Single, Free, and Not Waiting

What an article from my sister made me reconsider about love, freedom, and the life I already have.

My sister sent something to our family group chat from Australia.

First, she sent a video.

Then came the correction.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to send that.”

A moment later, she sent what she had actually meant to share: an article called Universal Differences.

It was a funny piece about men and women and all the ways we supposedly operate on different frequencies. Men retreat when stressed. Women want to talk. Men try to solve problems. Women want to feel heard. Couples argue over things that probably started with something insignificant and somehow end up revisiting grievances from three years ago.

There were even Tupperware lids involved.

Apparently, nothing exposes the differences between the sexes quite like food storage.

I laughed as I read it.

But I also wondered:

Why did my sister think of this article?

She didn’t say.

Maybe she simply found it funny.

But I wondered whether she remembered conversations we’d had before, because I have shared my thoughts about relationships and singlehood.

And I have opinions.

I have often thought that a woman can be perfectly happy, perhaps even happier, being single.

I know that statement will make some people reach for their keyboards.

Hear me out.

I’m not against marriage.

I’m not against relationships.

I’m definitely not against men.

I actually rather like them.

I just really like my freedom too.

And somewhere between an article from Australia, Tupperware, and my own stubborn independence, I started asking myself a deeper question:

Do I love being single because it genuinely suits me, or because I’ve learned to associate relationships with losing pieces of myself?

Maybe the answer is both.

I Like My Life the Way It Is

There is a freedom to being single that I don’t think we talk about enough.

My time is mine.

If I want to travel, I can travel.

If I want to spend Saturday working on a creative project, I can.

If I decide to meet friends, stay home, binge-watch a K-drama, play the piano, write until an unreasonable hour, or rearrange my plans halfway through the day, there isn’t another person whose schedule has to be considered.

There is no relationship summit.

No negotiation.

No romantic subcommittee reviewing my itinerary.

I can simply go.

And I like that.

A lot.

Maybe that’s why the idea of a relationship doesn’t automatically sound better to me than being single.

Marriage and romantic partnership are often presented as though they are upgrades. Singlehood is the temporary version of life, and partnership is the premium subscription.

But what if I already like the version I’m using?

Virginia Woolf famously wrote:

“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

As a writer, I understand the literal meaning.

But I also think women need a room of their own inside their lives.

Space to think.

Space to create.

Space to become.

Space where no one else’s expectations are louder than their own convictions or God’s direction.

I have grown accustomed to that space.

Giving some of it up would not be a small thing.

Here’s the Complication: I Like Men

I can already hear someone asking:

So, Amy, you don’t want men?

I didn’t say that.

I enjoy the company of men.

I enjoy talking with them. I enjoy their perspectives, their humor, their energy.

And yes, I enjoy male attention from time to time.

I’m still a woman.

I can appreciate someone finding me interesting or attractive without immediately imagining matching towels.

But there is a limit.

Maybe I have cat-like qualities.

I want affection.

I want attention.

Come sit next to me.

Yes, closer.

This is nice.

Okay.

That’s enough.

You may now return to your side of the sofa.

Apparently, one of my love languages is personal space.

There is something funny about admitting that, but there is also something revealing underneath it.

I enjoy connection.

I just don’t want to feel smothered by it.

And perhaps that distinction tells me more about what I would need from a relationship than simply declaring that I prefer being single.

Maybe It’s Not Love I’m Protecting Myself From

I’ve had a relationship before.

And when I think about that experience now, one of the things I remember is feeling restricted.

That matters.

Because experiences create associations.

If a relationship feels restrictive, freedom feels especially good when you get it back.

Suddenly, being able to make your own decisions isn’t ordinary.

It’s oxygen.

And perhaps somewhere along the way, I created a simple equation:

Singlehood = freedom.

Relationship = restriction.

If that’s the equation, of course singlehood wins.

But I have to be willing to question whether the equation itself is true.

One relationship cannot tell me what every relationship would feel like.

Maybe the problem wasn’t partnership.

