Confession: I’m never really single.

I had my first boyfriend at 15, and the longest I have gone without dating someone since is around three months. And in those three months, there was often a date here and there, a casual fling, or a “back-burner” guy. You know, the lovers you keep around in the background just in case something doesn’t work out because you’re sh*t-scared of uncertainty.

Go ahead, judge me.

When I leave a relationship or am in a relationship and feel insecure, I hear countless versions of, “Maybe you should be single for a while to find yourself?”

Do we really learn more when we are single?

Do we really learn more when we are on our own—alone?

Maybe, but maybe not.

Perhaps it depends on the situation of your aloneness.

I always ended a relationship with the idea in my head that I will now be single for a year. Then, I meet someone and it seems silly to not spend time with a person I have a connection with just because there is this new, strange societal pressure as women to find ourselves as independent solo-flyers.

Can we not be independent, badass women who learn more about ourselves and the world every day while sharing our lives with partners?

I think we can have our (healthy relationship) cake and eat it, too. I believe that if our relationships are loving, communicative, and meet our emotional and physical needs, we can learn so much from coexisting with another human being—working through the challenges of life together, living shoulder to shoulder as we walk through this world as individuals.

I am tired of the shame I swallow for being in relationships constantly.

I have loved many men. I love love.

I recently spoke with a friend who said she had issues finding someone attractive enough to be a partner. I laughed and said, “I find everyone attractive.”

I have no “type.” I have loved men who are my age, and men who are over a decade older. I have loved men from different countries and backgrounds, men who look drastically different from one another. I have loved six-figure income bankers, and broke artists.

I am a lover, and I have no shame for the love that I share with this world. I will not hold shame in the openness of my heart.

We can learn alone, and we can learn together, too.

Single ladies, monogamous marriages, polyamorous people: never stop learning. Do your loving thing—whether that is being single and diving into yourself, or diving into yourself with your loved one or multiple ones.

I love you!

~

Author: Annabelle Blythe

Image: Author’s own

Editor: Khara-Jade Warren