Being single is kinda like being in a committed relationship. Just without the love. Or the companionship. Or hope for tomorrow.
Being in a committed relationship is sorta like being single. Just without the sex. Or spontaneity. Or hope for tomorrow.
Question: What is worse? That slow, solitary Sunday on your couch binge-swiping Tinder and “Netflix and Chilling” alone; or the long drive home from a couple's dinner that just publicly brought your relationship's issues passive-aggressively to the surface, making the air around the evening thick with dread?
What is worse? The anxiety of loneliness or the stench of rotting love?
Question: Which is more exhausting? That three-hour argument about how you never listen anymore whenever he or she is trying to tell you that you never listen; or the three hours at the bar with your fellow single buddy, pretending that you're having fun and not really laser-marking every potential mate in the joint, adjusting your every movement, your every thought, so that you might find that special someone to save you from this degrading human auction — might save your very soul — and, perhaps, if you're lucky, one day keep you up for three hours arguing about how you never listen anymore.
God freakin' help us.
Dreams of Hollywood love-stories followed by the downer when another overrated Saturday night passes and they haven't come true. Stare absently at the diaper-rash cream as your single friends go out and conquer new worlds.
Which is better? What life should one aim for?
And if we are not there, is it okay to be here?
Despite feeling forced to mention how the following may be a cliché, that faraway grass does often seem greener and most things do indeed have both pros and cons. Some days it's going to suck, whichever is your personal lot. And on other days your situation will shine bright, making you the envy of someone living the exact opposite life, someone you probably would have switched places with not too long ago.
I will resist self-help bargain-bin optimism and will not advise you to just let the universe give you what you deserve. You don't deserve shit, not any more than the next person.
But I will take a moment to reflect on moments, on duality, on the fleeting instances that make life brilliant, even as we are busy lamenting what is not.
The rush at a new hand's welcoming first touch / The comfort when an old friend opens their eyes and smiles.
Every door hiding mysterious potential, every day a blank page / A thousand words in one look, the smell that warms.
The surprise at finding a new piece that fits so perfectly / The wonder how you were ever whole without it.
Question: Why must one be better than the other?