Maybe it was that partnership.

That is harder to admit because it means I can’t hide behind a universal conclusion.

I have to examine what I actually fear losing.

My independence?

My time?

My ability to make decisions without consulting someone?

My sense of self?

Maybe all of them.

And yet Scripture doesn’t portray healthy companionship as captivity.

Ecclesiastes 4:9 says:

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor.”

Two can be better than one.

But I don’t think that means one is defective.

Love Would Cost Me Something

There is another truth I can’t romanticize away.

A real relationship would require me to give up some freedom.

Not my identity.

Not my voice.

Not my calling.

But some freedom? Absolutely.

If I love someone, I can’t behave as though my choices affect only me.

I can’t book a trip, make a major financial decision, disappear for the weekend, or completely rearrange my life without considering another human being whose life is intertwined with mine.

That’s part of partnership.

Love creates responsibility.

The question is whether that responsibility feels like imprisonment or something I freely choose because the relationship is worth caring for.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote:

“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”

That kind of love makes more sense to me.

Not someone monitoring me.

Someone walking with me.

Not someone asking me to become smaller so he can feel bigger.

Someone whose presence allows both of us to become more fully ourselves.

If I ever choose partnership again, that distinction will matter enormously.

And Yes, There Are Things I Haven’t Experienced

Being comfortable with singlehood doesn’t mean I don’t recognize what I haven’t experienced.

There are dimensions of romantic intimacy I don’t know from lived experience.

I can imagine them.

I can wonder about them.

Sometimes I may even want the closeness that comes with being deeply known and loved romantically.

But curiosity about an experience doesn’t mean I need to pursue it to prove my life is complete.

There are countless lives I could have lived.

I could have married young.

I could have had children.

I could have moved somewhere else.

I could have chosen another career.

I could have become a completely different version of myself.

But I don’t want to spend my life staring through the windows of roads I didn’t take.

I want to inhabit the road I’m actually on.

Paul writes in Philippians 4:11:

“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”

I’ve always found the word learned important.

Contentment is not necessarily automatic.

It is cultivated.

It is learning to recognize what is present instead of measuring life by what is absent.

And there is a lot present in my life.

Single Doesn’t Mean Alone

This is one of the biggest misconceptions about singlehood.

Single and alone are not synonyms.

My life contains relationships.

Friendships.

Family.

Community.

People I love and people who love me.

There are people I can laugh with, travel with, pray with, celebrate with, call when something happens, or send ridiculous things to in a group chat from opposite sides of the planet.

Romantic love is one form of human connection.

It is not the only one.

Henri Nouwen wrote:

“Solitude is the place of purification and transformation.”

I think there is something powerful about learning to stand in your own company without interpreting solitude as evidence that something is missing.

Solitude can reveal who you are when nobody else is defining you.

And for me, faith changes the equation even further.

Psalm 16:11 says:

“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.”

My deepest source of belonging isn’t dependent on whether someone chooses me romantically.

I am already loved.

That doesn’t eliminate the human desire for companionship.

It simply means companionship doesn’t have to carry the impossible burden of completing me.

I’m Not Waiting for My Life to Begin

Perhaps this is the part I feel most strongly about.

I don’t want to treat singlehood as a waiting room.

I don’t want to spend years thinking:

Maybe someday I’ll meet someone.

Maybe someday I’ll experience this.

Maybe someday my life will look different.

Maybe it will.

But today is not rehearsal.

This life counts.

The trips count.

The friendships count.

The stories count.

The work counts.

The laughter counts.

The ordinary Tuesday evenings count.

The person I am becoming while single isn’t merely preparing herself for somebody else’s arrival.

She’s living.

And if someone does arrive?

He won’t be rescuing me from an unfinished life.

He’ll be entering one already in progress.

Would I Ever Choose a Relationship Again?

Yes.

That’s the surprising part.

For all my talk about freedom, I’m not closed to love.

I’m simply not interested in partnership for partnership’s sake.

I don’t need a relationship status to certify that I’m lovable.

