As of just a few days ago, I have been officially single for an even decade.
When I mention that in passing, many people look at me incredulously and ask how I can be alone for that long.
The simple answer (which leaves many just confused) is that I’m not alone and haven’t been alone. Just single.
In that time I’ve been on a grand total of two or three dates (depending on how generous you want to be with the definition of “date”), most of them just a few months ago. Other than the kiss at the end of the second recent date, there’s been nothing. No canoodling, no cuddling, no make out sessions and most certainly no sex.
When this all comes up, people get even more suspicious. “Surely there must have been something!” they say.
Nope. When I’m single, I’m single all the way. Just like when I actually date, I go all in with that, too.
Everything else is Friendship and Crushes.
So how have I managed it?
That’s pretty simple: I haven’t bothered to ask people out. It’s not that amazing to realize that if you don’t ask people out, they won’t be going out with you.
The real question that should be asked is: Why?
That answer is nowhere near as simple.
It started out as just a matter of circumstance. Back in my home town, especially when I first returned to single status shortly after I moved back after five years of college, there were two factors. The first was that I wasn’t planning on staying there all that long. No need or desire to get attached only to have to deal with long distance, heart breaking or attempting to drag her with me wherever I ended up going.
The second factor was a distinct lack of interest. My dating “luck” growing up was, at best, mediocre. At worst, the stuff of farcical comedy. I had no interest in re-living the worst of those moments. I also had no real romantic interest in anyone I knew who was still in town. Most of the people I had been interested in had long ago moved away… those who hadn’t, I found I had (generally) had little in common with.
Over the first five years, things would get a little rough every now and then. It was during those times that I would have told you just how alone I was. My social life was generally non-existant without an hour and a half of driving each way. I had no privacy. And, even if I had been making decent money, there was nowhere to spend it except the local bars–and I don’t drink.
Near the end of that time, thanks to reconnecting with some genuine old friends (yes, at one point or another I did, indeed, have a crush on the female ones), things got better.
That was when the difference between wants and needs became clear to me.
While what I may have wanted was to indulge my inner hopeless romantic, it wasn’t what I needed. If it had been, I would have been trolling the local bars looking for women to woo.
What I needed was relationships. Not necessarily romantic ones, just people I could relate to.
I found them in spades during the second half of the decade.
I’ve been very lucky that I get everything I need and most of what I want out of normal platonic relationships. My friendships run deep and solid. Those who are just acquaintences fill in gaps in the social mesh I’m wrapped in–exposing me to new things, teaching me, learning from me, growing into Friends.
But still, there is the call of Romance.
It’s just not strong enough, usually, to make me bother.
And so, I crush.
For a decade, that’s pretty much all I’ve been doing.
I’m really OK with that. (No matter how much other believe that’s impossible.)
However, I’m also open to change.
My sense of self is strong enough and stable enough that I know full well I can be content, if not outright happy, no matter what my romantic statu is. Attached, dating, single–it doesn’t change who I am… just how I express who I am.
As much as I’ve been single, I’ve rarely been alone. Even at the worst, I’ve always had myself and the world around me.
That relationship with oneself is something I don’t think everyone gets. That is the root of every other relationship in our lives.
After all, we’re the only common factor in all those flings and friendships, right?
