If You Don’t Land The Perfect Relationship, Will You Still Be Okay?

Have you ever envisioned your time in this world ultimately being a solo adventure? Or, to put it more dramatically – are you prepared to end up alone?

That’s the one thing everyone dreads when they embark on the road to finding a good relationship. So full of dread are some people, that it becomes their emotional cornerstone, upon which the foundation of their self-esteem is built. It’s also a self-fulfilling prophecy, conditioning you into reading every teeny little negative thing, attaching apocalyptic significance to the slightest of indications that all is not dream-like in Dreamland. It seems so many people spend their love lives so busy running from the dark shadow of loneliness that they don’t look at who they might be running to.

Now obviously, this doesn’t refer to EVERYBODY in a relationship. The majority are happy, content, secure and fulfilled. but here’s my question for the single and lonely: Have you ever considered that maybe – just maybe – you might not ever find the right person to spend your life with? Would it ever occur to you that you may leave this earth never having found your one true lobster?

If your chest tightened with fear and anxiety reading those questions, say hello to your sister right here. However, I’m not writing this post to depress the shit out of you (I’ve many other blog posts that can do that). In fact, I figured I’d write it to inspire the opposite in myself for once. And, by extension, anyone else in the same boat who may be reading this and nodding their heads in agreement..

The power of fear lies in the unknown. The fear of dying alone (especially when you put it like that) becomes larger than life, a black shadowy mass that’s cold and dark and unloving. I’m attempting to stare down some of the darkness, and bring this fear out into the open and confront it head-on just to see if it will dwindle away under my steely gaze.

I’ve been wrestling with this train of thought for a good couple of years now, and I gotta tell you, I’m a happier person for it. When I think back to when I was almost pathological about trying to make guys like me, and feeling like I wasn’t worth the vapour of a drunken piss if it didn’t go my way. I mean, how can you NOT take it personally when it’s your actual person that’s being rejected? How can you pull yourself out of a massive downward spiral of self-loathing if the person you want most could look at you with all your loveliness, humour, hotness, and think “Nah.” Some folk can’t. It can feel like the end of the world. Nobody needs that. You can see why I and many others avoid the prospect of starting a new relationship. It’s TERRIFYING.

This planet is not made up of halves of people roaming the world looking to join up with another to become one single happy complete unit. None of us are ‘meant’ to be with someone. What we are ‘meant’ to be however, is the best version of ourselves and hopefully of some service & benefit to humanity while we’re here. We’re all a work in progress, but we’re not missing large sections of ourselves that can only be completed by someone else filling them in. The reality is, many people (I’m one of them) go through this world not quite nailing it in the relationship department, ultimately never getting it right. Some might decide to throw in the towel and live a solo life, because it’s far less painful than dealing with constant rejection or betrayal.

Some years ago, when I asked a recently engaged friend what it was like finding someone you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, she simply said that “The fight was over”. It was lovely and also fucking petrifying, because the sentiment rang so true for me. When we had that conversation I was in my mid-twenties; and I was already beginning to feel so jaded with the idea of love and finding someone. It still didn’t stop me throwing myself face-first into one disastrous match after another. I’d far more experience with unrequited love episodes than an actual functioning fulfilling relationship; maybe it was the drama and the torment I loved more than the men themselves. Looking back, they were certainly far more interesting. If nothing else, they gave me good blog & book material. CHEERS SHITBAGS!

Now I’m in my late 30’s and living what you would probably consider a fairly unconventional life. A lot of my changes came about once I decided that I wasn’t going to have children. I could almost taste the relief I felt when I took the fear of ‘missing the boat’ kids-wise out of the equation in my dating life. The only battle that remains within me is when I contemplate my future and whether or not I’ll find anyone with the mutual desire to build a life together. I must constantly ask myself; if it were never to happen, would I still feel like I’ve lived an awesome life?

The question is not really to do with if I’ll ever have a celestial union with a soulmate that would bring a tear to a glass eye. It’s more to do with using my valuable time to shape myself into a happier person, a better woman, with a life that makes me feel content, even if I’m permanently single. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a silly gobshite most of the time and need a bomb under my arse to get motivated every morning, but I’m trying. My life is good, and I’m relatively happy. But I do get fierce lonely at times, and the need for physical affection and romantic love is almost overwhelming…and that’s when the fear of ending up alone ultimately creeps in. I’m sure that’s a familiar story for a few people.

Relax, Jess. You might still be worth something as a person.

But what if we were to look that fear in the face and say “So? So what if I don’t end up with anyone?” What then? Will you dissolve into nothingness? Will your lust for life subside? Are you a horrible person? A shit friend? A disgusting troll-weasel with stones for eyes and sewer-breath? The answer to all these things is: probably not. So why are you alone? Why don’t you have a someone to watch over you? To which my answer, to you AND me, is simply: That’s just the way the Life Cookie crumbled. Some people just have a shit run of things. It’s not down to you being an unworthy person – all you need to do is watch a pack of dimwitted toothless dirty-vested fools getting into fisticuffs on Jeremy Kyle over their love triangle to realise that.

Shit happens. You MIGHT end up alone. But with any luck and some hard work you’ll have a lovely life anyway. You may not end up being in love, but in so many other areas of life, you have a lot of love to give. I know when you cry ‘NOBODY LOVES ME’ to a mate after a bottle or two of Prosecco (I had some fucker of a headache the next morning) and their standard response is “BUT I LOVE YOU”, you want to punch them in their soul. They know you don’t mean it that way, and you sure as shit know you don’t mean it that way. Yet they say it anyway, because they’d rather deflect from the fear you’re expressing because it’s a terrifying unknown entity to us humans. It’s not what we’ve been taught by movies, or songs, or books. Apparently we’re all ultimately meant to be with someone, or else we’re not ‘complete’. Or, more truthfully, Valentine’s Day and every other industry that uses love and all things ‘relationship’ to sell something will go out the window.

I’ll be the honest friend down in the bunker with you. If you moan at me that nobody loves you, I’ll say ‘Fuck ‘em.’ I won’t tell you that it’ll all be fine and you’ll find love, because nobody can know that, or anything, for sure. Maybe you WILL end up alone, maybe I will. But as long as we are trying to make a life for ourselves full of all the other loves in the world like friends, family (pets count as family), goals, creativity and adventure, we can at least say that even though we’re a bit lonely for someone to share it with, we’re really happy with our lives and where we are headed. Isn’t that a nicer thought?