Benefits of Being Single: 10 Facts From Real Lifelong Single People
Although mature single people are treated more as an anomaly rather than a choice in this relationship biased society, there are advantages in being one.Being a lifelong single person myself, I have lived through its advantages and also its considerable disadvantages.
But one thing is for sure, you must make full advantage of being single while you can. Time will come when you might really need a partner, together with the disadvantages of having one.
Here are a few facts you should know about being single for an extended period of time:
Note: These facts were based on what I actually experienced and also observed from other lifelong single people.
10 Facts From Real Lifelong Single People:
1. Everyone starts out as a single person2. The drive in finding a partner can seriously affect your life
3. The advantages and disadvantages of being in a relationship
4. Learning to be independent
5. Being independent in thought and purpose
6. Organizing your schedules
7. Organizing your finances
8. Relationships with family and friends
9. Love life
10. Aging alone
Final Words
The Details:
1. Everyone starts out as a single person
When you were born, even though you might have a twin, you are born single. In your childhood just before your teenage years, you are a single person.
It is only when you are in your teenage years do you begin to start having relationships with the opposite sex, assuming you are able to do it.
During your higher education or college years, you are more likely to concentrate on your studies rather than have romantic relationships.
Although much featured in many teenage movies, most teenagers are more interested in their studies or in a good time. If ever teenage boys are interested in the opposite sex, it has more to do with “scoring” or having sex with the opposite sex rather than a romantic relationship.
The same goes for college years, most college students are more interested in studying and having a good time and not really into romantic relationships with women.
Once people have stable jobs, this is usually only the time when people start to think of having a serious relationship with the opposite sex.
But there are career professionals who delay relationships just so they can concentrate on their career with the hopes of climbing up the career ladder.
As you can see, in many instances, having serious relationships with the opposite sex goes hand in hand with maturity and career stability.
But there are also people who end up romantically alone due to varying circumstances either financially or socially. Some have found solace in the company of family, friends, career, avocation and so on.
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2. The drive in finding a partner can seriously affect your life
Society has put so much pressure on people to search for partners. There are many both old and new songs that emphasize that unless you are loved by a person of the opposite sex, you are miserable.
There is even a holiday just created for lovers: Valentine’s Day. You are expected to splurge on your lover on this day and even have sex whether you like it or not.
As a result, many people have allocated a lot of their energy in finding partners instead of their families, friends, careers and so on.
While not in itself bad, the unhealthy search for partners can ruin a person. You see for example, women having four kids from different fathers even though they are barely over the age of 20.
We see young families struggling financially because they rushed on into having families when they cannot afford to have one.
As a result, their children inherit their financial legacy. The world is filled with families in generational poverty because their ancestors rushed into relationships.
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3. The advantages and disadvantages of being in a relationship
This is not to disparage relationships. In fact, people need to be in a relationship in one form or another. There are many advantages to being in a relationship such as:
3.1 Companionship:
Want someone to accompany you to a wedding? Want someone to share your bed at night? Want someone to shower with you? Want someone to cuddle with you while watching television on a snowy late night winter?
These and a few more things is when we become lonesome for a partner. Although a pet, family, friends and most especially roommates can substitute, nothing beats the presence of the opposite sex.
But this function of a partner is somewhat being replaced by “partners for hire”. These are professionals who double as your partners but without the benefit of sex. They are popular in Japan and have presence too in such western countries as the USA.
But if sex is all that you want, there are many people who offer paid sex either legally or illegally. For example, in Australia, paying for sex is legal but the act must be done in a legal brothel.
The sex workers are even health tested each month to ensure that they are free from disease. Even the patrons of the brothels are tested for cleanliness.
As you can see, if you have money, you may not want for companionship and sex unless you really want a partner.
3.2 Sharing of Finances:
Being in a relationship can relieve you of some financial stress. This is assuming you find a partner who is financially responsible as you are.
You can share the rent and utility expenses, even car payments. This can halve your cost of such expenses already. If you were single, you would have to pay the full price of all your daily costs.
This is a very big advantage considering that the price of rent, utilities, food and other essentials are skyrocketing.
This is also the reason why single adults rent and don’t have their own homes, because they cannot afford the downpayment and monthly amortizations of buying a home.
