.  I never saw it as something good or bad until my friends started getting married.  The past few months I have come to a realization that I am single and that doesn't matter.  It isn't because of all the things I can and can't do, but because honestly it is the smallest part of who I am.  It is the least important part of my life.  Someday I wont be single anymore and that will be great, but just like being single didn't define me neither will being in a relationship.