Top 6 Reasons I’m Better Off Single

I have a long list of reasons why I’m single, but I’m going to give you the top six.  I’ve written in detail about some of this elsewhere, so I’ll keep it brief. Consider this a summary statement.    

I am not presenting this as an “objective” list of why long-term romantic relationships (LTRs) are “bad.”  They aren’t.  I’ve enjoyed LTRs, and I’m well aware that most men find great value in them.  I am just sharing my subjective list of reasons why I believe I am better off single at this point. That’s all. 

I will focus on LTRs rather than marriage because avoiding the latter has been a no-brainer for me for decades and is a subject that’s been beaten to death. The question of LTRs seems more open to me. 

So, here are the six main reasons I think I’m better off single.  You may resonate with some of these but not others.  

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Freedom and Independence

I’m better off single because it leaves me free and independent.  This will be a surprise to no one, since “freedom” leads every list of why people prefer to be single. 

However, some people value freedom and independence more than others.  They have been core values of mine for 40-plus years. Some people are fine trading away some freedom for relationship (and there is always a tradeoff).  I am not okay with that – not anymore, anyhow.  I get antsy and irritated when I feel like my freedom is being restricted. 

I like being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want, in whatever way I want, for as long as I want, and then shift to whatever else I want to do.  I like being able to spend my money however I like – to splurge on whatever I want, even if it’s foolish, and to save whatever I want.  I can be as social or withdrawn as I like, wear the clothes I like, shave when I like, drive what I like, live where I like, furnish my house however I like, and so on. 

I’m free to follow my interests wherever they lead – even down the weird rabbit holes.  I’m free to enjoy any hobby I like.  I’m free to think for myself.  I’m free to feel my feelings, including the uncomfortable ones.  I’m free from the obligations, complications, constraints, and stresses that relationships bring.   

I stopped pursuing LTRs 15 years ago because I wanted my free time back.  At the time, I didn’t think I was walking away for good, but that’s how it turned out.  The longer I stayed away, the more I liked it, and the less I wanted to go back.  At this point, I’m sort of stuck in my single ways.  I find it hard to imagine entering a committed LTR, with the restrictions that would entail. 

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I Have Other Things I’d Rather Do

“Relationships are work,” as they say.  LTRs require a lot of time, energy, attention, and emotional resources – especially when you consider not only the resources required to build and maintain a relationship, but the resources required to search for and find a good one. 

I’m not even including money here, “just” the intangibles that make up your life – time, energy, and attention.  Those are limited resources, and once they are spent, they are no longer available for anything else you might value.  So we all have an important choice: do I spend my limited resources on searching for, finding, building, and maintaining a good LTR over time?  Or do I put it toward other things that matter to me? 

In my 20s and 30s, I spent considerable time and energy chasing women and relationships.  Once I got into my 40s, though, and certainly by my late 40s, things changed drastically.  I withdrew almost all my energy from seeking LTRs and put it elsewhere – into reading, self-development, learning about a wide range of topics, exploring various ideas, developing hobbies and pastimes, taking better care of myself, taking care of other relationships, exploring spirituality and religion, reflecting, and other projects or activities.  I did plenty of this before – those things have always been important to me – but by my late 40s, I had withdrawn almost all energy from LTRs and re-invested it in those areas.     

Thinking about this a bit, I believe that this choice – whether to invest your resources in LTRs or elsewhere – depends on a few factors.  One is age, which I just mentioned.  Here are some others:

1. How much you want an LTR
2. How many other interests or activities you have that would compete with an LTR
3. How much social energy you have to begin with

If you aren’t all that pumped about the idea of being in an LTR, obviously it’ll be easier for you to forgo it.  Personally, I’ve learned a lot of rather disheartening, discouraging things about romantic relationships with women that I didn’t realize before.  I won’t go through the litany because it’s rather dispiriting, but suffice to say it reduced my motivation for an LTR substantially.    

The second item is important, because most men – and I mean no disrespect by this – do not have a lot of interests or values outside of work and romantic relationships.  They may enjoy a sport and have a hobby or two, and they may be tuned into politics, but that’s about it.  For them, investing heavily in an LTR is not much of a problem – precisely because there isn’t that much on the other side of the equation to sacrifice.

I’m not that way, though.  I’ve always had a lot of other interests besides career and relationships.  Even in my 20s and 30s, when relationships with women were very important to me, I still spent most of my time and energy on other things, and I was only in relationships periodically.  There was a mutually reinforcing cycle at work, in that all the time I spent single allowed those interests and hobbies to flourish; had I been continuously in LTRs or marriage, there would not have been the space. 

In any event, being in an LTR requires significant sacrifice for me.  There is a lot I would have to give up or cut back on.  And I’m simply not willing to do that. 

As for the third item, I top out the introvert scale and am a fairly low-energy guy.  I get tired quickly from social interaction, and LTRs require a lot of it.  I have a spoiled dog, friends, family, and miscellaneous social connections already.  I don’t need a woman and a LTR to look after, too.  I’d be tapped out.  Extroverts and high-energy people will have more social energy in the tank, so it’s not such a difficult choice for them. 

I’m better off single because my time, energy, and attentional resources are limited, and I’d rather put them towards other things. 

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I’m a Bad Fit for the Job

An LTR, like any relationship, requires that you play certain roles.  Because of their importance, the role relationship requirements of an LTR are (or can be) rather demanding. 

Despite a 60-year controversy over gender roles, what is expected of men in marriage or LTRs hasn’t changed much.  Men are generally expected to be provider, protector (physically and emotionally), tingle-generator, handyman, emotional support system, and often joker/entertainer.  Women, of course, have their own set of role expectations.  

