Being single is kinda like being in a committed relationship. Just without the love. Or the companionship. Or hope for tomorrow.
Being in a committed relationship is sorta like being single. Just without the sex, or spontaneity or, hope for tomorrow.
Question: What is worse? That slow, solitary Sunday alone on your couch marathon-watching Homeland and binge-swiping Tinder, or the long drive home from a couple's dinner that just publicly brought your relationship's issues passive-aggressively to the surface, making the air around the evening thick with dread?
What is worse? The anxiety of loneliness or the stench of rotting love?
Question: Which is more exhausting? That three hour argument about how you never listen anymore when she is trying to tell you that you never listen. Or the three hours at the bar with your fellow single buddy, pretending that you're having fun and not really laser-marking every potential mate in the joint, adjusting your every movement, your every thought, so that you can perhaps, maybe, find that one person who may save you from this everlasting human auction, may save your very soul, and, perhaps, if you're lucky, one day keep you up for three hours arguing about how you never listen anymore.
God freakin' help us.
Dream of Hollywood love-stories and then become depressed when another Saturday night passes and they haven't come true. Stare absently at the diaper-rash cream as your single friends go out and conquer new worlds.
Which is better? What life should one aim for?
And if we are not there, is it okay to be here?
Despite feeling forced to mention how the following may be a cliché, that faraway grass does often seem greener and most things do indeed have both pros and cons. Some days it's going to suck, whichever is your personal lot. And on other days your situation will shine bright, making you the envy of someone who happens to be doing the exact opposite of what you are, someone you probably would have switched places with not too long ago.
I will resist mass-market, bargain-bin, Tony Robbins optimism and I will not advise to just let the universe give you what you deserve. You don't deserve shit, not any more than the next guy.
But I will take a moment to reflect on moments. On duality. On the fleeting instances that make life brilliant, even as we are busy lamenting what is not.
The rush at a new hand's welcoming first touch. The comfort, deep as red's darkest hue, when an old friend opens their eyes and smiles.
Every door hiding mysterious potential, every day a blank page. A thousand words in one look, the smell that warms.
The surprise when you find a piece that fits so perfectly. The wonder if you were ever whole without it.
Question:
Why does one have to be better than the other?