When Did Being Single Stop Being Fun?

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Wedding season is upon us once again (peep today’s sponsor) and you know what that means? 

For everyone: 

• More parties

• More cake

• More money being spent 

For singles: 

• More questions about our relationship status 

As your resident professional wedding guest, I have to tell you that I’ve noticed a marked shift in recent years. And trust me, I’ve acquired the data. On February 29, 2020 I attended my twenty-first wedding in just eighteen months — suffice it to say I have no idea how many weddings I’ve actually gone to at this point. I’m not sure modern mathematics could possibly calculate the sum. And other than one that I attended as the plus-one to my then boyfriend, I’ve gone to each and every celebration solo for my entire adult life. It’s not that I’ve never been in a relationship when I got the invite. It’s just that attending weddings alone was so freaking fun that I never wanted to bring someone unless it was super serious. 

And it wasn’t just the weddings. My entire single life was a barrage of enjoyment. Weekends not attending weddings were spent at home in NYC flitting from birthday parties to housewarmings to Broadway shows. Sure, I also dated plenty and was always theoretically open to meeting a potential partner (that’s my friends you hear laughing in the background), but it never felt like it needed to be top of mind anyway. There were always opportunities to meet people in the midst of my actual life. It would happen when it happened. 

But after that wedding in February 2020, everything was about to change. The pandemic hit, and suddenly being single wasn’t so fun anymore. 

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…and we’re back.

At first I figured it was just me. The years of the pandemic firmly ensconced me into my thirties. Weddings were happening every few months rather than every few weeks. And I’d become so busy building my own company that I thought perhaps my social life had simply slipped away. But my mother’s death coupled with a breakup with my boyfriend barely six weeks later forced an uncomfortable amount of self-reflection, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not the problem (famous last words amirite?). 

So what happened? Was it the pandemic? Or was it just the inevitable shift when a woman enters her thirties and suddenly her friends are all taken? 

But my friends aren’t all taken. I live in New York City, home of Carrie Bradshaw and the cultural zeitgeist that tells us that there’s no need to settle down at any particular age. So after spending the last year convinced that it must be me, I’m forced to conclude that there are larger societal issues at play here. 

Sure, the pandemic impacted us all hugely. But I contend that the underlying shifts were already underway. The years spent in isolation if anything only served to exacerbate them. The same way I tell my bride friends that the spat with their childhood BFF about bridesmaid dresses was actually an inevitable fight that had been brewing between them for years, the terms of heterosexual relationships in the US were already undeniably shifting. 

And decades of subtle societal shifts have led us to the inevitable outcome: being single sucks. 

If we can’t blame the pandemic, we can easily scapegoat dating apps though, right? I think most people agree at this point that dating apps have diluted modern courtship. Instead of butterflies, we’re supposed to get excited if someone actually asks us a question. This systematized, gamified version of “romance” is woefully transactional. And the one benefit that people seemed to be able to agree on — that the apps at least give you access to theoretically “every” single person in your area — has turned into a fatal flaw. Friends in relationships no longer introduce you to their other single friends because they think you can meet anyone on the apps anyway. And this perception that “everyone” is on the apps creates the illusion of infinite opportunity. Why put in the effort to get to know someone who said one innocuous weird thing on your second date when you can just go back to the app and swipe until you find the supposedly perfect man? 

But the fabric of society was already being rewoven with or without dating apps. Recent waves of modern feminism taught women that they can strive for something other than being a homemaker if that’s what they want. But that wasn’t automatically supposed to imply that suddenly women no longer desired to be loved. Men struggled to find their place in this new relationship dynamic in a society that programmed them to believe that they’re supposed to be the providers for their families. And suddenly the two sides of a hetero couple couldn’t find common ground. The #metoo movement heightened the confusion. Women shouted that finally men were starting to understand the constant vigilance we live with every day. But well-meaning men felt caught in the crosshairs, unsure of how to approach women out in the world for fear of being seen as creepy.

We can argue all we want that everyone — both men and women — should be able to instinctively adjust to these shifting norms and “read the room” when deciding whether or not to connect with someone in person. But that disregards the truth about human nature: we’re terrified of being embarrassed. People in relationships are reluctant to set up single friends not only because they hope that dating apps will do the job for them, but also because they feel a visceral awkwardness too. If they introduce you to someone, are they responsible for how the date goes (no) or owed insider information about a relationship if the date goes well (also no)? And even men with perfectly attuned social radars still fear rejection. All you have to do is watch an old episode of Friends to understand that approaching women in public was always coupled with near-crippling feelings of self-consciousness for men. Unless you’re Joey of course…

Then the pandemic hit. And all of the above was quite simply magnified. Our collective social skills atrophied. The technology that was intended to enable us to stay connected to our communities became a parasocial crutch. We all now spend more time alone than ever before. But those of us who don’t want to be alone forever don’t know how to get out of this hellhole that we’ve dug ourselves into. 

Wellness culture would tell us that we simply haven’t done the work yet. The work to shed our childhood demons. The work to become our best selves. The work to deserve to find our forever partner. But what about the people who met their husbands or wives in college and are currently living happily ever after? They didn’t magically do the work when they were pre-teens. They aren’t somehow better than those of us who haven’t found our forever partners yet. They simply got lucky. They found their person earlier in their lives. And they never had to grapple with the rapidly shifting norms that we’re all trying in vain to tame. If one more married person tells me to stop looking because “I’ll meet my person when I least expect it” I may fling myself off the Brooklyn Bridge (joke’s on you everyone knows I never go to Brooklyn). 

But the reverse is just as frustrating. I’m sick of everyone treating being single like a full-time job instead of the fun chapter in our lives that it could — and should — be. My new mission is to remind single people everywhere, both men and women, that working on yourself is great, but you don’t need a gold star in therapy before you’re cleared to find your soulmate. Bring back smiling at strangers. Let yourself get caught up in the idea of an insane forbidden crush. Believe that the idealistic character in the romance novel might be out there for you. Because whether you’re actively searching for a partner or not, being single should be a blast. Let’s make it fun again.