When the pandemic hit and we were confined to our homes during the first Movement Control Order (MCO), my boyfriend and I had to adjust to being together 24/7. Now, I’m a generally mellow person – I wake up early and go to bed early (I always joke that I’m secretly 72, not 25) while he’s grumpy in the mornings, super high energy in the evenings. So the first MCO was a jolt – were we always so different? But we worked through it, or… so I thought.
By September, we realised that we were too different, that our priorities and what we wanted out of our romantic relationships didn’t line up anymore. And that… was the end of “us”.
In the blink of an eye, 2020 went from being our first year living together and building our “home”, to me moving out. Moving out was both a physical change (from one roof to another) and an emotional one, where I had to deal with saying goodbye to my “home”, the person who housed my heart for years now.
Meanwhile, the quarantine seemed to be driving everyone around me to get more serious about their relationships – a lot of my friends went from being single to unavailable or from “dating” to putting a ring on it. Zoom weddings filled my IG stories while there I was, trying to navigate being “alone”. Of course, I wasn’t truly alone. I’d moved in with colleagues – who were to me the sisters I never had growing up. But, without the distraction of the normal 9-6 job, activities and classes… I’d never felt as “alone” (read: single) as I had at that moment.
So I went on dating apps – and boy was that more of a bane than a boon. Dating during an exposure-sensitive pandemic is a whole mood I wish I could have avoided.
Not only was I anxious about the possibility of contracting the virus, “physically distanced” dating was stressful. Having to be meters away made any sort of personable connection difficult to build – you can’t hear the other person (there is nothing more jarring than saying, “What???” 3000 times) and you’re constantly thinking about how close other people are. Zoom dates were not much different – crappy internet connection made the disconnect worse. Let’s not even mention how my outward upkeep (unruly hair, unplucked eyebrows, subpar makeup skills after months of not using makeup) was not at its optimal, which didn’t make me feel particularly flirty or at my best, to say the least. To top it off – IDK, maybe I just had rotten luck – a lot of the people I did meet were only interested in one thing.
It soon made me wonder why I was putting myself into these uncomfortable (and potentially unsafe) situations. Pandemic-dating just didn’t feel worth it, or at least, not enough for me to continue to force myself into these uncomfortable (and potentially unsafe) situations. But the idea of being alone made me keep swiping left, left, right, left, right… Until, one day, a different kind of swipe changed my perspective. While on Instagram, I came across this simple post:
And it made me realise that a lot of my “loneliness” stemmed from my lack of self-love and my inability to see my worth. Growing up in a broken household, I chased stability and safety. And in trying to not be like my parents, I had the warped idea that stability would only come in the form of a “perfect” other person. But, as we all know, there is no such thing as true perfection. Every time a connection turned sour, or a “potential partner” fell through, I’d turn my disappointment inwards: What part of me was not enough for them? Was I too boring? Was I too ugly? Was I too much? I faced a tonne of self-inflicted heartbreak in every “potential” that I saw. And after seeing this quote, it registered that I wasn’t attracting what I wanted because I was looking for all the ways in which someone else could “fulfil” me, rather than “compliment” what I already am.
So, I sat down and made a list of all the characteristics I want to see in myself – and my partner.
This took a lot of introspecting and instead of thinking, “What do I lack?”, I went along the lines of, “What kind of person do I want to become?”.
At the end of it, I felt a mixture of comfort and anxiety. Anxiety because: can I be/find someone who ticks all the boxes?; and comfort because I finally knew what my priorities were and had a baseline to work with so that I would consciously stop setting myself up with people who I knew were not right for me.
Then, I worked on myself.
There’s a book by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi called the “Courage to be Disliked” (ironically, introduced to me by one of my failed pandemic dates) and – I hate to be cliché but – this book changed the way I saw my life, past traumas and connections with people. It teaches you that your unhappiness is not rooted in your past, your environment or your lack of competence but rather, in your lack of courage to change your view/lifestyle. It also points out that, a lot of the time, we see our small imperfections as massive flaws, if only to avoid others (or to avoid feeling embarrassed, lesser than, etc). Through the book, you see that the lack of courage to change or to take a chance is influenced by our fear that others will stop liking us or see us differently BUT at the end of the day, you are not responsible for others expectations of you. You can’t control how they feel or what they expect, and you shouldn’t do the same to others too (this is especially potent when dating). At the end of the day, if you don’t live your life for yourself, who is going to live it for you?
Now, I don’t settle.
The fear of being alone still manifests in the way that I find myself constantly reaching out to friends, in the way I make back to back plans so I don’t have quite as much time just sitting alone with “me”. But the difference between the “me” now, and the “me” that first stepped out into the dating world during the pandemic, is that I don’t invalidate myself or my feelings. Sometimes the only closure you need is to know that you deserve better – your time, energy and loyalty is too precious for people who take you for granted.
If there’s anything to be taken from the pandemic, it’s to prepare for the unexpected and to never, ever, ever settle for less than what you deserve because you’re afraid of change, afraid of “missing out” or simply afraid that you’re “running out of time”. Maybe I won’t be all that I want to be on my list at the end of the year, or even when I’m 30 – maybe I’ll still be alone then – but that’s okay. Everyone is on a different timeline, and comparing yourself to someone your age who may already be married or having kids will rush you into something you aren’t ready for. As Russ has so eloquently expressed, love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
*Cover image credits: Photo by alex bracken on Unsplash