I've Been Single for Years | Here's What No One Actually Gets About Long Term Singles | Episode 57
I make the case that lived experience—not statistics, studies, or other bullshit—is the only thing that really explains what it’s like to be single for a long time. I talk about how long-term singlehood reshapes your life: you make big decisions alone, handle finances solo, come home to an empty house more nights than not, and build routines around yourself in ways people who’ve always been partnered just don’t get. It’s like trying to describe city life to someone who’s only ever lived in the country—they can imagine it, but they miss the daily details and the loneliness that compounds over time. I also push back on tired platitudes like “just put yourself out there” or “enjoy being single,” pointing out you can love yourself and still want an intimate partner (they’re not the same thing, shockingly). My little “glow up” takeaway: do less explaining and more living, seek people who actually get your experience, and don’t feel obligated to turn your life into a courtroom case for partnered folks who think they’ve got it all figured out.
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I turn the microphone on the cultural weirdness around long-term singlehood and why partnered folks often misread us. I use a few sharp metaphors (city vs country living) to show how people who haven’t lived single for years can’t grasp the daily, compounding texture of loneliness and independence. I rant — in the nicest way — about how statistics and pep talks don’t replace lived experience. Real insight, I say, comes from the messy, real-life stuff: doing your own repairs, managing contractors (my remodel saga again!), and still wanting closeness. That lived reality is the truth we should trust. Then I pivot to the social dynamics: why some people reflexively offer solutions instead of empathy, and how that leaves us explaining ourselves endlessly. I outline better alternatives for listeners who want to support a single friend: listen, validate, and stop treating singlehood like a project to be fixed. I wrap up with a cheeky but earnest “glow up” prescription — do less explaining, live more, and find people who actually get you — because your story is valid without the partnered jury’s stamp of approval.
Takeaways:
- I found that long-term singlehood reshapes daily life: I make big decisions, handle finances, and build routines solo, like being the CEO of a one-person startup.
- We can't expect folks who've always been partnered to truly get our loneliness; it's like explaining city traffic to someone from the countryside who never sat in a jam.
- I can love myself and still want a partner — being independent doesn't cancel the desire to share life's small, mundane moments and big choices.
- When people say just put yourself out there, I hear duh — I've been trying for years, not a few weeks, so spare me the platitudes.
- I prioritize lived experience over statistics: what matters is how we actually feel, and sometimes someone saying 'that sounds hard' helps more than a study citation.
Transcript
Have you ever tried to explain what it's actually like to be single for a really, really, really long time to someone who has never been single for a really, really, really long time?
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Hi, welcome back.
Speaker A:Or welcome.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Violeta.
Speaker A:Let's get started.
Speaker A:So this episode is a little bit of a shorter one.
Speaker A:Onto the last phase of working on my house remodel and dealing with contractors.
Speaker A:And somehow this is not any less stressful than doing things myself.
Speaker A:But you know us single people, we prevail anyhow.
Speaker A:So I've realized something the last few years and why I don't feel heard by others about how hard being single is because a lot of people don't actually understand singlehood because they haven't lived it.
Speaker A:A lot of people just truly have not actually lived it.
Speaker A:And again, if you've been single for, like, a short amount of time, you know, maybe a couple weeks, obviously it doesn't count.
Speaker A:Couple months doesn't even count.
Speaker A:I would say anything over.
Speaker A:I mean, I can't really quantify it, obviously, but, like, you know, if you've been through this, like, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Speaker A:But yeah, when you've been single for a long time, for a long time, your entire experience of life can just.
Speaker A:It starts to look different.
Speaker A:Especially when you're single for a long time in, like, adulthood.
Speaker A:Adulthood, you know, you make every decision by yourself.
Speaker A:You're the person figuring out your finances alone.
Speaker A:You're the making the big career decisions alone.
Speaker A:You're the person coming home to an empty house all the time.
Speaker A:You build your routines around yourself.
Speaker A:You learn how to comfort yourself, and you learn how to entertain yourself.
Speaker A:Of course you learn all those things.
Speaker A:You learn how to make your life meaningful without another person automatically built into it.
Speaker A:And then someone who has been partnered for most of their adult life gives you advice about being single.
Speaker A:And it never hits because you're just sitting there thinking, like, you don't actually understand what I'm talking about, like, at all.
Speaker A:At all.
Speaker A:It's like trying to explain what it's like to live in a city to someone who's only lived in the country.
Speaker A:They don't fully understand the concept.
Speaker A:They can try to, like, imagine it, but, like, they really don't understand the intricacies, all the little things that go into it, that make the big things, all the big things that go into it.
Speaker A:The daily life, the constant, like, living, you know, the constant loneliness and, like, how much that compounds over time.
Speaker A:If you keep trying to find somebody and you can't find somebody like they just don't understand it.
Speaker A:And I think even the imagining is probably hard for them to imagine it because again, they haven't lived through it.
Speaker A:They don't have the lived experience.
Speaker A:And the other thing I've come to realize, and this is today's hill I'll die on.
Speaker A:I no longer care about statistics or studies or other fucking bullshit.
Speaker A:The only thing that really matters is lived experience.
Speaker A:And what you learned from that lived experience, not reading some study or a theory of psychology or whatever.
Speaker A:Like that's the only way you truly understand something.
Speaker A:And that's what keeps the world going.
Speaker A:Cuz then you learn from it.
Speaker A:But yeah, I think that's why single people can feel so misunderstood.
