It's no secret that I've had 24 and a half years of practice at being a single guy, but it's not as easy as it sounds to stay so single for so long... and while it's mostly because of my very high standards, it's really a potent mix of several factors which I shall list below due to popular demand:
Ingredients:
- 1 tbl spoon of trust issues
- 1 tbl spoon of commitment issues
- 1 teaspoon of abandonment issues
- 1 tbl spoon of control issues
- 2 tbl spoons of self-hate
- 1 tbl spoon of narcissism
- 1 cup of tendency to jump five steps ahead
- 1 tbl spoon of introversion- not to be confused with shyness or social anxiety or fear of public speaking
- 5 cups of pride
- 2 cups of desire for freedom
- 5 cups of extremely high standards
- 5 tbl spoons of high expectations
- 1 cup of refusal to "settle" for anyone
- 1 dash of anxiety
- 2 tbl spoons of terrible past relationships
- 1 pinch of overthinking
- 2 cups of jealousy
- 3 cups of possessiveness
- 7 cups of unavailability due to career-related limitations such as travel and working hours
- 1 cup of (often dumb) honesty
- 1 giant ego
- 15 cups of hatred of small talk
- 1 gallon of bipolarity
Directions:
Stir in a pot over medium heat for a few years until you can smell the self-pity. If you smell bitterness and desperation, you've gone too far and will likely have to throw it out and order some take-out (unwarranted prostitution joke).
Seriously though, being single is not an easy job in your 20s. Not only are you in charge of your own emotional -and sexual- gratification (obvious masturbation joke), but you also need to present a stoic, uncaring yet paradoxically inviting facade to your friends and co-workers, which is not an easy feat when they're all in long-term relationships and looking at you with thinly veiled pity, as if being single were a handicap of some sort. Now let's face it, nobody's single by choice unless they're going through heartbreak or they have some unresolved issues they're struggling with, and excuses such as "I'm working on me for now" and "I'm focusing on my career" are very easy to see through. However, that doesn't mean that single life has to suck.
So, without further ado, here's the silver lining for having a non-existent love life:
1- No need to clean your house.
This is for all the guys who live alone: you can be as free as you want to unleash your inner Neanderthal: Old underwear and unwashed socks of various degrees of cleanliness all over the place; as well as junk food wrappers; lots of used and discarded plastic silverware; pizza boxes; 3 week old trash; piles of used tissue paper; mounds of unwashed dishes from prehistoric times (on which thrives a complete ecosystem of intelligent life that's a few days from making first contact with you); a 1-cm-thick dust coating on everything; a couch that effectively acts as your wardrobe; a bed whose sheets you haven't changed since you moved in and the unholy, manly stench of testosterone and armpit sweat. Take a whiff of that freedom, boys, and be grateful because you don't have to vacuum/call in an airstrike to get rid of the hazardous waste in your living room in order to prepare it for female company.
2- You can go out with your friends any time you want.
3- You can travel any time you want.
We're adults now, and our free time is very precious currency. If you were to decide tomorrow to take 10 days off and travel anywhere in the world (assuming your boss would allow it), then the only thing you'd need to do is book a flight. No fights over destinations or schedules or company, which is especially important if you're travelling with the aforementioned friends she doesn't like... and if you're trying to organize a trip with your friends without her, you'll be single again faster than your male mind can process it. We all know that planning holidays with friends is already hard enough without having to get signed permission slips from your legal guardian (aka your girlfriend), especially if she's feeling scorned for not being invited to come with you.
4- No need to remember 20 different dates.
Her birthday. Your anniversary. Your first date. Valentine's day. Men aren't programmed to remember all these dates. At best, girls should get to choose ONE annual event for us to remember, and even then we'd only remember it from the reminder we set to ring a week before the date. When you're single, you only care about your own birthday and maybe your mom's. That's it. No other dates to care about; no last minute shopping when you remember an event too late and have to buy any gift immediately before your girlfriend realizes, and no heartbroken looks of disappointment when you forget a seemingly insignificant anniversary like your first labor day together or your first pregnancy scare or your first ritualistic sacrifice.
5- Speaking of; significantly less expenses.
