Every great romantic movie starts with a fierce female character who does not succumb to societal expectations and is doing fine being independent. However, there comes a stage when she finds the one guy she can depend on and all her fierce independence melts away to make space for an all-encompassing love.From Geet in Jab We Met to Anna in Notting Hill, they all began as women you would not want to challenge but later walked into the realms of happily ever after. For people who have never stepped into the treacherous flames of modern dating, the grass on the other side seems brighter at times and dull at others. Others have been there, done that and are no longer interested.In essence, women can be single for a moment or two, but not for life. Saying you are ‘single for life’ might lead people to believe you are either sad or spiteful, whereas saying you are ‘single for now’ might make it easier for them to leave you alone. But why is it that women often find themselves toeing the line between contentment in singlehood and quiet loneliness?
Can you be ‘too happy’ being single?
In a society where finding a partner is the peak achievement of a woman’s life, being ‘too happy’ with singlehood might feel like a small crime, let’s say robbery. You seem to be robbing people of the right to impose the dangers of extreme singleness on you, and of the time to enlighten you on why you must not completely rule out the possibility of finding love.Even parents who once advised their daughters against dating start pushing them to go on dates past a certain age, while others decide an age when their daughter can start dating even before she is born. While the world wants you to be single, it is only for a while. After that, it is vital that you leave solitary luxury for domestic confinement because you cannot be single all your life.Being single is too easy. You exist by your own rules and time and if you do it for long enough the idea of a relationship might sound dumb. With trends such as self-dating, dating sabbaticals, de-centring men and boy sobriety, more and more women are enjoying the YOLO life.But is that a problem? Can being ‘too happy’ without the need or want of a partner cause a problem in your life? Not really. The only thing this jeopardises is the realm of patriarchy where all roads lead to marriage in the end.This is not to say that the angel on your other shoulder will not shoot out love-filled arrows once in a while. After all, societal conditioning is a venom coursing through human veins and a girl who has grown up with a prince looking for his princess with a shoe has definitely been trained to wear heels. Moreover, a blessed abode, the classic definition of a man, a wife and their kids in their home, can make one ache for a happily ever after as if it were stolen from them.There might be a difference between the experiences of two kinds. For one who has dated before, the before and after are comparable. Thus, the guilt of enjoying being single might not translate into depression. But for those who have always been the wallflower envying relationships from the corner, a trial might be the best way to figure out the error.As you grow more confident in your singlehood and more open to yourself, the idea grows on you enough to become a lifestyle. However, you might want to question yourself on the difference between exhaustion and enlightenment. That is one answer only you can give. People convince themselves they are happy in relationships all the time, who’s to say that you are not doing the same to yourself when you are single? But if you are content alone, for now or forever, you can be ‘too happy’ being single.
