I’m 36, and while my love life has been varied and interesting, over the last few years I’ve started to want to settle down. I know it doesn’t happen overnight. But recently it’s been weighing on me more and more. I reminisce about past relationships. I feel hopeless about meeting someone in the future who shares my values.
On the one hand you hear things like “happiness comes from within”, but on the other we are social animals and 99% of us want to feel loved and to love.
Not to get on my socialist soapbox, but we’re so tired and exhausted from work that we don’t have the time or energy to make friends and other connections. The only relationships we really have are romantic ones and even then it’s basically only allowed because it makes more babies to eventually exploit.
So my advice to you is this: don’t worry so much about romance. Try and cultivate relationships online and in person. If you have friendships that will increase your happiness. Plus you will then have a pool of people who share most of your values, and one or two might emerge as romantic partners.
This person gets it…
We live in social engineered culture where natural human experiences have been reduced to nothing ie it is hard to make friends or find partners because you should working as much as possible. Sometimes there is no time even take care of yourself.
It was not always this bad at least sometime between 50-80s it was not but now we are pushed into working a lot more via various methods, such as poverty, student loans or the grind propaganda. And it worked mostly. Covid made many realize how silly that is but the pressures are still there.
I’ve always been extremely extroverted for the most part, and I’ll say you’re right. I have a good 4-5 friends that I talk to every single day about all sorts of things, including my loneliness. It’s good. Guys and girls. Different perspectives.
how do you feel happy when you aren’t?
Personally, when I was younger I caught myself using relationships to define my self worth and distract me from dealing with my own negative thoughts. So I started working on myself. I would sit in silence, with little to no distractions, for prolonged periods of time at least once a week (e.g. taking a long bath, or a road trip with no radio). This forced me to spend time with my own thoughts and, before long, something would bubbled to the surface (a past argument, memories of a past breakup, feelings of inadequacy, etc). Then I would take a look at that subject and / or allow myself to just feel any negative emotions. The objective was not to “solve” the issue, just to be mindful of it and understand why I was holding on to those thoughts. Eventually, I came to terms with most of my inner turmoil in one form or another. That got me to a place where I could be alone without being lonely and that, in turn, allowed me to be happy whether I was in a relationship or not.
Not sure if that is any help to you, but it worked for me.
You basically just described Vipasana meditation! Are you related to the Buddha?
So I started working on myself. I would sit in silence, with little to no distractions, for prolonged periods of time at least once a week (e.g. taking a long bath, or a road trip with no radio).
This is great advice to anyone reading and relates to OP here. Only modification I would add is rather than sitting idly, I used to hit the gym and/or run around a track with sound canceling headphones and no music or audio of any form, and simply marinated in my thoughts and self-reflection, while compartmentalising the physical pain and exhaustion as a way to physically improve myself while doing the same mentally. It was a good method of meditation.
Personally, the gym is not good place to process things for me. Running works much better, especially without music.
Gym is great for self esteem though and the feeling of working on yourself. It definitely has a positive impact.
It’s not easy, and it takes time to get comfortable and happy being alone. Work on hobbies, go hiking with your dog, exercise, knock out projects around the house, play videogames. It’s amazing how much time there is for things when you aren’t tied up with the obligations of a relationship. Eventually it feels pretty normal.
I think modern society understates how important it is to have a partner. It is nor necessary but people tend to couple up.
With that being said, a shiti partner is the worst.
So got to bring something into it and find somebody who does the same. Nothing wrong with wanting that and making moves to do it.
It won’t be a straight line but got to try.
