Being Single in Your Thirties
It’s March, and if you’ve been around here for a while you know that that means it’s birthday month. Last year I hit the big three-oh. I was a few months out of a relationship, was still working my way out of depression and burnout, I quit my job, started singing and teaching again and went back to school. Needless to say, 30 has been a big year for me, who knows what 31 has in store?
Well, as luck would have it, I had to go and get COVID the weekend before my birthday so I’ve had a loooot of time on my hands (okay not a lot, school is keeping me pretty busy) to reflect and reflecting leads to feeling which leads to me crying which leads to me writing. So here I am. Getting back to the roots of how this blog started - just me talking about my own shit and how I’m dealing with it.
I find myself in a unique situation that’s probably not as unique as it feels. Some of my friends are older and starting families, some are younger and starting school, some are trying to find the right career and some are just trying to find their purpose. I’ve got a nice little friend charcuterie board with a little of everything on it (maybe that was a bad metaphor…). One thing that I’ve noticed is that most of my friends my age, have found their life partners. And I love that because I can see how they add to their life, not subtract from it. When my brother met his wife, he was like a totally different person that we hadn’t seen in years. It’s like she breathed life back into him. We knew she was the one because we saw the joy in his life we hadn’t seen before. So it’s really magical to see that in the people around you that you love. And (we love our “yes…and’s…”) it sometimes gets hard to be the single one. And I guess that’s what I want to talk about.
When I was single in my twenties? Such a different story. I was having fun, going out, living in a town where I was constantly meeting new people and going to the pub on a Monday night (shoutout to Paddy’s, if you know, you know). Being single now feels like you’re stuck in this place, and you want to get unstuck but you don’t have the time or the money or energy to get unstuck and break out and you just have this fear looming over you of being single for the rest of your life. I have this fear (and bear with me because I haven’t had therapy in a while) that I’m gonna be that Auntie to all my friends’ kids and celebrating everyone else’s milestones and it’s always just gonna be me and no plus one. It’s gonna be my friends’ kids writing in their journal at school, “This weekend was really fun. I stayed with my Auntie B. She lives alone with her cat and likes to crochet mushrooms.” Which, is not all bad if I’m being honest, but when I think about that future, I feel really sad. I feel like I failed.
Maybe it’s because of Jane Austen and all the rom coms I used to watch (hard to know what came first) but I am and always have been a hopeless romantic. Emphasis on the hopeless at this point. But all jokes aside, finding a life partner, I’ve learned over time, is something that brings my life meaning. Having someone to share life with. The ups and downs and everything in between. But at this stage of my life it feels so difficult. I work, do school online, eat, sleep and repeat. And when I do have a chance to go out, I’m either with my friends who are already partnered, or I’m meeting new people who then introduce me to their girlfriends. Don’t even get me started on dating apps. I could could probably do a whole post on just the trial and tribulations of that, but you know what? I do it. Because at the end of the day I want to say that I’m trying.
And I think some of what is hard about being single with a lot of close friends who aren’t is that you sometimes feel left behind. You feel a bit forgotten. You know that it’s not true, you know that you are loved and cared for and you can easily recall all the ways that they make time for you and show you they care. But it can’t fill that emptiness. Because when you get home, it’s dark. There’s no one there to make dinner with, or start a show with. When you’ve had a bad day, or hell when you’ve had a good day, and you want to tell someone about it, even though it’s pretty mundane, there’s just silence. Even just to have someone there with you, to sit with you with the lights low as you each do your own thing. It’s hard sometimes to not have those things. And as you get older and friendships change, it gets even harder.
It’s not always hard. Sometimes it’s awesome. I love taking up as much space as I want in bed. I like knowing that when I need quiet I can have it and when I want to listen to music on full blast I can. But it’s still lonely. And I think that’s the best word to describe being single in your thirties: you are so self-sufficiently lonely.
This is one of those posts that doesn’t have a solution I’m afraid. But if you’re in this boat, perhaps we can be lonely together. It’s okay to have all those hard feelings. I think there’s a lot of pressure in feminism sometimes to be happy on your own, and you feel guilty for wanting someone there. So I’m here to remind you that you can be independent and self sufficient and still want to share life with someone. Just because you can do it alone doesn’t mean you should or have to. So that’s my two cents on the matter. As always, I’d love to hear yours.
Drop your thoughts in the comments below and don’t forget to share with someone you think might relate.
Take good care,
B