It’s okay to stay single for a period or a lifetime, especially in this day and age. More people are choosing to postpone marriage or remain single indefinitely than ever before.
If you choose this path, you must watch out for a few potential pitfalls.
1. Selfishness
When you live alone, everything revolves around you and your wants and needs. There are no counterbalances, alternate opinions, or competing preferences from a spouse or children. Everything is your way, all the time, every day.
After some years, this becomes your routine and your reality. If you’re not careful, you begin to see the world through the lens of your singles lifestyle, where everything around you is about you. You’re not interested in anything that doesn’t satisfy your desires. Since a lot of your daily conversations are with yourself, that’s the main topic you want to discuss with anyone you come in contact with. The result is a selfish disposition.
You can safeguard yourself against this behavior by periodically reminding yourself that people have needs and desires that are different from your own. And that you don’t have anyone living with you to remind you of that fact, so you need to remind yourself.
2. Inflexibility
If you have controlled everything in your life for years, it’s easy to fall into a rigid state of inflexibility. With no one around you to influence your schedule or encourage spontaneity, you can slide into a rut of doing the same things day after day, year after year.
You can become a bore, and you probably won’t notice it because no one is around to challenge your perspectives and thinking patterns.
You can avoid becoming inflexible by intentionally making changes, trying new things, and being spontaneous when the opportunity presents itself.
3. No Resident Confidant
When you live alone, no one is heavily invested in every aspect of your life. No one’s deeply concerned about your health, your future, or your retirement like a spouse would.
If you have children, they may be concerned, but have challenges and lives to deal with. They may care, but they aren’t usually intimately involved daily.
You can compensate for this void by accepting full responsibility for your life and by developing deep relationships with people who have chosen the same lifestyle as you. These people become your confidants because they are the only ones who will truly understand the unique challenges of being single. This is one of the purposes of a singles club. They provide a constant venue for these uncommon relationships to develop.
4. No Dual Income
Couples have an advantage when it comes to income generation, job loss security, and retirement savings accumulation. But because of obligations to children and differing money management styles, they don’t always come out on top.
If you’re smart with your money, you can match or exceed what a couple can do financially. This is especially true if you’ve never been married (and divorced) and you don’t have any children.
The problem for singles is that they tend to focus less on financial issues. This happens because they don’t have anyone else for whom they are responsible. It’s easy for them to become lackadaisical. The other problem, which mostly occurs with single women, is that they don’t worry about their financial future because they are expecting Mr. Right to come along and take care of them—big mistake. Mr. Right would more likely be attracted to you if you didn’t have any expectations of being taken care of. Most men today don’t want another burden, but a life partner.
Being single, you need to take extra precautions when planning for retirement and unforeseen circumstances like job loss. Since you control how much time you devote to your career and how you spend your money, you’re in an ideal position to create financial abundance.
5. No Loving Caregiver
Without a spouse or children, there are no built-in caregivers if you get injured or sick. Most medical professionals care about their patients, but no one will care for you like a spouse or close family member.
This assumes that you have a good marriage with a strong, caring, and loyal spouse. If not, you’d probably be better off alone.
If you’re single, the best solution is to do everything you can to stay healthy. This means committing to a “lifestyle” of healthy eating, consuming vitamins and superfoods, and engaging in daily exercise. Aside from the amazing health benefits of doing these things, you will also enhance the quality of your life and appearance! You can have a lot more fun being single if you look good. 😀
6. Loner Living
I’ve noticed that many people who choose the singles lifestyle tend to have some loner attributes. I consider myself a loner to some degree. I savor my alone time, but I also enjoy the company of others.
I wasn’t always comfortable being alone. Somewhere along the line, I picked up the idea that being alone or being a loner type was bad. I’m sure that the field of psychology has come up with some label to classify it as being some “disorder.” But I do not consider being a loner an abnormality. It’s simply one of many ways of living.
I found it particularly difficult to be alone after a long-term romantic relationship ended. I had gotten used to having another person in my life. When they suddenly weren’t there, it felt strange. During the early stages, I didn’t feel like being around people. I just wanted to be alone until my wounds healed. Even though I wanted to be alone during that period, I felt weird, like there was something wrong with wanting to be alone.
That all changed when I read a classic book entitled “Intimate Connections
Learning to have fun alone is an adventure. It is! Anyone can go out with friends or family and have a good time. We’ve been developing those skills since we were kids. But learning how to truly enjoy yourself, whether alone at home or in a busy restaurant on Saturday night, is a valuable and exciting journey into unknown territory. It’s a skill set worth learning.
7. Isolation
If you become too complacent about your social life, you can become isolated. You have to stay active.
Although some forces are causing some changes, it’s still a couple’s world. Our entire social infrastructure was designed to accommodate couples, families, and children. The singles’ lifestyle was not factored in.
The forces driving these changes are the rapid increase in the number of single adults and the growing acceptance of this lifestyle choice.
In married and family life, there is a long, never-ending list of built-in social events. There are never any concerns about isolation, but rather carving out some time to be alone!
Another purpose of a singles club is to provide a built-in social structure for singles. Building a public infrastructure for singles is one of the main objectives of developing a master-planned community exclusively for singles.
To avoid slipping into isolation, you need to join and stay involved with activities that you are passionate about. I have found that Toastmasters clubs provide regular and ongoing opportunities for personal growth and social activities. As you get involved in a club, you will start to receive invitations to social functions. One of the unique aspects of a Toastmasters club is that you get to know the members through their speeches. There’s a bonus, too! As you develop your public speaking skills, you also develop your social skills simultaneously. You’ll find that the better you get at public speaking, the more comfortable you’ll be when you’re talking to people one-on-one and in small groups. It’s like you get three benefits for the price of one membership, which is very low.
8. Loneliness
People new to single life need to take precautions to avoid loneliness. You can eliminate feelings of loneliness by changing your perspective about being alone.
If you believe that when you are alone, you’re supposed to feel lonely, you will. If you haven’t spent much time alone because you just got your own home or just ended a romantic relationship, you’ll need time to adjust. The fluctuations between feeling lonely and not so lonely during this adjustment period are normal! Eventually, you’ll get used to it, and soon after that, you’ll start to enjoy it.
Loneliness is a state of mind created by your thoughts. The fact that no one is with you isn’t the cause of your loneliness. It’s how you’re choosing to think about the fact that no one is with you. If you’re alone and you take issue with that fact and decide that it’s a bad thing, then you’re going to feel lonely. If, however, you acknowledge that you’re alone, decide that it’s okay, that you’re going to do something you enjoy, and that you’re going to have fun, you will not feel lonely!
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There are unique challenges associated with the singles lifestyle, but that’s nothing unusual. Every lifestyle has its unique challenges.
Armed with the information available on this site and elsewhere, you should have no problem having a fulfilling and exciting life as a modern single.
Enjoy it!