I came out when I was 18, and at university, though I'd known since I was 11. Those seven years weren't the easiest, but in terms of relationships I was reasonably okay with the fact that nothing was likely to happen until I got to uni: that was the place where I would finally have the opportunity to be myself, and meet someone. So it was with a lot of expectation that I headed off in 2002, leaving behind a lot of myself. Or so I thought.
University proved to be an incredibly hard place for me, particularly with regards to dating, and it was in my second year there that I fell into a deep depression. Save short spells of respite, that would last for a further seven years. My single status would last a lot longer. In fact, I'm still in it now.
The word single, for most people, is relatively judgement free. That's because it's considered either short term and transitory, or something picked out of choice. The idea of a single life is often associated with freedom, the opportunity for sexual proclivity, and an easy life without suffering anyone else's expectations.
Or is it? Singledom is still deeply gendered: the confirmed bachelor (positive, male) and the miserable spinster (negative, female). Stupidly this speaks more of entrenched patriarchal fears of women gaining social and economic power, rather than any true historical fact. There are as many single men as there are women. There have to be, because mathematically speaking there are roughly equal numbers of men as there are women, and even taking into account that not everyone is a heterosexual, and that women are nowadays living longer than men, it takes one plus one to equal two. Even amongst gay men and gay women, where it is widely accepted that gay men are more prone to short term relationships, and gay women to longer term ones, by the sheer mathematical equation of it all, you will still have broadly the same numbers of gay men and gay women who are single at any one time.
So from the outside we have two notions of what it is to be single. One a choice that reaps huge benefits; one a curse that delivers huge miseries. But what is the reality from the inside?
There are a number of men and women, who are single and happy to be so. Yet most who are single are looking for love in one way or another. And even those happiest of bachelors and bachelorettes will on occasion find a spasm of doubt and perhaps melancholy when they find themselves waking up alone. It takes a very strong person to find true contentment in absolute solitude.
With depression on the rise, more people living alone, loneliness being counted one of the greatest risks particularly to the elderly, and growing suicide rates, particularly amongst men, we are in a state of crisis.
It is not enough to throw out meaningless platitudes to someone who comes to you feeling rejected, and sad about being single. It is never okay to try and make them feel bad for feeling bad. I would argue that truly understanding what it is like to be single for a decade is one of the hardest things for most people, who drift in and out of relationships, to imagine, let alone truly feel and understand. There needs to be an education.
And before there is an education in what it is to be single, there needs to be a dialogue, and that dialogue requires a whole new language to be established. Socially all of our ideas about being single relate back to its temporary nature leading up to being in a relationship. Similar to the negative ways that disability has long been seen as something defined by the ways that it is not 100% able, being single is one of the many 'others' in our society that is abused to make the dominant culture feel better.
It is my intention to find a way to make single people, like myself, feel better about themselves, and their lives. And if you don't understand why that needs to happen (beyond just telling them to cheer up, or that they should be grateful for all the free time), then I think you could probably do with a bit of educating on the subject too.
