How to be Single: The Story of My Dating Hiatus
There's a lot to be learned from self-imposed singleness, as Chloë Maughan learned when she abstained from romantic interactions for a whole year
A couple of years ago I suffered my first ‘true’ heartbreak. In the following fortnight, I discovered it is possible to cry for eight hours without stopping, and that tears know not of embarrassment nor shame, even if every other fibre of your being does. I cried on the bus, in the vegetable aisle of Sainsbury’s, and at one point had to pause between every length I swam for a momentary sob-fest.
After three months of mourning, I decided to dip my toe back into the dating pool, and promptly left again. During that fortnight I’d become involved with three different guys: a friend I’d liked since I was 15, but soon discovered I was crap at speaking to in person; a guy I vowed never to see again after he called me ‘good girl’ during sex; and a friend-of-a-friend, who was kind and funny, but with whom I shared the worst sex that has ever happened, on a mattress that shrieked to all neighbours in a three-mile radius. I became relationship-repulsed, and decided to take some time to recover from the ordeal. One year. No kissing. No dating. No sex.
It started off as a silly experiment, but there were a lot of factors that really warranted it. My heartbreak and the ensuing horror inflicted upon my clitoris during the rebound period. Finals beckoned. And my depression, at the time wavering and too fragile to subject to the uncertainty of romance.
I found I quickly became frustrated with the scrutiny placed on my relationship status, that seemed overwhelmingly linked to my gender. One of the cleaners at work quizzed me about who I was seeing as I was dodging the wet patches of her freshly mopped floor. “You’ll find someone,” she cooed when I told her I was single. A notion that had echoed itself in the break-up condolences I’d received. My ex-boyfriend got drinking buddies and a short “sorry to hear…”. Meanwhile, I got the “maybe you’ll get back together” optimists and countless reminders about the person waiting out there for me.
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To be single it seems is an accidental status, and more so for a woman. Indeed, even writing this, there comes a certain self-consciousness, as if no one would ever choose to be single. Instead, I probably haven’t met the one yet, I must be too picky, or the sort no one would dare to fuck, even with a paper bag over their head – or whatever it is the misogynists are into these days.
But as I learned in a year of singlehood – to be single is a valid choice, and sometimes the best one. A choice that can bring empowerment, stability, and comfort in solitude. Certainly, if I learned anything, it’s the importance of making yourself whole.
I stopped waiting around for someone to spend summers away with, and instead took my first solo holiday in Croatia. I started making plans with my books on Sundays, and planning to meet the sky at sunset. I rediscovered the callings I’d lost time for when I was in a relationship, and stopped swiping right, realising there is just as much contentment to be found sleeping starfish as in a six-month anniversary dinner.
I broke my year of solitude at 14 months as a favour to a journalist friend: a blind date. We weren’t a match. But as I walked home, having ended the date early, instead of bad-date-blues, I remember being filled with this wonderful euphoria: my life wasn’t missing anything. Singlehood – true singlehood, no maybes, no waiting for someone – ceased to be an experiment, and became a lifestyle.