7 Reasons You Hate Being Single

Matt ClarkNov 20, 2014

Not in a relationship and hating it? Can’t stand all the pressure and hate everyone talking about it? Here are some reasons why many people hate being single.

Over the past weekend, I got to be a Master of Ceremonies at another one of my friends’ wedding receptions. It was an absolutely beautiful day – the bride looked amazing, the family was all there, all the friends from over the years turned out in force to celebrate, and the ceremony was perfect. Weddings are among some of my favourite events to attend, especially when the bride and groom are friends of mine.

So many people desire that joyful day to arrive in their lives. That day where they will stand at the altar or courthouse or wherever you want it to happen, next to their best friend, staring each other lovingly in the eyes whilst reciting some of the sweetest words a human can enunciate – “til death do us part”.

Hey, not everyone wants to get married. But many people really do. And some people really really do. Singleness is sometimes seen as an illness, as a dire state of being where you are living far below your potential. Sometimes singleness can be a massively touchy topic in our lives, where we instantly get defensive and put the walls up if someone even starts hinting at us getting a boyfriend or girlfriend, or making a move in that direction.

Why is it that so many of us hate being single?

You don’t like being alone

I think the first big reason many people hate singleness is that they hate being alone. You’re tired of coming home carrying all the groceries yourself to a dark house with no one to eat dinner with. You’re annoyed that you can’t sit there all day texting someone the funny things that people around you are doing. You don’t want to keep watching those romantic movies all by yourself and are sick of going to parties with no partner.

Loneliness is a massive topic, and probably the root of why many people don’t feel content in singleness. It sucks not having anyone else around you.

Perhaps the problem is accentuated by the way we treat our families (or the way they’ve treated us), and perhaps by how we feel in our friendships. Maybe we don’t actually have anyone around us at the moment, and so that offer of a man or a woman who’s always going to be there for us is very, very enticing.

Is it a bad thing to want to find a partner to help navigate through loneliness? I don’t think so. “It’s not good for man to be alone”, after all. But I think sometimes a lack of depth in our relationships with our family or friends can make this worse than it actually is.

And hey, there are a lot of lonely married people out there. Maybe finding a special someone in and of itself isn’t actually going to fix the problem.

You wish someone actually cared about you

In a similar vein, singleness can feel like a curse when you feel like no one cares. You feel like no one sees you, no one cares about how your emotions are today, no one places value on you. Your friends all have their man or their woman who’s always sending them flowers or encouraging messages and always willing to give them an embrace when life gets cold. And when you face your own challenges, you feel like you have no one to turn to.

Once again, I think a partner does wonders in this area for people. But to say that you have no one who cares about you seems a bit extreme. In fact, we’re actually able to be surrounded by people who love us, but be unable to feel it. And often, it’s because we’re shutting them out. “Oh, but I won’t shut out my husband or wife!”. Well, if you’re shutting everyone else out, maybe you will. Your current habits show who you’re probably going to continue to be.

There are so many people who care about you in your world. You’re not doing this alone.

You’re not sure what else you should be doing

Have you ever heard or said that life will change for you once you get married? It is actually true – people do change when they get married. They change the way they spend their time. They change the places they go and sometimes the people they see.

But if you’re lacking a sense of purpose or meaning before you get married, you’re expecting some massive results out of the person you end up with. Not only do they have to have their lives worked but, but they also have to have your life worked out too.

And what higher goal is there in life but to find someone to love and to love you? Is there a higher goal than that? Does purpose go beyond the person you decide one day to commit to? Or is it just limited to a change in your relational standing?

You want kids

This is a really big one for a lot of people. Many people want to be a mother or a father. Many people want to know the child of introducing a child into the world, and of seeing them grow and flourish.

And if that’s the dream that keeps you up at night, then singleness is the torture chamber you reside in.

I think this one makes our approach to singleness very important. I think it’s interesting how sometimes people will want to do nothing else but to be a parent, but the way they live their lives avoids the topic of relationships completely. They don’t spend any time with the opposite sex or learning about how people work. It seems to be an oxymoron to me. Other times they are so in love with the idea of parenthood that you’re already talking about kids’ names by the second date.

For those who want kids, singleness becomes something that is a source of much of your anger and disappointment… unless we learn how to approach it better.

You can’t get rid of your disappointment or heartbreak

Singleness for many people reminds them of a moment (or several) of great disappointment in their lives. If they are asked about their singleness or it is suggested to them that they make a move towards someone, they’ll throw up the walls on the outside, but be dying on the inside.

Because in one moment, you’re instantly back at that night where you had your hopes thrown to the ground. All the feelings of that moment are instantly back with you and you’re having to face them again.

I know in my life I’ve had to give a lot of diligence to dealing with those times of disappointment. If you don’t, they can really consume your life and close you off to any forward motion. I’ve always found getting closure helps a lot. How about you? Have you found the closure you’ve needed? Have you actually talked to someone about what you’re really feeling? You may find the freedom you need to move on by doing exactly that.

You hate the pressure

It seems that most of the time I volunteer in some capacity with a female, everyone is instantly on our case about getting together. Sometimes you may have married friends who, because they’re loving their marriage so much and because they love you too, they want to see you find the same happiness. So your parents will regularly push you on the topic. Your friends will always be asking who the guys or girls that you’ve noticed are. People will ask you what you’re doing about it and why you haven’t found your partner yet.

And your response is to become increasingly bitter about the topic.

I think this really highlights to us our level of contentment with our lives, as well as what we actually think about relationships with the opposite sex. Maybe an angry reaction shows you that you really are unsettled and unsure of what you’re doing at the moment, or perhaps it shows that you think that a partner will do nothing for you but hold you back.

You weren’t made for singleness

Have you ever looked inside yourself and found a desire that you weren’t able to explain? We admire this trait all the time in the people who had amazing business ideas within themselves that they pursued and saw become a reality. We love hearing stories of when people finally find belonging in the country or church or career they’ve always known about on the inside. Call it fate, call it destiny, call it divine inspiration, we absolutely respect it and admire it.

…Except when it comes to marriage.

Maybe there is actually something innate within you that is reminding you that you weren’t born to keep to yourself. Maybe something showing you that the calling on your life is too big for one person and it needs to accommodate two. Maybe it is that innate desire to be a parent inside you that just knows that your life needs that extra piece to be all that it needs to be.

Maybe it’s a sign that there is someone else who is an important part of our calling. If that’s the case, then we need to treat that area of our life with great respect, great wisdom, and get all the right help we can. Not getting angry about it, not avoiding it, not being crushed by it, but being real, honest, and moving forward in the right ways towards seeing our desires fulfilled.

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Contentment in every season of life is the true goal of who we’re called to be. And it is actually possible to be content whatever relationship status is currently yours, whether single, married, dating, or single again. But I think an important part of that is being real about some of these reasons why singleness is hated so much. Maybe in having an honest look at some of these things in our own lives, we can be free to actually enjoy the life we were called to live in the place we currently are, as well as living in freedom as we approach the involvement of another in the most intimate parts of our lives.

Or maybe that’s just my thinking.

What do you think? Why do you think people hate singleness so much? Share your thoughts and experiences in the boxes below.