You’re Not Single Because You’re Angry

But it’s okay to be angry that you’re single.

Photo by Shani Silver

Singlehood anger doesn’t come from jealousy. Jealousy is a child’s toy compared to what we feel. Our anger is what sets in later, after years of watching everyone you know partner up while you can’t find the thing they accidentally bumped into. It’s what happens when you watch yourself become the thing you’ve been afraid of your entire adulthood. Anger comes after the cute little pangs of longing while you scroll through social media, after you sit on the sidelines during countless slow dances at weddings. It sets in after you’ve stopped hoping for the life everyone else got to have, and you acknowledge the fact that you have to grieve a life you assumed would be yours — because you weren’t asking for anything insane.

It’s okay to be angry about being single. It’s okay to be livid that you spent your 30s — all of them — alone. It’s fine to be on the verge of spitting fire when you think of how literally everyone you’re close to “found someone,” seemingly effortlessly, while no matter how much effort you’ve exerted, you can’t seem to do something as basic as meeting a human being. Rage is fine. In fact, I’d say rage is encouraged. Because to spend endless years in search of something without finding it, while people around you who are just as beautifully imperfect as you are get to stop looking, that’s not fucking fair, so be mad all you want.

I’m incensed. I’m not hoping to win the lottery or sail a private, fully staffed yacht around the world. All I’m asking for is literally something that almost every adult on earth gets to have at one point or another — if not for their entire adult lives. This isn’t a longshot, this is as common as having brown eyes. It’s common, other people get to have it, other people get to stumble into it, and I’ve tried for a decade and a half without even one relationship to show for my effort. Angry? Bet your ass.

You won’t find me internalizing my own terribleness, not in this house. I’m not going to blame my singlehood on some long-pondered list of personal faults. Not with the traits of these married people I see. You can’t lie to me and tell me I’m in need of “fixing” before I can be “ready for love,” because all the partnered people in the world who haven’t seen a day of therapy could fill an ocean to…