A guest blog by our friends at We Love Dates!
When you’re single, it’s easy to get wrapped up in desperately searching for a serious relationship. You’re conditioned to believe that your real life won’t start, or you won’t be truly happy, until you’re part of a “we.” While being in a relationship is wonderful, being single can be pretty awesome in it’s own right. Just because you’re single doesn’t mean you need to adopt twelve cats and cry about how you’ll be alone forever. Your life is what you make of it, single or not. Here are four reasons why you should embrace being single…
You can be selfish. When you’re in a relationship, you have to constantly consider someone else’s schedule, needs, likes and dislikes. When you’re flying solo though, it’s all about you. This is the time in your life when it’s perfectly acceptable to do what you want to do, when you want to do it. Instead of looking ahead to a weekend with no plans as something depressing, view it as an opportunity. You don’t need to be chained to the house because football is on, or your boyfriend has an early meeting in the morning. One day, you’ll be more than happy to accommodate someone else, but for now just enjoy your freedom!
You can determine what you want. If you’re single you have the opportunity to date a bunch of different types of people and try them on for size, so to speak. It’s your chance to define exactly what you’re looking for in someone you would want to have a long term relationship with. Sometimes what we think we want isn’t what ultimately makes us happy, so getting out into the dating scene will solidify what kind of partner you hope to find one day.
You can handle business. Relationships are wonderful, but they are also distracting. You want to spend as much time as possible with the other person that sometimes you let things in your own life slip a bit. When you’re single, you can focus all of your energy on taking care of yourself and achieving your personal goals. Sign up for a class, start yoga teacher training, save money to buy a new home, or just simply spend extra time with a friend who needs support. Sure, you can do all these things in a serious relationship, but why not start now while you can devote all your resources to making your goals a reality? Instead of constantly looking around and hoping that the next guy you meet will take you off the market for good, have tunnel vision when it comes to improving your own life.
You learn how to love yourself. As cheesy as it might sound, you can’t fully love someone else until you know how to love yourself. So many people jump from relationship to relationship simply because they don’t know how to be perfectly happy being alone. They are always on the lookout for someone to complete them and they often come across as needy and desperate. When you learn how to love yourself, your confidence soars and you instantly become more attractive to the opposite sex because you aren’t needy whatsoever. You aren’t hoping a guy will complete you because you’ve already got everything you need.
***
Liz is the social media manager for We Love Dates, a worldwide online dating site. For more dating advice and tips, visit their popular We Love Dates blog.