Ever wondered what a singleton feels like on seeing happy, mawkish couples all around, engrossed in the hazy fantasies of romance and passion. Well, many would reckon that singles feel dismal and miserable, this may partially be true but it’s not the absolute truth. Singletons are happy being as they are, unruffled by the worries of being in a relationship where you constantly need to care for the other person’s choices and needs so much so that you have to engage in a list of compromises and sacrifices on your part. And then in the end are the efforts always appreciated? Is the commitment and investment showed by one in a relationship always equal to that of the other?
Love is a powerful emotion, it’s passionate, intimate, profound, overwhelming and all-consuming but is being in a relationship an implication of being in love? Can singles not be in love and yet be single? Such questions are pondered over by millions, but to come to a definitive answer is a personal choice, I believe it is in all likelihood possible for a single to be in love but not in a relationship. Observe a couple around you, the first few minutes they will be all hunky-dory, adorable and so much in love, it is as if they are the only two people in the world, the only existence that sustains in the world around them is that of rosy dreamy musings of what they term love. And in a while you’ll notice a dramatically, drastic transition, the couple that seemed too perfect moments ago now seems so broken, so cold, so detached, and why? Because that is usually the order of things, one partner has expectations too unreasonable, or unrealistic from the other,while the other is a victim of possessive love thinking that they might lose their partner to another, some partners engage in game-playing, engaging in a relationship with multiple partners at the same time, so with all the anxiety, misery, the fear of being cheated, the fear of separation and of agony and dismay, do you believe that a singleton would be unhappy with his or her relationship status? Undoubtedly there are times when singletons crave, yearn and long for the company, the presence, the warmth of someone they love or they are overwhelmed with a desire to be loved ,but that aside, the experience of singlehood is precious, devoid of the sufferings and complexities, devoid of the unnecessary intricacies of being in a relationship. A perpetual contact with a partner can exhaust your mental and emotional resources, with none left to utilize for yourself as all the energy has been focused on that one person.
There’s hardly anytime left for yourself when you constantly think about the other person, when interdependence takes over you. It is not so in the case of singles who get more time for introspection, reflection and self-enhancement, the time spent alone is the most engaging and productive when you have the opportunity to introspect and when you are aware of your emotions and their inference. When singles watch couples who continuously argue over choice of one another’s friends or ask the other to choose between love or friendship or when they argue over things as meagre as the sharing of a bed or a television remote or bigger issues such as settling down, it is discernible that singles feel blessed of their relationship status. Couples are initially delusional about their partner’s qualities and their relationship ,conjecturing them to be perfect, but over time they realize that their partner has flaws that earlier seemed to be cute but now are annoying and unlikable, and when this realization dawns upon them it erodes a loving relationship, many times to the extent of driving the relationship to a break-up. Hence, singletons do cherish singlehood, they desire love but more so they desire peace, they wait for love to happen, they don’t experience the wedded bliss or the fanciful romance of a couple but they do experience the joy, freedom and independence that tags along with singlehood, for them being single is love.