Not to sound cheap, but relationships are expensive. Not only do you have to buy your girlfriend gifts for each of the aforementioned anniversaries (and don't get me started on trying to pick out a suitable gift for a girl), but you will also be expected to frequently take her "some place nice" and obviously pick up the check. Cancelling the annual "girlfriend" budget should give you a significant windfall (sorry for the finance terminology) which you can spend on things you care about like hobbies or vacations. Again, this is not about being cheap- personally I'd love to be in a relationship with a girl I love, who I can spoil and spend my whole paycheck on- but at least there's a tangible silver lining to being single, which you can appreciate the next time you spend a whole night out with your friends for less than $10.
6- No drama.
Perhaps the most significant upside to being single is the reduced drama: no fights because you didn't call or text for a whole 3 hours; no tearful phone calls because you liked that girl's photo on Facebook; and no "Complete Bitch" syndrome when she's having her time of the month. More importantly, it often feels like men and women speak completely different languages, and trying to phrase a sentence to minimize the subtext as much as possible so your girlfriend wouldn't hear something completely different from what you meant to say is like trying to clear a minefield while running away from an angry bear or casting a 12th grade incantation in Latin to summon an elemental spirit from the 7th dimension while juggling on a unicycle on the edge of the Grand Canyon; it's impossible to do and we're very bad at it. No matter how carefully we phrase the sentence, it will almost always rub her up the wrong way and unnecessary drama will follow. On the other hand when you're single there's no need for such advanced diplomacy, and your guy friends almost certainly won't read too much into the obscenities you scream at them as you beat them at FIFA.
7- No emotional vulnerability.
This one's going to sound a tad cheesy, but it's a big deal even though most guys won't admit it; when we love someone, we're a lot more vulnerable than they realize. We often pretend to not care or try to appear unavailable, but that's usually a defense mechanism in order to hide how vulnerable we really are to the one person who can break us if they wanted to. I'm not speaking about the douchebags who actually are unavailable and don't care about their girlfriends; I'm speaking for the genuine, honest-to-God nice guys who actually are in love; it scares us that we care so much and it often feels like our lives would come to a complete standstill if our significant others left us, so some of us like to pretend to be distant and uncaring so as not to be taken for granted or hurt... which is sadly appropriate since girls almost always do this when they know how we really feel. Additionally, if you happen to be the jealous type like me (with a generous helping of trust issues), every day can be a fresh hell for you if your partner doesn't make a constant, active effort to lay your mind to rest.
When you're single, however, you're solid as a rock. No one can get under your skin, and no one can manipulate or take advantage of your feelings. No feelings, no problem.
8- You can focus on your hobbies.
There's no way to say this without sounding like a complete douchebag, but let's use me as an example and try to be objective about it; my being single for such a long time is arguably the main reason why I have so many hobbies that I enjoy, which I wouldn't have explored if all my time had been spent pursuing relationships; I write, I read, I play the guitar, I cook, I travel, I go to the gym, I religiously game on my PS4 and I watch TV series. Of all the activities I listed, only watching TV is a 2-person activity I could have done with my girlfriend- and maybe cooking and gaming if she's especially cool. What that essentially means is that I would have had to skip a lot of hobbies that mean a lot to me -which are now an integral part of my personality and my "personal brand"- in order to make a relationship work, because as previously established, I'm an adult and have very limited free time.
So the next time you find yourself enjoying a quiet night at home with your copy of Battlefield 1 without feeling guilty, give a sad salute to all the poor souls stuck with their girlfriends "someplace nice" on Valentine's day... and try not to think about them getting laid later.
9- You can be the "you" you want to be.
Girls often have strong opinions on your appearance, style and facial hair... because let's face it, the more sophisticated, successful and well-groomed you are, the better a status symbol you are for her. Enter the completely illogical sparring over your haircut, beard, that shirt she doesn't like, etc. She has a perfect mental image of you in her mind and she wants you to constantly live up to it so she can proudly introduce you to the world as her boyfriend, and that can be awfully limiting for a guy, and it can force you to adapt to styles you don't like... it might also win you a snarky comment or two from her or even an actual fight if you decide to go against the established dos and don'ts.
