Have you been wondering why you are still single? Does it seem like everyone around you has got a relationship, is engaged or married?
There are many reasons why you might still be single, and you have to remember that it’s okay! Everybody has got their own path and timing. Often, being single is a matter of choice!
However, if you keep finding yourself in the same situation where you can’t seem to keep a guy around, years pass and you’re the only single woman in your group of friends, then perhaps it’s time to dig a little deeper into why that might be and how you can change it.
Table of Contents
1. You’ve built up a lot of defenses
If you’ve dated in the past and been hurt in your relationships, the painful experiences might have made you build varying degrees of bitterness, insecurity, and expecting the worst from men.
Do you feel like you’ve become increasingly self-protective in your dating life? Do you prefer to spend your time with friends and family versus going on a date? Are you sick and tired of scrolling Tinder to try and find a decent guy to go on a date with you?
If the above description sounds terribly familiar, then perhaps you need to take a good look at the defenses that you have built. Starting a new relationship and maintaining one means that you need to let yourself be vulnerable and you can’t afford to write people off too quickly.
If you have built your defense against men, then any new guy that walks into your life might just look like a total nuisance to you. As a result, you would continue blaming your singleness on external factors and not change a thing to improve your life.
What you would fail to recognize is that you need to change your ways in order to allow for a relationship in your life.
2. You make the wrong choices over and over again
If you keep finding yourself being single for long periods of time, it’s probably because you’ve been attracted to the wrong guys. You can’t expect a long and healthy relationship if you’re making bad choices in the first place.
Does this pattern sound familiar to you?
You meet a guy, you get really excited about the prospect of dating him, only to find out shortly after that he’s nowhere near perfect? Now, no one is perfect but if you had found yourself attracted to the same wrong type of guy, then perhaps you’ll be blaming him for the failure of the relationship.
Do you feel utterly devastated and hurt after the end of a relationship? Do you end up being attracted to someone who’s unavailable, or someone who has shown you that they only see you as a friend?
If you build an image in your head of the type of guy you will end up with and you keep getting disappointed then perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate that image, once and for all.
3. Your fear of intimacy gets in the way
Most women would say that they’re desperate to find a loving partner, but at the same time they might fail to understand that true love will disrupt everything that they had thought they knew about their lives, or about love.
Have you found yourself thinking that someone likes you too much, or is moving too quickly, or is just a little bit too eager too early? These are all signs of fear of intimacy. If you feel like you don’t know how to tolerate a certain amount of closeness from a guy, then letting someone in will feel like a struggle.
You may be saying that you want love, when you know deep down that you just want to be left alone. Fear of intimacy can develop from a very early age, subconsciously you may have been feeling it your entire life.
It’s important to recognize whether your natural response to a guy’s love is out of fear or a legitimate worry. What’s the worst that could happen if you opened up to him? Like the quote says: “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”.
4.You are too picky
Our own defenses or fear of intimacy often leave us a little bit picky about men. If your natural inclination is to judge a man, then don’t be surprised if not every guy is willing to stick around.
Do you find yourself thinking any of the following?
“All the good men are taken!”
“There is no more fish left in the sea!”
“I will never find anybody!”
Whilst you’re thinking these things about men and feeling hopeless, it’s only natural that men out there are thinking some things about you, for example: “You can’t trust women!”, “Women don’t know what they want!”, “Women are just all out to take advantage of you…”
Remember that we are all just out there doing our best – men and women alike. Assume positive intent, and don’t write off men without giving them any chance.
5. Low self-esteem is the killer of relationships
Perhaps one of the biggest and most common reasons why perfectly wonderful women are still single is a lack of confidence. If you are one of those women who wants a fulfilling relationship more than anything else in the world, but you still believe that there isn’t anyone worthy of your love out there, then you have no one else to blame but yourself.
Your lack of self-esteem will give off the wrong signals to men, making them feel like they are not worthy, or that you’re not available, that you’re not impressed, that you cannot be bothered – creating a sort of catch 22 in the realm of dating.
Low self-esteem will also close you off to the world not just for dating but also for friendships. One of the best ways to meet a guy is through our circles of friends, so if you are not making an effort to go out or socialize, then how do you anticipate meeting the love of your life?
6.Your routine is getting in the way of your love life
The older you get the more you will feel comfortable to just retreat further and further into your comfort zone. You might find excuses why you can’t go for a date midweek, or find half an hour to scroll the men on your dating app.
Becoming more and more comfortable with your routine will make you more isolated and therefore harder to approach. It’s normal to feel like putting your pajamas on and getting a glass of wine after a long day of work, not having a care in the world, and certainly not making time to chat to men online…However, life is for living and the beauty of life is in meeting people and socializing.
As encouraging as it may be to stay at home and to stay within your comfort zone, without making an effort to get yourself out there and meet men, you might as well be signing on the dotted line of your spinster contract.
Do you want to be lonely for the rest of your life?
If you want to change your life you need to take control of your choices about your dating life, just take action! You don’t even have to be actively looking for someone. You just have to be in the right state of mind! When it comes to dating attitude is everything.
7. You have too many rules
The older you get, and the more men you date, the more you feel like you have to set some ground rules for your life and for the men that you allow in it. Right? WRONG! Not when you are single for long periods of time…Rules are the killer of dating, and fun!
When you follow too many rules based on your past relationships you will be creating a perpetual cycle of disappointing relationships.
There are women out there who literally have a list of rules that they follow religiously when choosing who to date, for example:
I only date men who’ve been to University.
I don’t date men who are too young.
I only want a guy who has his own place.
I only want to date people outside of my circle of friends.
…and so on, and so forth. How exhausting it must be to have all these rules!
Rules are unnecessary and most of all rules will fail you because they are created to push people out and limit you.
If you want to find a satisfying relationship you have to let yourself be surprised a little. Setting rules in a relationship go hand in hand with playing games, and you don’t want to be doing that especially if you’ve been single for a while.
Take a risk, get to know someone that you usually wouldn’t let into your life, forget about the rules that you read in women’s magazines, be sincere and most of all be yourself.
Staying open and honest will help you find an authentic, mature and substantial relationship.
8. You identify with your relationship status
It’s important to remember that you are not your relationship status. You don’t have to put it on your Facebook profile, you don’t have to explain it to your family, you don’t have to find the right person before you’ve turned 30, you don’t need to settle down and have kids to be deemed worthy.
The right relationship will come into your life when you are in the right frame of mind. And remember that your relationship status might change throughout your life, but your worth shouldn’t.
So, what is wrong with you?
The only true reason why you are still single is that you haven’t found the right person yet. End of the story. There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. Your worth doesn’t come from the outside, it’s not defined by men, it’s not bound to a relationship, a partner, or a wedding ring.
Women are mostly raised to believe that they need to do certain things before a certain age, that they need to attach themselves to their relationship status and find a man! And that can be exhausting, and hard, and confusing – especially when you feel like everyone around you is doing the right things at the right time, and you are lacking behind.
The essential thing you need to believe is that your worth goes way beyond any relationship with a man. Because ultimately the most important relationship in your life is always going to be the one you have with yourself.
So work on your self-esteem, have a word with yourself when you feel you are putting your defenses up against people and experiences, take some risks, forget about the rules you’ve read about, and just let yourself enjoy life and live all life has got to offer you – men, flaws and all.