However, you might find a partner who is a spender, shopaholic, gambler and so on, in which case your partner is actually the one keeping you poor and even in debt.
Your partner may also earn way less than you do, which seriously affects your lifestyle and living standards. This is because your partner contributes less financially but benefits from your relationship almost like you do.
3.3 Backup:
A partner is a good backup and someone you can depend on in case a major catastrophe happens to you.
You might suddenly lose your job or become very ill suddenly. You might have a major accident or worse become suddenly disabled.
A devoted partner would more than likely stick with you through all your mishaps in life. Your partner might be in equal standing with your family and probably more when it comes to aiding you in your times of need.
This is because your partner would stay with you in your own home while your family would have to go back to their own families.
Your elder parents can help you, but remember, they won’t last as long as your partner who is probably much younger than your parents.
But there are also plenty of cases where people have left their partners once their partner falls into poverty, got seriously sick or some other catastrophes in life.
Being in a relationship is a dual edged sword too. If your partner takes care of you, you also must in turn take care of them. This is an unwritten social contract in life.
3.4 Wider Circle of Friends:
Your partner will widen your circle of friends and even double it. This is because you now have access to your partner’s friends through your partner.
This is very important especially if you are an introvert and have difficulty making friends. Your partner might be the extrovert type and thanks to them, you also get to access their circle of friends and acquaintances.
However, this situation is both good and bad. Undeniably, you won’t get along and even detest some, many or even all of your partner’s friends and acquaintances.
But for the sake of maintaining your good relationship with your partner, you would have to accept their friends and acquaintances.
This is not likely to happen if you are a single person. This is because you don’t have to please anyone regarding your choice of friends and acquaintances.
It is basically you who choose the company you keep and the kind of people you accept in your own home, assuming you are the one who owns your own home.
3.5 Safe Sex:
It is an undeniable fact that most people especially men go after relationships so that they can have sex.
Assuming you and your partner have conservative thinking when it comes to sex, you are more than likely to have a safe sex with your partner.
But there are also sexless relationships which frustrates one of the sexes involved, be it the man or the woman. This could lead to one of the couple engaging in sex outside their relationship.
This is perhaps one of the greatest advantage a person in a relationship has over a single person.
Although a single person might also engage in sex with other people, there is a high chance that this would not be safe.
Promiscuous people and those that offer sex for a fee are usually more prone to contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STD) over those who have one partner only.
3.6 Opportunity for your own family: Having a partner opens up the possibility of having your own family complete with a partner and children.
It cannot be overemphasized the importance of having your own family especially when you grow old.
Your own partner and children are more than likely to take care of you when you grow old. In many traditional cultures and even modern cultures this is still a very much followed social contract.
Many parents even push their children to have their own family as early as they can for fear that no one would look after their children in old age.
But this is not a sure thing. Not all people take care of their partner when they get old. Not all children take care of their parents when they are old.
The reasons could be varied, from financial, conflicts with their own family, or conflicts with their parents. Not everyone can be assured of being taken care of by their own family when they get old.
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4. Learning to be independent
This is why single people who have been living by themselves for extended periods of have an advantage over people in relationships.
If you are living by yourself, being alone and even isolated would have trained you to be independent without needing much help from anyone.
This is the reason why when people’s relationship breaks down, people are usually devastated. They feel as if their life has been turned upside down.
Even going out for simple errands could feel like a struggle to them because there’s now no one to accompany them.
There are even once rich but financially inept people who fell into poverty because their financially educated partner left them.
This is the reason why you should still thrive to be independent even though you already have a partner.
In case your partner is unavailable temporarily, you can still function normally because you’re independent of them.
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5. Being independent in thought and purpose
While still single, take advantage of being of independent thought and purpose. People who are in relationships especially those who are heavily in love with each other, can become blind to reason.
For example, if you tend to save money while your partner is extravagant, you might also become an extravagant person because of the influence of your partner.
There have been perfectly sane people who have become drug addicts because of the influence of their drug addict partners.
There have been people who wanted to go to college but were influenced to rather just accept low paying jobs by their partners who are more interested in easy money.
