Two years ago, I saw my newfound single status as punishment – I had managed to jump straight from a three-year relationship into someone else’s arms, meaning that I was in love with two different people for a total of four years. I recall so vividly saying to a friend “it’s clearly necessary for me to be single for a while after that, I never found myself in the way that people say you do after the first breakup, so now I’ve got a double dose of it. It’ll pass”. In saying this, I fell into the trap that consumes all of us at one moment or another – the idea that being single is just a side effect of a situation; never a state we long for, it is the place we land after fallout, a pit that we so desperately try to pull ourselves out of. Dating apps, speed dating, meeting friends of friends – we try anything to avoid sitting in this pit for too long for fear of seeming undatable or, god-forbid, unattractive. It is an undesirable situation, a mere bump in the road on the way to relationship stability. So why do I love it so much?
It took me a long time to see the light after feeling like I was going to be heartbroken for the rest of my life, but that journey of upset and self-evaluation that one often goes through post-breakup led me to a place that I never knew existed, one where being single is celebrated, and knowing how you want to express that singledom is celebrated further. As a young woman, I always believed that people can do whatever they want with their bodies (as long as they’re safe), yet I still feared the judgement that I would receive if I were to tell people that I wanted to have sex without an emotional connection. I also didn’t quite understand how this would work – I knew that sex would always be better if you knew the person, that learning the other person’s body is an important component of good sex, so there would have to be some kind of emotional attraction. I wanted to avoid the level of attraction that makes the other person take up space in my mind, I wanted to be able to enjoy an evening with someone without then spending the day worried about whether they were going to text me back. I, in a truly selfish fashion, wanted all the good and none of the bad.
Understanding this took a long time. I don’t think that one day we are able to wake up and decide that we want to be emotionally alone for a while, it’s a process. When you’re surrounded by people in relationships, it is often expected of you to be constantly searching for your other half, to be wanting to catch up to your friends in the timeline of life. But timelines are not a one size fits all entity; they are messy and confused and often heading in three different directions at once. All I wanted to do was slow down, to have fun without it leading to finding my life partner. In speaking to a friend about this exact feeling, about wanting to be physically close to someone without simultaneously being emotionally close, they said that they feel the same way and have decided to name this period in their life as one in which they are ‘emotionally celibate’. This does not mean we are unable to feel, or unable to express our feelings, it simply means we are prioritising where our emotions are channelled, and there is simply not space for a romantic partner to be included. This, however, does not mean we are channelling actual celibacy, in fact, we desire physical intimacy in the same way someone wanting to find their other half does.
The conversation that I had with my emotionally celibate friend changed my mindset completely. In openly talking about these feelings, we concluded that we simply don’t believe in humans being two halves of a whole, we instead see ourselves as whole beings that enjoy the company of others. Perhaps we will find one person to enjoy the company of for the rest of our lives in the future, but that is not what we want now. We also realised that what we are asking for is slightly tricky, a perfect friends with benefits balance in which we are emotionally connected to our partners, just not entirely. This, I’ve learnt, can be solved simply by communicating. By telling someone what you are looking for, you set the boundaries and ensure that you are getting what you want without giving any mixed signals. If the other person is in a similar place to you and agrees to the line you have placed, it means you can have a casual relationship without confusion, without worrying if they are thinking about you on the days you don’t see them or if this could lead somewhere. Because you’ve already stated what you don’t want, you allow for a full exploration of the areas of a relationship that you do want; the physical aspects without the emotional tie.
This period of emotional celibacy was difficult for me to understand at first, considering I essentially stumbled upon these feelings accidentally. By deciding I didn’t want to find another partner I thought I was merely building my walls so high as to never be hurt again, but instead I built them halfway, allowing me to welcome the parts of a relationship that I want and keep out the parts that I don’t. I thought that I would jump back on the wagon of finding my soulmate once my heartbreak had healed, but that didn’t happen. Instead of seeing this period of emotional celibacy as one in which people only go through post-breakup in order to momentarily forget the one who broke their heart, I worked through my heartbreak alone and settled on emotional celibacy almost two years later. In using my heartbreak to explore myself internally, to understand the intricacies of what I was feeling - what I could have done better, and what I will avoid in the future - I allowed myself to understand exactly what I want from other people. Instead of getting over the bump in the road and continuing the journey towards my soulmate, I embraced the bump. I embraced it so much that I don’t want to leave. For the first time in a long time I am entirely happy; I’m happy with temporary embraces and exploring the concept of love with different people. I am grateful to everyone who has taught me how to feel different things, and I am excited for the next adventure. I still see my soulmate somewhere in the future, but I am in no rush to find them.
Comments