Tag: single

The Power of Being Single

The Power of Being Single

by L ♥ 21 Comments

People (myself included sometimes) put such a negative spin on being single. Just feels like the ‘done’ thing doesn’t it?

It is rare that I see people discuss the power of being single. Because in all honesty staying single, not settling for anyone not worth my time nor effort has had a wickedly powerful impact on me, and my life.

I have found mad love and respect for myself in my years single. As discussed in a blog post before (Being single in your twenties) I didn’t have a good past relationship. I came away broken, hating that I let a person have that effect on me, but that happens sometimes. It is all part of the process we call life.

I needed time to heal. Alone. I needed time to deal with it all, to fully piece myself back together. I sort of resembled one of those mad 1000 piece jigsaws your Gran has, that takes an absolute AGE to sort.

I spent a solid 2 years working really hard to be who I was before the relationship. In that time I realised that I didn’t need to be that person anymore. This was my opportunity to become a new version of myself, a better, stronger one. Once I unlocked this gem, that is when the power happened, and my god it felt good.

There is SO much power to being on your own and embracing it! I have done so many amazing things on my own and loved it! I have taken myself on holiday, moved to a new city alone, started my career. Even right now I am sat on my own in a coffee shop writing this, years ago sitting in a coffee shop alone would have been my idea of hell. Now I really love sitting on my own, drinking coffee and watching the world go by. (Disclaimer I wrote this on paper before typing it up – pre covid obv.)

Perks of single life:

  • I look after myself and control my own emotions
  • Just have to think of me
  • My career can come first
  • I can enjoy all my passions and not worry about it taking up time that should be spent with another
  • Can not shave my legs for like 3 weeks
  • Flirting (I mean I am bad at it, but drunk I really like to pretend i’m good at it)
  • So many activities and adventures with your mates
  • I do not have to share a bed when it is the deep depths of hellish warm weather (also known as summer)
  • I can have first/only choice of what Netlix series to binge on
  • And many moreeeeeeeee things

Now don’t get me wrong I am very aware you can do all those when in a relationship too but this, this post is for the strong, powerful singletons, so take it with a pinch of salt.

I really hate it when people play the ‘ahhh how are you still single?!’ card. Like yes I know they are being nice and all that but to me that question feels more like a ‘how come you have not found anyone yet’. I also feel people are shocked/don’t believe you when you say you are single by choice. Why is that such a shocking thing? Why is it surprising for someone to want to just date themselves for a while?

Dolly Alderton wrote in her book ‘Everything I know About Love‘ something that spoke to me A LOT:
‘I don’t need any words or looks or comments from a man to believe I’m visible; to believe I’m here. (…) That’s not where I come alive. Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough.’

The minute you realise you are enough, is a massively monumental moment, one that will change your perspective on things in every aspect of your life. For the better.

Final thoughts from me:

There is a real power and joy to being single in these really poignant years. Accept it, embrace it and enjoy it! These years are made for mess, play, failure. And when you do leave the single market make sure you look back and know you made the most of those years and are the best version of yourself and ready to share life with another without losing yourself.

What is your favourite thing about being single?

L x

Dating in your twenties

Dating in your twenties

by L ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Ok, so I have not written much recently as I have been seriously lacking inspiration and time, to be quite honest. Yet, here I am finding inspiration writing about something I am actually not very good at…. at all, but here we go anyway. What a rollercoaster we go on in my posts ‘ey!

Now, let me give you a little disclaimer here, I am not an avid dater AT ALL. I hate the things, I will decline dates because I hate the whole process (although trying to not do that as much now or I will end up alone forever). Maybe a tad on the dramatic side but in the words of our nations hero Pamelarrrrr:

Jeeeeeez, dating in general is hard work but in your twenties it seems like an actual game of snog, marry, avoid. You are sat there awkwardly over a drink in the standard ‘date drinks’ location asking mundane questions that you are not overly fussed about knowing the answer to, when all you want to ask are the hard hitting questions like; what do you think about the decline in our Earths habitats or yano, what star sign are you so I can go home and google if we are going to get married or not.

But hang on, I have skipped a big step here. Actually getting to the date, woah that is a biggie.

We live in such an amazing technological world now, so amazing that people don’t often seem to meet in person now but online. I remember when I first set my tinder account up, I was amazed, felt like I had my very own personal Argos catalogue of men that I could just swipe yes or no to?! GR8 – Will have a boyf in no time I thought……oh how wrong I was.

Now perhaps I have a faulty version of the app or I have terrible taste in men (probably the latter) but I have not found tinder a hot spot for meeting guys. Like you match with someone and you are like YAS stage 1 complete, they send you a message, WOO stage 2 complete, they send you the dreaded ‘so what are you on here for lol’ message. DAMN Stage 3 error. Now in my experience I will say something like ‘just here to meet new people’ (mainly because it is a lonely Sunday afternoon and I am not really sure why I am here on tinder) and that is when you get the age old response of…… Yeah same, here to meet nice people and have some fun (insert ambiguous sexting emoji). Yep, stage 3 has an error. This will then cause me to text all my pals and say ‘It’s happened again, I am deleting the app forever, I want to meet someone organically’ they nod along knowing I will re-download it in approx 2 days after sitting in a coffee shop awaiting Mr Right to walk through the door and fall in love with me. Then the process starts again.