When you're single, on the other hand, you're your own man. You can cultivate whatever persona you want for yourself without any external influences; maybe you're the guy who only wears shirts and constantly dresses like he's going for an interview; or the guy in sweatpants and a T-shirt who looks like he doesn't own any other clothes; or the beefcake in a tank top and ripped jeans. Maybe you favor a full beard today, tomorrow a goatee, a clean shave the day after that. Maybe you shave your head for the hell of it.
The point is that your look is an important part of your first impression and your whole personality... and don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning terrible fashion, but I'm saying that you should give yourself some space to choose what look you want for yourself... and even if you decide you want to look like a homeless guy, being single gives you that freedom... so enjoy perfecting your unique style without getting anybody's intrusive opinion.
10- No talking on the phone.
Bondok's Potion of Eternal Bachelorism
Ingredients:
- 1 tbl spoon of trust issues
- 1 tbl spoon of commitment issues
- 1 teaspoon of abandonment issues
- 1 tbl spoon of control issues
- 2 tbl spoons of self-hate
- 1 tbl spoon of narcissism
- 1 cup of tendency to jump five steps ahead
- 1 tbl spoon of introversion- not to be confused with shyness or social anxiety or fear of public speaking
- 5 cups of pride
- 2 cups of desire for freedom
- 5 cups of extremely high standards
- 5 tbl spoons of high expectations
- 1 cup of refusal to "settle" for anyone
- 1 dash of anxiety
- 2 tbl spoons of terrible past relationships
- 1 pinch of overthinking
- 2 cups of jealousy
- 3 cups of possessiveness
- 7 cups of unavailability due to career-related limitations such as travel and working hours
- 1 cup of (often dumb) honesty
- 1 giant ego
- 15 cups of hatred of small talk
- 1 gallon of bipolarity
Directions:
Stir in a pot over medium heat for a few years until you can smell the self-pity. If you smell bitterness and desperation, you've gone too far and will likely have to throw it out and order some take-out (unwarranted prostitution joke).
***
Seriously though, being single is not an easy job in your 20s. Not only are you in charge of your own emotional -and sexual- gratification (obvious masturbation joke), but you also need to present a stoic, uncaring yet paradoxically inviting facade to your friends and co-workers, which is not an easy feat when they're all in long-term relationships and looking at you with thinly veiled pity, as if being single were a handicap of some sort. Now let's face it, nobody's single by choice unless they're going through heartbreak or they have some unresolved issues they're struggling with, and excuses such as "I'm working on me for now" and "I'm focusing on my career" are very easy to see through. However, that doesn't mean that single life has to suck.
So, without further ado, here's the silver lining for having a non-existent love life:
1- No need to clean your house.
This is for all the guys who live alone: you can be as free as you want to unleash your inner Neanderthal: Old underwear and unwashed socks of various degrees of cleanliness all over the place; as well as junk food wrappers; lots of used and discarded plastic silverware; pizza boxes; 3 week old trash; piles of used tissue paper; mounds of unwashed dishes from prehistoric times (on which thrives a complete ecosystem of intelligent life that's a few days from making first contact with you); a 1-cm-thick dust coating on everything; a couch that effectively acts as your wardrobe; a bed whose sheets you haven't changed since you moved in and the unholy, manly stench of testosterone and armpit sweat. Take a whiff of that freedom, boys, and be grateful because you don't have to vacuum/call in an airstrike to get rid of the hazardous waste in your living room in order to prepare it for female company.
2- You can go out with your friends any time you want.
Suddenly
feel like you want to spend a guys night out at 9 PM? Call your friends up, put on a T-shirt, and be with them inside one hour, depending on the traffic. No need for approvals; no need to come up with excuses as to why you have time for your friends but no time for your girlfriend, no need to start being a perfect boyfriend a week before the planned guys night out so she'd be in a good mood and not ruin your night with an unnecessary fight... and don't get me started on what happens if she doesn't like or approve of your friends.
When you're single, it's as simple as setting it up, getting dressed and going out. No complications.
3- You can travel any time you want.