Being single allows for singularity of thought and purpose whether for good or bad. On the flipside, if you are a person with bad habits, a more sane partner can talk you off your bad habits.
So it goes both ways, you or your partner could be influencing you for the worse. The important thing to consider is to keep the good and reject the bad.
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6. Organizing your schedules
One of the greatest advantage of being single besides not having to share your money, is not sharing your time.
For example, if it’s a Friday night, you can elect to go out with your friends or spend the night alone bingeing on home entertainment.
You could spend your entire day playing video games not having to worry that you have to go out later to accompany a partner.
You can chase after your career and work as hard as you can without anyone else demanding that you spend more time with them.
Need to relocate to another state or go overseas because of a job promotion? No problem, there is no relationship or responsibilities holding you back.
Want to lose yourself in the gym, in a hobby or with family and friends? No problem, there is no relationship or responsibilities holding you back.
But remember, a partner might just be the discipline you need not to get addicted or too involved with the gym, your hobby, career and family & friends.
Being in complete control of your schedule is only good if you are responsible enough to fill your schedule with meaningful activities and you don’t get addicted to one.
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7. Organizing your finances
Being single, you have complete control of your finances. There is no partner who would take money from you.
Want to save money for a home? All you need to do is to work hard and live off the basics of life only.
Having a partner who is extravagant would likely cause you to have no savings and might even end you up in debt.
But a partner can be the discipline you need to stop spending money lavishly. For example, there is no one that can stop you from buying a sports car except a sane partner who would rather advise you to buy a simple car and save the rest of your money for other things.
In short, being single or being in a relationship can both save you money if you and your partner are both responsible in spending money.
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8. Relationships with family and friends
Being single allows you to spend more time with your family and friends. Instead of spending the weekends in your partner’s home, you can be at your parent’s home.
Instead of spending you Friday night out with your partner, you could be spending it with your friends.
You cannot be in two places at the same time. The time you spent with someone is time spent away from someone else.
With no partner to share your intimate thoughts to, you are more likely to share your intimate thoughts with family and friends instead.
And this results in a much deeper relationship with your family and friends. There is a reason why there are people who turn to their parents for advise even though they are old themselves.
Because unlike a partner, a parent is less likely to have an ulterior motive in giving you a bad advise.
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9. Love life
Being in a relationship could be the best thing to ever happen to you. This is because if you are in a relationship, it feels like you have accomplished one of the demands of society, which is to find someone who will love you.
Many people feel lonely and even depressed if they feel that there is no one who loves them romantically.
In fact, society tends to look down on single people and celebrate people in relationships. Plenty of movies are made regarding people searching for or are in a relationship.
I haven’t seen a movie dedicated to a single person who is happy and contented with their lot. Movies almost always depict single people as lonely.
The advantage of being single is that you can flirt as much as you want without being responsible to anyone.
You can even sleep with anyone with no strings attached as much as you want because you have no one to answer to.
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10. Aging alone
Perhaps the greatest fear of single people is going old alone with no one to look after them. Old people can survive being without company, but they cannot survive if no one looks after them.
Having seen how many old single people arrange their life in their old age, I can say that there is a solution to this, although partially only.
The solution? Having enough money in your old age so that you can pay people to take care of you.
For example, people with enough money to live on retirement communities have staffs who care for their needs and they are also kept company by other old people.
Some single people in their old age have even found a partner or companion in the retirement communities they are living on.
Being old and without money is a very bad situation. You might have your own partner and children, but if they cannot take care of you because of financial reasons, they are more likely to abandon you because they have their own lives to live.
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Final Words
Being single has advantages and so is being in a relationship. You yourself can be your best friend or worst enemy. If you are in a relationship, your partner might also be your best friend or your worst enemy.
Society generally frowns down on single people and celebrates those in a relationship. This is the reason why there is a big pressure for single people to get into relationships.
There are people who go into relationships even though they are not yet ready. This not only harms their life, but their children too if they happen to produce some.
There are also single people who fear growing old alone, which could become a real reality for some.
This is the reason why single people should especially prepare for their old age financially. A single person can pay someone to take care of them and also pay to live in a place where they are in the company with other old people whether they be singles themselves or couples.
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