Speaker A:You know, a lot of times we'll hear things like, just put yourself out there.
Speaker A:It's like, okay, but I've been putting myself out there for years.
Speaker A:Or they'll say, enjoy being single.
Speaker A:And it's like, I'm enjoying parts of it, of course, but that doesn't mean I never feel lonely or want a partner or, you know, you just need to love yourself.
Speaker A:And it's like, I do.
Speaker A:That isn't the issue.
Speaker A:Loving myself and being loved by like an intimate other person.
Speaker A:Not the same things.
Speaker A:They're just not the same things.
Speaker A:Like, the issue is that I can love myself and still want someone to share my life with.
Speaker A:I can be independent and still want partnership.
Speaker A:Also, don't even get me started on those telling us that we're hyper independent.
Speaker A:It's like out of here, I'm just being an adult, like having to be independent and having to do things because others have their own lives, you know, they're living and I'm not a priority for most of them.
Speaker A:It's just.
Speaker A:It's just what happens.
Speaker A:Yeah, you can tell I'm a little charged today, obviously.
Speaker A:And again, it's this house remodel that's just making me feel so stressed out.
Speaker A:And I have so many other things going on in my life and I'm just.
Speaker A:I'm just stressed too.
Speaker A:And again, I don't have somebody in my life who can just help me handle those things like that anyhow.
Speaker A:So back to what I was saying.
Speaker A:I can be happy and I still can want more.
Speaker A:And I think that's the part people have trouble understanding because they want your singleness to have like a simple explanation, you know, and they want to sound like they know you better than you know yourself because they read something about being single or they think that because they're coupled up, it's because they did something better than you or I did.
Speaker A:And it's like, bullshit, you didn't do anything better, you just got lucky or maybe that's your destiny or something.
Speaker A:But yeah, they'll say things like you're single because you're too picky or because you need to work on yourself or because you're not putting yourself out there enough.
Speaker A:But then of course, when you say you're fine being single currently, then they assume that you're secretly miserable and just pretending you're fine.
Speaker A:And basically, sometimes the truth is much less convenient.
Speaker A:You, a whole person living a whole life, then you're also single.
Speaker A:And again, it's either luck or some kind of predestined thing at this point.
Speaker A:That's really what I believe.
Speaker A:That's just kind of keeping you single currently, or maybe something you haven't accomplished yet.
Speaker A:Especially when you don't want to be single right now.
Speaker A:Honestly, I think one of the most frustrating things about being single for a long time is constantly having to explain yourself to people who don't realize there's anything to explain besides, you know, your feelings about it.
Speaker A:And a lot of times we just want to be listened to and heard.
Speaker A:So if you've been single for a long time and you've ever thought, why does nobody understand what I'm trying to say?
Speaker A:Maybe you're not explaining it badly, and you're probably not.
Speaker A:Maybe you're trying to explain an experience that they simply haven't lived, so they just don't understand it at all.
Speaker A:And because of that, some of them cannot support you or fully listen to you, unfortunately.
Speaker A:And a lot of times too, what you need is not advice.
Speaker A:It's just someone who listens to you, someone who understands.
Speaker A:Sometimes we just need someone to say, yeah, I can see why that would feel really fudgeing hard.
Speaker A:I think you're a wonderful person and it's not fair that you cannot find, quote, unquote, your person or someone decent to date.
Speaker A:It's not your fault and it sucks, that's all.
Speaker A:And then let you be a person who is simultaneously okay and then not okay and hopeful and tired and independent and lonely and happy and frustrated and grateful for the life they're living and still wanting love.
Speaker A:Like all those things can coexist because.
Speaker A:Because being single isn't one emotion.
Speaker A:Just like in general, being a human isn't having one emotion constantly.
Speaker A:So your glow up for today is just realizing that being misunderstood doesn't mean you're doing a bad job explaining yourself or that you're wrong in how you feel or how you think.
Speaker A:Sometimes people genuinely don't have the lived experience to understand you, and it just is what it is.
Speaker A:You don't have to convince someone that being single for years is different from being newly single or being single for like a tiny bit.
Speaker A:You don't have to prove that you're happy and sometimes lonely.
Speaker A:You don't have to defend wanting a relationship while also loving your life.
Speaker A:And you definitely don't have to turn your entire existence into a case.
Speaker A:You're presenting to basically a jury of these partnered people that think they're better than you.
Speaker A:Your life doesn't need their interpretation to be valid.
Speaker A:So that's the glow up.
Speaker A:Just promising yourself to do less explaining, more living.
Speaker A:And maybe trying to find people who understand you better because they've actually been through what you are going through or are currently going through it.
Speaker A:And maybe the next time someone says something that completely misses the point, instead of immediately trying to make them understand, you just think they don't have to get it.
Speaker A:I do.
Speaker A:And my lived experience and thoughts and feelings about this is what matters.
Speaker A:It's the only thing that matters.
Speaker A:Because it's my lived experience.
Speaker A:It's my reality.
Speaker A:It's the truth.
Speaker A:Okay, that's it for today.
Speaker A:If you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button so you don't miss any episodes.
Speaker A:They come out every Tuesday.
Speaker A:As always.
Speaker A:Even if we're late, we're right on time.
Speaker A:I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker A:Feel free to share it with a friend if you'd like.
Speaker A:Thanks so much for listening and I will talk to you next Tuesday.
Speaker A:Sam.