So anyway, most of the people I have gone on dates with I have met organically, it is much nicer, far less pressure and concern of them thinking you are not as attractive as your very finely picked, shit hot tinder pics. The dates I have been on in my time have been… ok, I mean I am still single so they haven’t been great. My biggest problem, I turn all alpha male with my banter, start insulting them, am cold and just generally awkward. Cute and flirtatious I know, how am I single?

But dating is scary as shit for me. I have pals who go out on dates on the regs are so cool about it, they love it, meeting new people, learning about them and that’s that. I however, go a bit weird let my anxiety take over and will solidly panic for like 3 days before wondering if they will be super cool and fun or someone who has no similar interests and we will sit silently for the duration. When in fact I should just calm the fuck down and just go and enjoy myself and not worry about silly little things like; awkward hugs, going to sit down on the same chair and me sitting on him accidentally, resulting in me having to move to the other side of the world to avoid embarrassment, or something like him turning out to be like Joe from You and me having to fake my own death to avoid his avid stalking… yano casual stuff.

Dating in your twenties however, is fun and a great way to meet new people and learn about yourself and what you want in a future partner. Even though I am a disaster dater with my awkwardness, I am glad I have gone on the dates I have. I feel like I come out learning something about myself every time. As time goes on I am sure I will let my little aggressive barrier down and be a less heightened ‘banter fuelled’ person and be more successful but for now I am happy with what I have learnt from dating.

My new motto is to just go and enjoy dating, I am in my twenties, this is a great time to date and figure out what you want and enjoy yourself while doing it.

But also, if your not going on dates that is cool to – a gr8 person to date is yourself. Treat yourself, be kind to yourself, love yourself.

There was SO much more I could have written on this topic but I did not want to write a novel. Perhaps I will write a dating in your twenties part 2 another time. So for now does anybody have any dating disasters or success stories they want to share?

Read my other ‘dating’ related posts by following the links below:
Being Ghosted: https://lifeofa20somethingyearold.home.blog/2019/09/15/being-ghosted/
Being single in your twenties:
https://lifeofa20somethingyearold.home.blog/2019/07/26/being-single-in-your-twenties/

L x

Being ghosted

Being ghosted

by L ♥ 27 Comments

Ahhh delightful subject. I never really was a fan of Casper the friendly ghost and I am not too keen on (insert name of choice) the unfriendly ghoster either. Now this is not specific to being a twenty something year old. We have all experienced being ghosted at some stage of our lives. If you haven’t then tell me your secret plz.

Ghosting (def): the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.

Ok, so I am not sure when ghosting became a ‘thing’ but it seems to happen more and more now days. Perhaps because it is so easy to do with all these dating apps and social media. You can quite simply just disappear now with no explanation.

I think ghosting can only be considered ghosting if you have met the person, or have/had a bond with said person. Someone not replying to your witty tinder one liner does not quite count as ghosting. Even if it is a dent to the comedian inside of your ego.

It is one of the worst feelings, I have been ghosted a few times and it hurts in a different kind of way. It leaves you questioning EVERYTHING. Asking yourself so many questions. Why did they do that? Was it something I did? Was I just not good enough? Did I mean that little to them? So many things fly through your mind. I want to touch upon the ‘did I mean that little to them’ one. As this is one that I always think about. To not even be given an explanation as to why they want to stop talking or end things is so belittling. It makes you think omg why have I put so much energy into this person, who cannot even be bothered to let me know things are done and tell me why.

But heres the reality and here is a pre warning: I am about to get a lil sassy...

These ‘ghosts’ are just cowards, they do not have the courage to give a simple explanation as to why they want to call things off. They decide that it is far easier to just disappear, not even giving second thought to your feelings. Extremely cowardly and selfish behaviour. Let’s be real, would we want someone with those traits in our lives anyway? HELL NO!

Enough about them and more about us. We must accept that it happened, we live and we learn (then write a blog post about it). It is easy to sit and think ‘what did I do wrong’ but let’s get real. It is nothing to do with us and all to do with the other person (unless of course you ran their dog over or something then I guess you kinda deserve the ghosting). But the key here is to just think it is a lucky escape and you will find someone SO much better than that. You are a sassy, strong person who has no time for this kind of stuff.

Sometimes we have to just give ourselves closure when the other person fails to do so. It is tough but it happens, take some time to yourself and just remember YOU are worth more and it was probably nothing you did. Best thing to do is just avoid avidly insta stalking, delete all messsages from them and good god if they slither back into your DM’s then IGNORE. (Unless of course they have a fab excuse for ghosting.)

Fab excuses:

  • They were busy ending world hunger
  • They were clearing ALL the plastic from the ocean
  • They were out feeding all the stray dogs and cats
  • They were lost on a desert island with no phone (still could send a message in a bottle though)

Yano something along those lines…

Better people are coming, be patient my friends.

L x