So it’s finally here, 2016. A new year, where you feel you can shake off the regrets of 2015 and start a ‘fresh’ version of you. You remembered believing perhaps 2015 would be the year you found your ‘one’ and could finally post smug couple selfies onto Instagram, hashtagging the shit out of your happiness like everyone else does.
Alas, no such year followed. Instead your friends hooked up with doting guys and you found yet more douchebags, more shit dates, too much alcohol and too many tears. Blows doesn’t it? But you have hope that, with the new year you have new horizons and new trysts to encounter, wishfully believing with it brings your other half.
*enter Nixalina*
Stop right here missy and listen to me. Hoping to become complete by finding yourself a wonderful man to love is a dangerous concept to start with, because it implies that without ‘him’ you are not whole. I have news for you, he won’t finish the puzzle, fill the picture or settle your soul. You have to become wholly happy first and foremost just as you are. I hear and see it happening all over the place; women settle into a relationship for fear of being alone, or fear of nothing else coming along that is better for them. To ‘settle’ in love isn’t love at all! Ask yourself now, what are you looking for? And why are you looking for it? Do you really believe that a man can fix your boredom, or suddenly make even the darkest of evenings bright with light? That’s a lot of pressure on the poor guy to become your real life superman. Perhaps he can…but what if he doesn’t?
Being single at whatever age is not a metaphorical disability. It does not mean there is something wrong with you just because you haven’t found a match yet. Sure, your friends seem so very happy and that’s wonderful, but maybe that path wouldn’t offer you the same contentment. Fear of becoming some spinster does not give you an excuse to throw yourself at every man who takes an interest, pinning all your hopes on this one materializing into something amazing. Take off the blinkers and look around….you’ve got so much more to consume your thoughts with. Do you really envy those having to arrange all their plans via someone else first, those unable to just do their own laundry, unable to spend their money on what they want because it is halved with him, unable to spend their time with their own chosen friends and to go out only when the other half is also going out? A relationship requires multiple compromises, and there’s no need to be in such a rush to half yourself. This mindset you’ve got…let it go. Stop thinking the grass is greener, and make your own grass emerald fricking green.
So Nix, what the fuck are you suggesting we all do then? Valid question. I’m not saying snub every guy who wishes to take you out for dinner, or declare yourself married to the Earth or anything. But I’m suggesting look at the bigger picture, the entire world, and concentrate on the one person who deserves your time: YOU. Instead of hoping to meet your match this year, why don’t you instead look at doing something that will make you happy! Learn a new skill, try a new dance class, a new exercise, learn to sing, try your hand at dress making, design something, create something, save money, buy a house, change your job, volunteer somewhere, fly somewhere, plan a trip…get a map of the world and mark out all the places you’d love to visit before you ‘settle’ down, and then set out to do so! Even just take a walk somewhere new, go have a drink at a bar you’ve never been to, read a book you’d never have picked up before…this list is endless. And don’t feel ashamed like you’re replacing what time you’d be spending with a man with other things to ‘occupy’ you, this is far from the case. You’re just busy experiencing LIFE. You’re living it. You should shrug off those ‘oh haven’t you found someone special yet?’ pity remarks and laugh…because actually you’re the one all those in a stagnant relationship will envy. And once you DO settle down, eventually, you’ll have no regrets. You’ll look back and think yeah…I travelled to Borneo and camped out in the jungle. Or when someone mentions dancing, you can pitch in that actually, you know how to jive, waltz and salsa. Then you can show them, giggle, and sit back down. Suck on that.
I have wasted so much energy and time and money and effort and thoughts on men in my 26 years on this planet, and can safely say not one of them was wholly worth it all. Because if he was worth it, he’d still be with me now wouldn’t he? I have vowed to myself not to half who I am in the hopes a man can come along and make it whole. This will never work girlies, because you’ll always be curious and unsettled in the relationship if you don’t feel complete just as you are. Only when you are fully happy being alone, and enjoying everything life has to offer, trying every opportunity and taking risks to push yourself further, only then can you offer a decent relationship all the happiness it deserves.
And let’s be honest here, what are the chances that your actual soul mate / better half lives in the same town as you? That he magically turns up at your local hang out, or went to the same school? That would be some awesome work by Cupid if that were true! There are over 7 billion people in the world and your man was born and raised just a 5 minute drive away…amazing right! I doubt it! It surely is more plausible that the love of your life will come along when you do least expect it, and when you’re doing something that you love to do for yourself. If you’re concentrating your energy and your ideas on you, when this guy strolls into your life you’ll be able to tell if this is the man deserving your time. I get told a lot by dudes that I intimidate them, that I go too fast, am doing too much, too busy, and they can’t keep up. It’s too much for them. I always say, it’s not about catching me or keeping up with me, it’s about being the kind of man that I feel is worth slowing down for.
This is not a lecture ladies, although it may feel like I just put you in the single chair and shined a bright spotlight into your face. See it more as a kick up the backside that you clearly needed to drop all this single lamenting bollox, to switch your requirement for a fairytale happy ever after to a mindset that focuses on you and enjoying your life just how you bloody well want to. Try it. You’ll thank me later!
