The Real Reason Why I'm Single

It took me quite a while to figure this out. First I must say, I never thought in a million years that I’d be 31 and single with no kids. If you had gone back to 2000 and told the 18 year old me that this is where I’d be in 2013, I would have vehemently rejected the reality. I just KNEW I was gonna be married to some dude named Brandon (not a real dude, just always adored that name) with four kids (two boys and two girls) living in a large ass house with a wrap around porch in the suburbs somewhere. Yeah.

Anyway, I’m no different than any other youngin. I’ve had my fair share of dating & relationship experience and the ups & downs that come with it. As the years rolled by, first the excuse was that I couldn’t find a good guy. Let me just be candid; I’ve dated some, shall we say, “offbeat” men. One friend even referred to me as a “scavenger”…as I seemed to pick through what’s left over in the men pile (really!). Either he wasn’t physically or mentally or financially fit, or we didn’t share the same religious beliefs…really a bunch of superficial stuff.

Before I knew it, I’d turned into this intense serial dater and the melodramatic cycle I experienced went something like this: meet guy; complete and overt infatuation consumes entire thought process; guy does something to utterly burst bubble (i.e. reality sets in); spend weeks recovering from the high. What I was really doing was chasing the high of the newness. I needed that excitement that newness brought to make me feel alive. After the newness wore off and reality kicked in (burst bubble) I became disappointed or bored, only to traipse off further into the field of daises to encounter my next victim object of affection. How immature right?

Hindsight is always 20/20. Truth be told, I was always the one running away when things got too real. I accused my men of being emotionally unavailable, yet it was I, too, who was unavailable after a certain point and didn’t realize it; mistaking the passion of sexual relations for deep emotional connection and commitment. And sometimes I ran because I wanted to “reject him before he rejects me.” It took a couple of times of actually being rejected and allowing myself to feel the sting of it before I made myself take a break and really think about why I kept repeating this cycle. Why was I single? Why did I want a relationship so bad? Being alone with myself, I realized I was seeking to prove my worth to the world through a relationship. I wanted a man to make me feel like I was worth something; to make me feel ALIVE. I wanted this more than the relationship itself. Because deep down inside, regardless of being told how brilliant or beautiful I was, regardless of the smile on my face and the “I’m fine, things are great” response I gave folks when they asked how I was, on a subconscious level I felt worthless. It had not occurred to me that I could engage myself in other areas of life to build my confidence and realize my worth as a human first and as a woman second. It should be a common sense thing, and we hear and read about it all the time, but sometimes it takes personally getting through a painful experience to fully understand.

Relationships are beautiful when they’re built by the right people. I think there are limitations though, and I’m mindful of that now. Relationships with others are built from the outside, and I no longer agree that your sense of self worth can be found there. That’s the limit. It can only come from within, where there are no limits.

I should stop saying I’m single and say that I’m in a relationship with myself. I am taking time to fully know me and what it feels like to understand that I don’t have to prove my worth to anyone!