What Nobody Tells You About Life After Singlehood

So, the narrative has changed.

I am now one of “them.” Namely, one of the Happy People, sailing through the world sans problems or concerns. Actually, forget the world – we live in a different stratosphere, a utopian planet where (pre-Hedi) Céline is free and multi-continental real estate is a rite of passage and North Korea is a natural reserve, haven’t you heard?

Why? Because I’m in a relationship, of course.

Just last week, three people who must have glimpsed my recent Instagram Stories decided to congratulate me on this grand accomplishment. “You’ve been together for a while now! It seems so perfect!” they remarked, as though I had passed some grand milestone that now made my relationship Real. (Then again, I probably had.) After this, they all stared, waiting for me to break into a sonnet about the Power of Love.

I was conflicted. Sure, part of me wanted to comply and tell them what they wanted to hear, cutting the inquisition to finish. At the same time, bullshit isn’t my brand.

“Don’t believe everything you see on Instagram!” I laughed it off, only to be met with a sequence of confused expressions.

“So, it’s not great?” said one (single) girl, looking slightly defeated.

It hit me then that people didn’t want the truth – at least, not from me. They wanted their “Girl-Mess finds love; lives happily ever after” rom-com fairytale, and they don’t want their happy ending messed with. (Although, one well-wishing acquaintance did remark that “it wasn’t over yet” as I – horror of horrors! – didn’t have “that ring.”) 

Here’s the twist though: prior to meeting my current boyfriend, I myself was one of them. As much as I revered being single in all of its liberating glory, in reality I was tired. Tired of the swinging pendulum between three-date douchebags and certifiable snoozes, of getting screwed over, of being constantly disappointed in fellow human beings. And so, I would daydream about meeting this incredible someone, funny and smart and handsome and kind, who would love me for me and wouldn’t walk away. Someone who would turn my world upside-down, liquidating all my problems with one Cinderella kiss.

Then it happened – the first part, that is. I met an incredible guy. Not only is he funny and smart and handsome and oh-so-kind, but he also has an impressive capacity for tolerating my nonsense, and making me laugh for hours straight, and he even stuck around past the self-sabotaging “expiration date” I had set up for us.

Lo and behold, I still have problems. You see, contrary to that rom-com myth, life doesn’t instantly become perfect when you get into a relationship. Sure, there is the honeymoon stage, that initial dopamine blast when everything seems bigger and brighter, and cats fly and mountain lions sing, and love songs speak directly to you.  But, once that fades (and it does, it always does), you still have your life. You still have your family drama and your career struggles and your health woes; your PMS and your back pain and your fucking acid reflux. You still wake up to this shit world, wanting to cry for hours, or feeling inexplicably angry without knowing why.

But wait, the plot thickens, because, in addition to your own problems, but you now have to step-parent somebody else’s. You are now involved in someone else’s bad moods and issues – which, by the way, can be even more frustrating than your own, as you have zero real power over them. As my niece oh-so-eloquently put it, “It’s still dbag dating, but it’s no longer decentralized. Instead of dealing with a new guy’s cast of monsters every week, you are stuck with one.” This is slightly extreme, but you get the point. It’s not Shangri-La on the other side – and I don’t mean the hotel. 

To take this a step further, there is something else that nobody really talks about. When you get into a relationship – and, later on, get married and have children and waddle into the minefield of irreversible adulthood – you lose something other than just bathroom space. You lose your daydreams – or, perhaps, your delusions. Your life is right there in front of you, which means that you can no longer fantasize of the one you may one day have: the other one, the perfect one, the multimillionaire one, the globetrotting one, the married to Clive Owen-Sergey Brin hybrid one. On the good days, it doesn’t matter, because you wouldn’t trade yours in for the world. On the bad ones, however, you feel a (reprehensible, disgraceful, inherent) sense of emptiness and loss.

So why would one want a relationship, then? Well, for one, you can’t keep your head in the clouds forever – and, until Siri / Alexa start looking like Scarjo, fellow imperfect human are our best bet. But this is also where we cut to the cheesy part, because there is one, after all that. While a relationship doesn’t necessarily zap you to Céline-clad utopia, a good one does change your life for the better. Mine, for one, has enriched my day-to-day, filling it with 4-hour FaceTime sessions, ridiculous text-offs, old French songs, random geopolitical theories, unforgettable road trips, a newfound appreciation for soccer (well, almost), a second part-time pup, and a best friend whom I occasionally want to kill in his sleep. It has made me more focused and determined, but it has also brought out the softer parts – patience and love and kindness (@boyfriend: YES! IT HAS!) It is wonderful, but it is also complicated and scary, and definitely not without problems. And yet, the good always outweighs the bad and that’s why we go on. Also, it just feels right.

This is called love – in real life, that is.  

And with that, I regret to inform you that there is no happy ending for this Girl-Mess, nor will there ever be. Wherever life takes me, I will always, in a sense, be dbag dating: “stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm” (ref. Churchill), dealing with “casts of monsters” (ref. niece), whether they are other people’s or my own, falling flat on my face and getting back up, over and over again. All I can hope for is a solid partner to offer a helping hand and a glass of rosé along the way.