I don’t need a man beside me to prove that my life worked out.

And I’m not interested in trading peace for companionship simply because companionship is culturally celebrated.

So the question isn’t:

Do I want a relationship?

The question is:

Would this particular relationship add enough to my life that I would willingly make room for it?

That’s different.

Because making room means something has to move.

Some independence.

Some habits.

Some priorities.

Some plans.

And maybe even some defenses I didn’t realize I had built.

A relationship worth choosing would have to offer something deeper than simply not being single.

It would have to offer partnership without possession.

Closeness without suffocation.

Commitment without erasure.

Love with room to breathe.

That?

I could consider.

Soul Insights

1. Singlehood Is Not an Incomplete Version of Life

We have spent generations treating romantic partnership as the destination and singlehood as the road leading toward it. But a woman doesn’t become more complete because someone chooses to share her life. A single life can hold purpose, community, adventure, creativity, service, faith, and profound love. The question isn’t whether my life resembles someone else’s idea of fulfillment, but whether I am fully living the life God has entrusted to me.

2. Freedom Can Be a Gift and a Shield

I genuinely value my independence, and I don’t want to diminish that. But I also have to examine whether some of what I call freedom is protection from ever feeling restricted again. Sometimes a boundary protects what matters; other times, fear disguises itself as independence because independence sounds stronger. Wisdom requires knowing which one is speaking.

3. Past Love Can Teach Me Without Defining Future Love

If a previous relationship felt restrictive, I should pay attention to what that experience taught me. What made me feel confined? What did I need that I wasn’t receiving? What would I communicate differently now? The lesson isn’t necessarily relationships restrict me; perhaps the lesson is that I now understand what kind of relationship I cannot thrive in.

4. Connection Does Not Require Possession

I can enjoy companionship, attraction, affection, and attention without believing every meaningful connection must become a committed romantic relationship. Some people enter our lives to become friends, some become companions for a season, and occasionally someone may become something more. Not every connection needs to be forced into a category before it has had time to reveal what it is. I want enough self-awareness to enjoy people without demanding that every spark become a fire.

5. Love Should Add Responsibility Without Erasing Freedom

A healthy relationship will require compromise because love makes another person’s wellbeing relevant to my choices. That isn’t automatically restriction; sometimes it is the beautiful inconvenience of caring deeply about someone beyond yourself. But love should never require me to disappear in order to maintain it. If I ever choose partnership again, I want both of us to have roots of our own while choosing to grow in the same direction.

Final Thoughts

Maybe my sister remembered something I had said when she chose that article.

Maybe she remembered one of my declarations about how women can be perfectly happy single.

Maybe she read all those jokes about men and women misunderstanding each other and thought:

My sister is going to have something to say about this.

She was right.

I do.

I still love being single.

I love the freedom it gives me. I love being able to shape my days. I love having room for creativity, travel, friendship, faith, curiosity, and whatever adventure catches my attention next.

And yes, I still like men.

I enjoy their company.

I enjoy their attention.

Just don’t crowd me.

The cat has boundaries.

But underneath the humor, I’ve realized something.

Maybe the goal isn’t to decide once and for all whether I am happier single or would be happier partnered.

Maybe happiness isn’t the argument I need to settle.

I can be happy now.

And if love ever comes again, I don’t want it because I was waiting for someone to complete the picture.

I want to be able to look at the life I already love, look at the person standing beside me, and think:

There is room here for both of us.

Until then, I am not waiting.

I am living.

And perhaps that is what freedom has been teaching me all along.

What About You?

Have you ever asked yourself whether you genuinely prefer being single, or whether past experiences shaped the way you think about relationships?

If you’re single, what do you love most about the life you have now?

And if you’ve found a healthy partnership, what freedoms did love ask you to surrender, and which parts of yourself did you learn never to surrender again?

Maybe fulfillment isn’t about choosing between freedom and love.

Maybe it’s learning what kind of love leaves enough room for you to remain yourself.

Soul Path Insights