Zen and the Art of Being Single
After two years I am single again. This time in Melbourne at the crest of the second COVID wave. My status has been downgraded from boyfriend to housemate. I am moving into the back room.
Our relationship lasted on-and-off for over a decade, with the final year being in couple’s therapy. Living with the legacy of relationship norms established in our mid-twenties (read: fun and drugs), it was only in this final stretch we learned to communicate, and through that communication, that we were not suitable life partners. There were simply too many irreconcilable differences between our characters. We could have doubled down, had children and ended up bitter and resentful but we called it. I have no bitterness but confidence that this is the right choice.
In our final session the therapist chalked it up as a victory - leaving for the right reasons was superior to staying together for the wrong ones. I am happy for the way that things are now - the only disquiet comes from the undertow of anxiety of arriving in a place I never thought I would be like settling in for a long bus trip but the driver pulling over early between official stops, steam shooting from the fizzing radiator.
So here’s me single and wiser but anxious about the future for me as a thirty seven year old man. It’s all on hold anyways - thanks to isolation - which gives me time to figure out what what I am looking for, time to take stock.
Because of our on-and-off history - I was single a few years ago and am under no illusion as to what life is like out there for a single man at the sharp end of their thirties. My experience with internet dating aligns with the rest of social media - it began with alpine optimism and ended with sticky cynicism. Over intensive period of internet dating I drew the conclusion that what was held at a premium was not authenticity but how effective you were at personal branding.
“It seemed” “My experience” “I drew the conclusion” - dammit man - have some conviction - no wonder you never got anywhere. The reason for such qualification is that I may have been the superficial one - trying to game the system myself. Truth is that I never knew who I was or really what I wanted. How could I expect anyone else to really figure that out.
I think I have a better idea now - which is to say I have a greater sense about how little I know but am surer about what I want. The real fear is starting again - late in the game - while my social media feed is a river of births, marriages and first birthdays - here’s me - arriving with a bit too much wine to a baby shower.
The solution I am beginning to figure out is not to see singledom as a aberration. Perhaps the issue with all those dates a few years ago was the stench of desperation that wafted from my leather jacket in all those wine bars. Like any BO I couldn’t smell my own but others could. I was unhappy being single, my smile was an unsexy wince. You have to be happy single, to be happy in yourself, before you can be a good partner. This is because a relationship will magnify each partner’s condition - satisfaction and self-understanding will be squared when met with like, same with fear, anxiety and desperation.
The project now is inward. To prepare and improve myself for the next relationship. Yet here lies the paradox - never to treat this as pre-relationship limbo but a valuable reality in itself. To be happy and satisfied with being single but being open to the potential of another relationship. That is a narrow tightrope. I have seen people that become complacent with being single - ending up calcified and closed to newness - when they find a relationship discovering that they are not amenable to the compromise required. I have also known people (like myself two years ago) so desperate for a relationship the squander the self-discovery and freedom of being single. The beacon by which to navigate, I believe, is the idea that you have always arrived whenever you are in the present. Where you are is where you are meant to be.
This state of mind aligns well with meditation and mindfulness - that constant striving is wasting the present. You’re here and that’s enough.