Single

Hello all, I hope you are well and healthy. Happy is a bonus, but I'll add that in there as one of my hopes for you anyway. So today, as the title suggests, I was having some thoughts about single life.

Firstly I would just like to say that this isn't going to be a session of relationship bashing or even worse, single life promotion. This is just me and my thoughts. Basically my online thought bubble as the blog title says.

On the road to pick up my sister from work the other day, I saw something that reminded me of an ex of mine. For a second my mind tried to pull me into a pool of sorrowful thoughts about what went wrong. I started questioning myself, wondering what it is about me that caused my relationships to fall apart. And then it hit me. I haven’t dated anyone I've actually liked lately. This might sound strange but I'm sure someone out there will understand when I say I dated my ex's for the heck of it. Okay maybe it was more than that. Maybe I got lonely, or wanted to test the waters. Whatever the reason, I found myself in these dead end relationships that had me running for the hills sooner than anyone expected.

The thing about relationships is that they require a certain amount of investment from each individual. I can tell you now, in my past few relationships I've been investing less than 5% to the whole. I didn't care to do more. I figured, why over exert myself in something I'm not even emotionally involved in. I'm learning now that this is probably not the right attitude to approach this kind of bond, especially since another person and their feelings are involved.

But enough about my sad dating life, this is about me being alone. For the first time today I realised that I'm happy being alone right now. Having also realized what a terrible lover I have been, it’s now easy for me to explain why that is. It's not the freedom to do and be with whoever you want, or the many hours of your life you save from having to hang out with your lover, it's not even the large amounts of chat money you will be saving from having to contact this person daily, oh no, all these things are great but they are just the decorations to the cake below. The best part of single life for the terrible lover is the benefit to yourself and society.

Here is a list of the crazy relationship things I'm no longer obliged to do:

l  Live through terrible phone calls.

 I'm sure you must be thinking, wow; clearly this girl has had it pretty bad. No, not really. It's not that I've dated particularly boring people or anything like that, I just hate phone calls. I’d rather text you all day than have a verbal conversation over the phone. That's just me, I’m very sure I'm not the only one. I hope to one day find that one person who agrees, till then my relationships might actually be doomed to fail. Not only are these calls uncomfortable because I generally dislike them, but they become even worse when the person you are talking to is suddenly hard of hearing. Nothing says "kill me now" more than having to repeat soppy phone talk more than twice. And it gets worse because sometimes the awkward silence that is inevitable in such situations creeps in and makes things even more unbearable. I live through this enough times with my mother calling daily thank you very much, I think I'll pass.

l  Listen to awkwardly boring stories about their life.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm all for getting to know each other better but if you plan to do that, please try stay away from your boring stories. Yes we all have them. Every single one of us, but some of us are kind enough to never repeat them out loud to another living human being. Personally I'm a listener, a nice one at that, so chances are I'm never going to tell you that you are boring me to tears. Tell-tale signs might include me stifling a yawn, always a real one; getting droopy eyes; having glazed eyes; a fixed smile; and finally, you laughing alone. If you laugh and I'm just smiling, you have lost me completely and it might be time to go home.

l  See the other every chance possible.

With my last fling this was every day, 3 or more times a day. Maybe I'm just an introvert or maybe I dislike people full stop, but that can't be normal for anyone can it? I personally get physically ill if I am with a single person too much. I assume this is related to stress. Tell-tale signs that you are starting to breathe the carbon dioxide direct from my lungs includes: me getting tonsils; droopy eyes; red eyes; glazed eyes; stifling of yawns. Okay I'm starting to see a pattern here.

l  Feelings.

Don't you just hate it when your partner suffers from feelings? For me love isn't a feeling, it's more like a way of life, so it’s excluded from that last question. People who suffer from feelings are those ones who are angry, happy, depressed, clingy-caring, and lonely, sometimes in that order. Then they take these feelings out on you. Can't you just love me and leave it at that, do you have to be such an emotional nut-case too? For those wondering, no I personally do not suffer from feelings, and if I do I never take it out on my partner, that's just rude. This is the most draining and the least missed thing of all.

l  Cook on demand.

 Well this last one wasn't really a major issue since I do like to cook, but I just thought I'd throw it in there for all those people who actually hate the activity. I mean surely there is nothing worse than having to make a meal for another person on short notice when you hate cooking. I love cooking but sometimes I'm content with water and biscuits. Having a partner who is hungry tends to nullify this.

So that's why I'm happy to be alone for now. Maybe one day when I find someone who doesn't glaze my eyes over I shall return and tell you all about it.

That's my online thought bubble for this week. Check back weekly for a new updates or join my mailing list to get them sent to your inbox.