Before I met my boyfriend, the Young Man, I was chronically single. I say that like it was some kind of illness, and I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times where it felt terminal. Being single for a prolonged amount of time is hard.
And by a prolonged amount of time, I don’t just mean a matter of months. I was single for 3 years. That’s enough time to study a degree in. I graduated from my BA Hons of Singledom having taken modules in bad guys, useless guys, and completely and utterly the wrong guys. They weren’t great modules. They were the type of modules you had to retake several times before you really learnt the lesson.
But alongside my studies in other people I also undertook a whole research project on myself. I even wrote a dissertation on me granted it looks a lot like a blog, isn’t leather bound and is unlikely to be published in any scientific volume, but I still did the work.
I’m basically dressing a cliche in a very thinly veiled metaphor and saying that you learn a lot about yourself when you’re single. You learn what you’re capable of moving to a new town in the blink of an eye for your career. You learn what you stand for honesty and creativity. And perhaps more importantly you learn what you won’t stand for lying, small mindedness, bad guys, useless guys, guys that could give Houdini a run for his money with their disappearing trick. But hopefully the ultimate lesson you’ll learn is that you’re ok on your own.
I learnt and developed a lot as a person in the three years that I was single, but that didn’t stop when I met the Young Man. The past year has been one of the steepest learning curves of my life. While none of these lessons have been as excruciating as Tinder Studies they also haven’t always been a doddle.
The hardest thing about the lessons you’ll learn when you’re in a relationship, is that, quite often, they completely contradict the lessons you learnt when you were single.
When I was single I learnt that I was ok on my own, now I am in a relationship I am learning that is ok to need somebody. This is scary. At first it was scary because I didn’t want to get used to having somebody around, now it’s scary because I don’t want needing somebdy to take away the fact that I’m an independent woman. But, these fears are unfounded. I LOVE that the Young Man is there for me every single day, and the Young Man wouldn’t love me, if I weren’t independent.
We can find it difficult to let somebody in on the bad times, to accept help and company but letting somebody join you when it is rough, makes you no less independent, than letting somebody join you when things are good does. I love going on holiday with the Young Man, but I also enjoy going on holiday on my own. Having been on a couples holiday makes me no less capable of traveling on my own, just like having the young man comfort or help me when I have a bad day makes me no less capable of dealing with my problems alone. I can deal with my problems on my own but I don’t have to. On paper it sounds simple, in reality? Not so much.
I’ve also learnt that being single made me selfish. Maybe selfish isn’t quite the right word here because being single made me focus on me, and in so SO many ways that was a good thing. To think about only what I wanted and needed, was exactly what I needed to do in my early twenties, and I am so grateful to have learnt that I need to be a priority in my own life. It’s a lesson I hope I never forget when it comes to the big things, but what I hadn’t realised was just how precious I’d become over the small things. For so long I had been the onbly person I really needed to consider on a day to day basis, but getting into a longterm relationship changes that. Having someone else become a factor in your life, means that you can’t always control everything. Like how Thursdays are my day to watch Grey’s Anatomy, so what do you mean that’s the only day you can see me this week? Or how I prefer Tortillas to Pitta Breads so what do you mean you prefer the latter?
What I’m trying to say is that I had to learn to compromise again. This wasn’t that hard a lesson to learn because I wanted to make the compromises, because of course I would rather spend a night with the Young Man than sit in on my own watching Greys. However, the fact that I had to learn this lesson at all, came as a shock to me, simply because I hadn’t realised just how much I relished being the ruler of my realm.
Compromise is a big thing in a relationship, and if you aren’t willing to make any compromises then you probably aren’t in the right relationship, but it also reiterates the lessons you learnt when you are single. You might think you know what you stand for (tortillas over pitta breads) but you don’t truly know until someone who you are at least willing to reevaluate that standpoint for enters your life.
I guess that is what my learning experience in my relationship so far has all come down to. Reevaluation. Reevaluating myself, what I stand for, and what I really want in life.
There was a time when I would have moved anywhere in the country just for my job, and when a couple of months ago I was put in the position of maybe having to look for a new job, I had to reevaluate if this was still true. I have always seen myself as career driven, could I still be career driven if I gave myself a drive time radius because of a guy? The answer is yes. Fundamentally I haven’t changed. I still love my career, I still love Grey’s Anatomy, there are still battles I want to fight, and problems I want to solve on my own, but I also love the Young Man, bing watch new shows together, and fight his battles and solve his problems with him.
You learn a lot about yourself when you’re single, and while that learning is probably worth a whole lot more than any degree, you never get to graduate. When you’ve learnt who you are on your own you have to relearn who you are in a relationship. People in life change us, sometimes those people will be family or friends, other times they’ll be significant others. These lessons can be tough and contradictory and confusing, but if the people are worth it, the knowledge you gain will be invaluable.
I’ve only been with the Young Man for just over a year, and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of what he has and will teach me about myself, but I hope I’ve taught him a thing or two too.
And not just that tortillas will always be better than pitta breads.
>>> Thank you so much to Stephie for that wonderful guest post! If you want to read more of her gorgeous writing, you can find her blog, Tea in Your Twenties. You can also find her on twitter || instagram || pinterest
