Dating : There’s No Expiration Date for Being Single

Stop trying to give yourself one.

“I don’t plan to be single that long.”

How many times have you heard that sentence?

How many times you were the one saying it?

You said it to your friends, your therapist, or to your reflection on the bathroom mirror. You whispered it to yourself before falling asleep by yourself in a queen size bed. You said it in an attempt to reassure yourself you’re not a lost cause, you’re not desperate, you’re not resigned to a fate you never chose for yourself, that of a single woman (or man) of a certain age.

When was the last time you came across the magic words “I don’t plan to be single that long?”

For me it was this morning, reading Shani Silver’s response to a listener of her podcast. Her words inspired some thoughts of my own.

Not planning to be single “that long” is stopping you from living your own life.

Really, it is.

How many plans have you stopped yourself from making because you had to account for the possibility of having a partner by then? How many times have you shaped your life around activities that could potentially lead you to meet “the one” instead of simply doing something for the joy of it?

While there’s nothing wrong with actively seeking a relationship, putting your single life on a deadline is counter-productive.

First, it puts you under a lot of pressure to date, date, date.

If you “don’t plan to be single that long,” you must be constantly dating in an attempt to meet your partner by the deadline.

As a result, you’re constantly trying to force fate to work in your favor.

You’re always on your phone, swiping left, right and center, trying to keep up with fifteen uninspiring, job-interview-like, conversations at once.

You schedule your weekends and your hobbies not around the stuff you really like to do, but around places and activities where you can meet men (or women).

Going a single Friday night without a date feels like a missed opportunity. Not that you’d know what that’s like, you haven’t had a Friday night for yourself in three months, they were all booked solid with dates.

You linger next to the avocado bin — or most likely, the wine section — hoping to ask a cute guy (or gal) for tips on how to tell the fruit is ripe, or if the year of that rose you’ve had your eye on for the last twenty minutes was a good one.

You hope every interaction with new man (or woman) might lead to love.

Dating so much is sucking the very life force out of you, and you’re not even noticing it. It’s draining your energy, taking away time for self-reflection, and leaving you emotionally exhausted.

Second, it puts a lot of pressure on anyone you meet to be “special.”

You continue to force fate by turning anyone you meet into someone special just by wishing it were so.

By the sheer force of your will, the average joe you met online — and who you have absolutely no chemistry with — will become your Prince Charming. You want it to be so, therefore it must be so. After all, you don’t have time to waste.

You start seeing things that aren’t there, you make yourself feel things you can’t possibly feel naturally.

And you’re doubly disappointed when it all inevitably comes down in flames.

Third, it puts a lot of pressure on your to settle.

Yes, I do think everyone settles to a degree. You have to let go of any unrealistic expectations of a perfect partner in order to be happy in love. You have to settle — a little bit.

But it’s one thing to reasonably settle for someone less than perfect, and quite another to settle for the first half-decent person who comes along just so you’re not single anymore.

Believing you won’t be single “that long” pushes you to lower your standards and accept less than you deserve.

Life is better without unreasonable deadlines.

Having some deadlines in life can be useful. Planning to accomplish a project by a certain date, planning to save enough money to take a special trip on your next birthday, starting a course now so you’ll graduate by a give year, those are productive ways to look at time and make sure your life doesn’t slip by without any accomplishments.

But finding a partner isn’t something you can plan to the same degree. Being in a relationship doesn’t depend exclusively on you, but on the other person as well. It depends on way too many factors outside of your control, it’s not fair to complicate things further by giving it a deadline.

If you want a relationship, by all means, continue to look for one, but don’t add to that stress the pressure of a deadline. Stop holding your life back in favor of a project you have very little control over.