Being single isn’t loveless; in fact it isn’t even being without relationship. But if you look at being single the way society seems to view it, i.e being alone, rejected, on the shelf, we can feel that we need to drive ourselves to find that special someone. If you view being single as a sorry state of loveless-ness you can become closed down and miss the beauty of it.
If you love to travel, you will know the difference between travelling alone and travelling with someone else. Alone, you meet more people, you are forced into being social; the connections are quicker and deeper. When you come home, you remember more the people you met, than the sights you saw. When you travel with someone, you remember the things you saw, but don’t get into those deep connections and in fact you can get a little irritated with your travel partner.
This is a great analogy for being single.
As a single person your smaller connections form more deeply. Your friends in relationships steal time away from their loved one to be with you, it makes that time kind of special for both of you; for that evening, you were the chosen one.
You can also connect with people of the opposite sex without worrying about if this will be a friendship a partner will have a problem with. Male friends often pull back from female friends when the woman is in a relationship. I have known it happen; my male friends vanish when I am with someone and then flow back into my life when I’m single again. I’m never quite sure why, it’s like a guy respect thing. As a woman however, you can be ‘the friendship secret’ for guys in relationships with jealous girlfriends.
All of the interactions seem deeper when you’re single. They are all little tastes of love. In a relationship you might cook dinner as an act of love. I took a cake into work and everyone who took a slice and thanked me, were feeling my love. The same as if I’d done a whole Sunday roast for my partner. Some little things that are unexpected can have more love in them, than the exception of dinner, because it’s your turn.
You can stop being ‘in a relationship’ with the world because you’re ‘in a relationship’ with someone else. We can really miss that relationship with the world and find ourselves feeling disconnected. Some people end relationships because they feel they have lost themselves, when it might be the connection with everything else. You only really understand who you are by being in connection to multiple things. I think that’s why the word relationship is so brilliant,
‘I know me, because I see myself in relationship to …’
You know how young you are when you are next to someone old; it’s all about self-reflection, which can only be done when you have many things or people to be reflected against. This doesn’t mean taking many lovers; it’s about many acts of love and kindness that are not reserved for someone special. Loving in this way is the best way to love yourself, because the external reflection of your loveliness is reflected back to you in the form of happiness you help create in others.
Something switches on when we become curious about the world, being single opens up our curiosity as we have a need to connect. We feel more value when we have personal space.
Connections can be deeper when you don’t need time alone.
For me personally time alone, contemplation, meditation, allows me to be less of a grumpy cow bag. Openness and space allows tolerance.
So if you’re single don’t mourn your lack of relationship, but find your relationship to everything.
If you’re in a relationship, don’t lose your relationship with the world. Your love life will be stronger single or otherwise when you can love the world you’re living in.
For more love stuff, check out my book Intuitive lovers