I am fine with being an emotional support, but I have no interest in playing the other roles, especially at my age.  I’m turning down the part, because it’s not right for me. 

If I were someone else – say a man in his 20s who wanted a family – then I’d be fine playing those roles.  But I’m 63, I have never wanted kids, and I want to be married about as much as I want a colonoscopy.  I’m supposed to be provider, protector, and tingle-generator for a 50 year old woman?  Come on, she’s a grown woman.  Let her provide for, protect, and tingle herself.    

If I were casting director, I’d reject me.  I’m clearly not right for the part.  Heck, I don’t even want the part.  If I were an employer interviewing for a position, I’d say, “Sorry, we decided to go in a different direction.”  Good!  I have no interest in fulfilling the requirements of the job in the first place.  I am not a good fit. 

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No Good Fits

Speaking of good fits or lack thereof, I am better off single because, even if I wanted an LTR, there aren’t any single women (in my area and age range) who are good matches for an LTR.  Sure, I could get into a mediocre LTR easily enough, but presumably we are aiming for a good LTR, not a mediocre one.    

In my experience, I’ve never found a woman who was more than about a 25% match for me, and the longer we went on, the lower that number got.  I did half a dozen probability estimates, and I was amused but not surprised to find that the probability of finding one such woman existing is approximately 1 in 500,000.  In other words, she doesn’t exist – not in my area and age range, anyhow.  And I’m not interested in relocating just to chase women.

If you’re wondering what sort of standards I’m applying, they are things like this: some level of physical attraction, some common interests, common values, decent overlap in fundamental beliefs about life, intelligence/education (not necessarily schooling), emotional maturity, and self-awareness.  Then we have the rule-outs such as narcissism, serious personality problems, big interpersonal deficits, single moms with kids at home, women who are aiming for marriage, serious mental health issues, smokers, obvious negative attitudes towards men, etc.  When you add it all up, there’s no one who’s a good match. 

Some of it is about me, too, of course.  I’m an odd duck, hard to match. 

I am better off single because, even if I wanted an LTR, there are no women who are good fits for me. 

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Authenticity

I remember in the midst of my marriage feeling very strongly, “This is not your life.  This is someone else’s life.”  It hurt deeply.  It was one reason among many that I got out.  Some guys are well-suited for marriage, but I am not one of them.  I felt like I was living someone else’s life. 

Living authentically – that is, living your own life, being true to yourself – has been a core value of mine for over 40 years.  I have journals dating back to age 17, and I can see it woven as a strong theme over decades. 

It took me a while to realize this, but LTRs require significant sacrifices in authenticity.  Maybe some couples achieve a relationship of true psychological intimacy and mutual authenticity, but I have never met them. 

In the vast majority of relationships, there are several barriers to authenticity.  First is overt lying.  Some research suggests that couples lie to each other about three times a week; other research suggests it is more frequent. 

Much more common than overt lying is impression management – i.e., shaping your public self-presentation so that the other person likes you, or to avoid conflict or disapproval.  Sometimes this is deliberate, but usually it is an automatic, overlearned, unconscious habit.   

Men also have special limitations on what they can express, which women do not.  As we all know, men are much more socially constrained in expressing “weak” or vulnerable feelings such as deep sadness, shame, insecurity, great stress, or fear.  Contrary to what women and therapists have claimed for decades, the truth is that when men gather the courage to become emotionally vulnerable, it hardly ever goes well for them (unless it is done under special circumstances such as the death of a loved one).  Thousands of men testify that doing this almost always results in the woman losing sexual attraction or respect and/or using the disclosure against them later.  I’ve experienced some of this myself. 

Clearly, if you cannot express your feelings in a relationship, then you cannot be yourself in that relationship.  You are at best a half-self.    

In addition, LTRs involve restrictions in thought and opinion.  Most men are understandably concerned that if they share certain ideas or opinions with women, the women will get upset and retaliate in some way (e.g., withdrawal, shame, guilt, blame). In addition, many couples demonstrate what I like to call “couplethink.” Because of their mutual desire to maintain harmony, both partners gradually conform their opinions to a couple-consensus viewpoint over time.  I think this happens unconsciously, for the most part. I am thinking of several married men I know whose opinions do not seem to stray outside a well-defined box.  There is an electric fence they dare not step beyond, even in their mind, because to do so would threaten to destabilize the relationship.  This is a loss of authenticity as well, and a serious one.       

Did you know, by the way, that the #1 regret of the dying (per Bonnie Ware in Regrets of the Dying) is failure of authenticity? The dying say, “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”  The #3 regret isn’t far off, either: “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”  

I’m better off single because it allows me to just relax and be myself.  It allows me to think my own thoughts and to feel my own feelings.  It allows me to live my own life.  

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Simplicity, Peace, and Quiet

I am better off single because it keeps life simple, peaceful, and quiet.  Simplicity, peace, and quiet are fundamental ingredients of a good life, at least for me.  They are essential for my mental and physical well-being.  I know from experience that I thrive under those conditions.  And I get uncomfortably rattled when things are unnecessarily complicated, turbulent, and noisy. 

When you get into an LTR, things inevitably get more complex and troublesome.  Relationships certainly have their upsides, but they also come with plenty of stresses, ups and downs, clutter and social chatter.   

As usual, some of this is about me.  I’m introverted and also fall under the “highly sensitive” type.  I am much more sensitive to noise and chaos than most people.  People who are less sensitive or more extroverted wouldn’t have a problem with what bugs me. 

I’m better off single because I need my life to be simple, quiet, and peaceful. 

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So there you have it, six main reasons why I’m better off single.  I could say more, but I’ll leave it at that. I suspect that I’m coming to the end of the blog, as I’ve said all I need to say and feel it’s time to move on.  Thank you for reading.