We're adults now, and our free time is very precious currency. If you were to decide tomorrow to take 10 days off and travel anywhere in the world (assuming your boss would allow it), then the only thing you'd need to do is book a flight. No fights over destinations or schedules or company, which is especially important if you're travelling with the aforementioned friends she doesn't like... and if you're trying to organize a trip with your friends without her, you'll be single again faster than your male mind can process it. We all know that planning holidays with friends is already hard enough without having to get signed permission slips from your legal guardian (aka your girlfriend), especially if she's feeling scorned for not being invited to come with you.
4- No need to remember 20 different dates.
Her birthday. Your anniversary. Your first date. Valentine's day. Men aren't programmed to remember all these dates. At best, girls should get to choose ONE annual event for us to remember, and even then we'd only remember it from the reminder we set to ring a week before the date. When you're single, you only care about your own birthday and maybe your mom's. That's it. No other dates to care about; no last minute shopping when you remember an event too late and have to buy any gift immediately before your girlfriend realizes, and no heartbroken looks of disappointment when you forget a seemingly insignificant anniversary like your first labor day together or your first pregnancy scare or your first ritualistic sacrifice.
5- Speaking of; significantly less expenses.
Not to sound cheap, but relationships are expensive. Not only do you have to buy your girlfriend gifts for each of the aforementioned anniversaries (and don't get me started on trying to pick out a suitable gift for a girl), but you will also be expected to frequently take her "some place nice" and obviously pick up the check. Cancelling the annual "girlfriend" budget should give you a significant windfall (sorry for the finance terminology) which you can spend on things you care about like hobbies or vacations. Again, this is not about being cheap- personally I'd love to be in a relationship with a girl I love, who I can spoil and spend my whole paycheck on- but at least there's a tangible silver lining to being single, which you can appreciate the next time you spend a whole night out with your friends for less than $10.
6- No drama.
Perhaps the most significant upside to being single is the reduced drama: no fights because you didn't call or text for a whole 3 hours; no tearful phone calls because you liked that girl's photo on Facebook; and no "Complete Bitch" syndrome when she's having her time of the month. More importantly, it often feels like men and women speak completely different languages, and trying to phrase a sentence to minimize the subtext as much as possible so your girlfriend wouldn't hear something completely different from what you meant to say is like trying to clear a minefield while running away from an angry bear or casting a 12th grade incantation in Latin to summon an elemental spirit from the 7th dimension while juggling on a unicycle on the edge of the Grand Canyon; it's impossible to do and we're very bad at it. No matter how carefully we phrase the sentence, it will almost always rub her up the wrong way and unnecessary drama will follow. On the other hand when you're single there's no need for such advanced diplomacy, and your guy friends almost certainly won't read too much into the obscenities you scream at them as you beat them at FIFA.
7- No emotional vulnerability.
This one's going to sound a tad cheesy, but it's a big deal even though most guys won't admit it; when we love someone, we're a lot more vulnerable than they realize. We often pretend to not care or try to appear unavailable, but that's usually a defense mechanism in order to hide how vulnerable we really are to the one person who can break us if they wanted to. I'm not speaking about the douchebags who actually are unavailable and don't care about their girlfriends; I'm speaking for the genuine, honest-to-God nice guys who actually are in love; it scares us that we care so much and it often feels like our lives would come to a complete standstill if our significant others left us, so some of us like to pretend to be distant and uncaring so as not to be taken for granted or hurt... which is sadly appropriate since girls almost always do this when they know how we really feel. Additionally, if you happen to be the jealous type like me (with a generous helping of trust issues), every day can be a fresh hell for you if your partner doesn't make a constant, active effort to lay your mind to rest.
When you're single, however, you're solid as a rock. No one can get under your skin, and no one can manipulate or take advantage of your feelings. No feelings, no problem.
8- You can focus on your hobbies.
There's no way to say this without sounding like a complete douchebag, but let's use me as an example and try to be objective about it; my being single for such a long time is arguably the main reason why I have so many hobbies that I enjoy, which I wouldn't have explored if all my time had been spent pursuing relationships; I write, I read, I play the guitar, I cook, I travel, I go to the gym, I religiously game on my PS4 and I watch TV series. Of all the activities I listed, only watching TV is a 2-person activity I could have done with my girlfriend- and maybe cooking and gaming if she's especially cool. What that essentially means is that I would have had to skip a lot of hobbies that mean a lot to me -which are now an integral part of my personality and my "personal brand"- in order to make a relationship work, because as previously established, I'm an adult and have very limited free time.
