Remembering Single Life

Yesterday I came home from work to an empty house.

Emily was away on a business trip, and I had asked my parents to dogsit for us while she’s gone.

It was definitely a bit odd arriving to a silent home. Originally, I thought that I was going to enjoy having the house to myself. Everyone needs their alone time, after all, and this would be a brief moment to soak in the joys of solitude.

We’ve all heard it before – the grass is greener on the other side. When we’re single, we look at couples in love with equal parts of wonder, contempt, pity, and envy. We may think, How pathetic, they depend on each other for happiness. Why can’t they just be happy on their own? Losers. Or, Get a room you assholes. But deep down, perhaps we feel jealousy creeping up our spinal cords, longing to be with that someone to experience life with, who can tolerate us just enough and not fill us with shame when they see how ridiculous our naked bodies look in bed.

When we’re in a relationship, we look at single people in the same way, don’t we? We almost resent them for being so different, yet we envy their seemingly independent lifestyles. Our single friends can fly off to Rome on a moment’s notice without any permission, we think. They have all the time to sit around and do what they want.

Despite everyone being gone and my having the house to myself, I really didn’t do anything different. I didn’t have a massive freakout session a la Tom Cruise in Risky Business. All I did was eat some leftovers and watch a movie on Netflix – I ended up watching Electrick Children; kind of an odd movie, I think I enjoyed it, but am not completely sure.

This blog is called A Couple Talks. Emily and I started this whole thing because we thought we’d enjoy doing this together. That was the point and still is – together.

Thinking about last night though, I wonder, where the hell would I be if I was single? Would my life be that much different? I mean, I’d be eating out a lot more and the interior design of my home would be a lot worse – I never gave a shit about that before Emily moved in – but what about me? What kind of person would I be right now?

The core of who I am is the same, and I think that’s a good thing. I don’t believe anyone should completely change who they are on account of someone else. It’s like a meat lover giving up beef to be with a vegan – why would anyone do that?

However, I must say that I’ve improved in many ways being with Emily. I read a lot more, have experienced new things, and have become more open to new possibilities about the future. In a way, it’s like I’ve stayed the same person but in a more enlightened state. And isn’t that what we all want from a relationship?

Don’t get me wrong, being single is great. There’s so much personal growth that can happen being single. I know a lot of people are sick of dating, viewing it as a waste of time to spend an evening with a stranger which will most likely end up nowhere. And I know a lot of people also feel like they are doomed to be single forever, feeling like there is absolutely no way that they will meet anyone compatible enough to be in a lasting committed relationship with.

If this is you, the truth is, I have no idea if you’ll ever find that person you can spend the rest of your life with. It would be bullshit for me to be like, There there, you’ll meet the one eventually, everyone does. I have no fucking clue.

What I believe is this – life can appear to be completely random, and most of it is, but it’s really up to us to make of it what we want. Whether we’re single or in a relationship, we should always be evaluating the state of our lives – Is this how we want our lives to be? Are we in a good place? Are we headed in the right direction? What can we do to improve ourselves and our situation?

Our fates are not sealed. We have the pen and paper, so let’s be the ones writing our life story rather than having someone else write it for us.

– Chris.