Single Again
So you’re single again. Depending on your circumstances you’re either embracing your new status or you’re dreading it. If you were the dumper, you have been preparing yourself for this moment for
quite some time. Generally, when you decide to end things, you’ve thought about it for awhile and you’ve wrapped your mind around the concept of being single once more. If you were the dumpee, in a lot of cases you were blind sided, or maybe your love just left you blind, and you are completely out of your element. No matter the case, there’s an adjustment period for all of us.
Depending on the length of your relationship, joining the likes of the “singles” is not as easy as jumping on the bike you haven’t ridden in 20 years and riding to the corner market. It’s a whole new world compared to the one that you’re used to and the forthcoming adjustment period is daunting. It’s not that the single world has changed, it’s you that has changed. Your mindset is still in relationship mode because that’s what you’re accustomed to. You’re used to certainty, comfort, reliability, and companionship. In the single world, you can throw these warm and fuzzy feelings in the recycling bin, because the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
The transition to singlehood, like a lot of things in life, is more difficult for a man. For men, transitioning to the single life is more than an adjustment, it’s more like a growth process. Men have to once again gain the confidence and thick skin to approach women. Approaching a woman, knowing that you only have an approximate 30% chance of being successful is not an easy task unless you have built up a tolerance for it. Remember, these men are coming from a relationship where they were adored, loved, cherished, and appreciated. Now they are entering the dark allies of the single life where they will be rejected, embarrassed, dismissed, and ignored.
Eventually, their confidence and thick skin will grow and allow them to brush this off and move on to the next woman, but this is not an overnight process. It takes time, hurt feelings, insecurity, and a little loss of hope to eventually see growth in confidence.
For women, even though their transition is a little bit easier, they have just as much of a difficult time adjusting to their new environment as men. Coming from a relationship, a woman is used to trust, security, and consistency. But in the single life, no man can be trusted until it’s earned, security can only be found in a dead bolt, and consistency is usually found in the men that women date, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. A good man can be found but if good men were everywhere, women wouldn’t be complaining that they can’t find one.
Women luck out because generally they don’t approach men and don’t have to face the initial rejection. But what women do have to face are the lies and the false intentions of the male species. It’s funny how quickly a man can disappear once he’s had sex with a woman or when it’s been 2 months and the woman starts to voice her frustration of the non-commitment. Most men, know what to say and do to a woman to sweep them off their feet. But while your feet are swept and dangling in the air, it doesn’t mean that he’s looking to carry you over the threshold, he may just be looking to carry you over the footboard so he can softly, ever so gently, lay you down on the mattress.
With all that said, joining the single life is about new beginnings. Its your opportunity to right a wrong and to find someone more compatible with you than your ex. It’s about learning lessons from the mistakes that you made in your past relationship and implementing the changes in your next one. But most importantly, it’s about learning and understanding that you’re worth more and deserve more than what you had in the past. Your past relationships aren’t destinations, they are just the path that you took to get where you’re going.
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