So the next time you find yourself enjoying a quiet night at home with your copy of Battlefield 1 without feeling guilty, give a sad salute to all the poor souls stuck with their girlfriends "someplace nice" on Valentine's day... and try not to think about them getting laid later.
9- You can be the "you" you want to be.
Girls often have strong opinions on your appearance, style and facial hair... because let's face it, the more sophisticated, successful and well-groomed you are, the better a status symbol you are for her. Enter the completely illogical sparring over your haircut, beard, that shirt she doesn't like, etc. She has a perfect mental image of you in her mind and she wants you to constantly live up to it so she can proudly introduce you to the world as her boyfriend, and that can be awfully limiting for a guy, and it can force you to adapt to styles you don't like... it might also win you a snarky comment or two from her or even an actual fight if you decide to go against the established dos and don'ts.
When you're single, on the other hand, you're your own man. You can cultivate whatever persona you want for yourself without any external influences; maybe you're the guy who only wears shirts and constantly dresses like he's going for an interview; or the guy in sweatpants and a T-shirt who looks like he doesn't own any other clothes; or the beefcake in a tank top and ripped jeans. Maybe you favor a full beard today, tomorrow a goatee, a clean shave the day after that. Maybe you shave your head for the hell of it.
The point is that your look is an important part of your first impression and your whole personality... and don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning terrible fashion, but I'm saying that you should give yourself some space to choose what look you want for yourself... and even if you decide you want to look like a homeless guy, being single gives you that freedom... so enjoy perfecting your unique style without getting anybody's intrusive opinion.
10- No talking on the phone.
For all the girls reading this, know this for a fact: GUYS HATE TALKING ON THE PHONE. The fact that your boyfriend talks to you for hours every day just means that he loves you so much that he's going against his very instinct. We prefer to either text or meet in person; the longest acceptable phone call duration for a guy ranges between 1 and 5 minutes, and mindless small-talk for hours is our idea of torture.
So, if you're a single guy lounging on your couch without the need to pay attention to hours of inconsequential, unnecessary details you're expected to be excited about and to which you're supposed to prepare eager follow-up questions, I want you to relish the peace of mind and remember that you're blessed.
To sum up, speaking from personal experience, being single has given me the time to develop my hobbies, make risky high-yield career moves, spend a lot of time with people whose company I enjoy, and cultivate a persona and style that suit me, and I think that's an important part of every adult's early life character development- heck, it's the whole point of being in your 20s. Again, let me emphasize that this blog post isn't an argument that you should stay single forever: I know I wouldn't care about anything on this list if I met someone who I feel deserves my time and affection... but my point is that there's no reason not to enjoy the perks while they last.
And that's all, gents. I hope you're feeling better about your "single" relationship status now... and if you should feel like reading this blog post after a future break-up to remind yourself that you don't need her and that you a strong independent man who don't need no woman, give a mental salute to the author; a fellow single guy who knows how bad it can get sometimes... but who also recognizes how liberating it is.
So, if you're a single guy lounging on your couch without the need to pay attention to hours of inconsequential, unnecessary details you're expected to be excited about and to which you're supposed to prepare eager follow-up questions, I want you to relish the peace of mind and remember that you're blessed.
To sum up, speaking from personal experience, being single has given me the time to develop my hobbies, make risky high-yield career moves, spend a lot of time with people whose company I enjoy, and cultivate a persona and style that suit me, and I think that's an important part of every adult's early life character development- heck, it's the whole point of being in your 20s. Again, let me emphasize that this blog post isn't an argument that you should stay single forever: I know I wouldn't care about anything on this list if I met someone who I feel deserves my time and affection... but my point is that there's no reason not to enjoy the perks while they last.
And that's all, gents. I hope you're feeling better about your "single" relationship status now... and if you should feel like reading this blog post after a future break-up to remind yourself that you don't need her and that you a strong independent man who don't need no woman, give a mental salute to the author; a fellow single guy who knows how bad it can get sometimes... but who also recognizes how liberating it is.
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