As Valentine’s Day approaches, the ever-prevalent question is always on our minds: What are your plans for the day?

 

As the months have passed, my view on love and what a happily ever after looks like has drastically changed. A year ago, I would have sworn that I was going to marry my now ex-boyfriend someday.

 

But sometimes the cookie cutter, white picket fence is not everyone’s happily ever after.

“Women often feel bad about being single, despite how satisfying their lives are otherwise,” Rebecca Adams wrote in an article published in The Huffington Post.

 

Sure, most amusement park rides and benches are suited for two people. Heck, we have a piece of furniture called a “love seat.”

 

But is it really all that much of an anomaly if a person chooses to be alone?

 

Adams presented a Harvard Grant Study, which followed 268 male undergraduates for 75 years of their lives to see what exactly brought them happiness. The study showed that relationships made their lives more joyful, but this did not always mean romantic relationships.

 

Connection and the need to feel connected is a natural part of life. That is why we have communities, part for survival and part for our emotional needs.

 

Is it so odd if a person chooses to nurture multiple relationships, even though they may not be romantically inclined? Or, on the other hand, having a single relationship to put their full energy into?

 

Have you ever had that one friend who loses themselves in a relationship? They lose all their great friendships to trade for one that seems more meaningful. Raise your hand. You totally know that person, or unknowingly you have been that person.

 

Currently, I am finding that I feel more satisfied maintaining multiple friendships rather than one all-encompassing romantic relationship. I believe it is because not all of your eggs are in one basket, so you have more than one source of emotional connection.

 

The National Center for Scientific Research did a study last year that included more than 5,000 teenagers from 19 countries in Europe, the Middle East, South America, Africa and Asia. It assessed their self-esteem based on their personal values and the achievement of their cultures’ main values. They found that fulfillment of personal values had little to no impact on their self-esteem. But fulfilling one of their cultures main values was a major self-esteem boost.

 

In our culture, it is almost expected that we go to college, get a good job, fall in love, have a few kids and then we will live happily ever after.  It is like an equation for a fairytale that most of us are expected to follow and if we do not, we are seen as misfits.

 

How could a person even fathom not spending a lifetime with just one other person as “their other half”? Society dictates what its values are and ours says we need to settle down and focus all of our energy on one relationship.

 

That is all well and good. Do not get me wrong, I too believe in love and all that mushy stuff. I also believe that path is not for everyone.

 

Ann Friedman, a freelance journalist, wrote an article about how she focused on herself for four years after breaking off a relationship in which she felt she had compromised herself. She coined the term “deep single,” which came from the idea that she never really attached herself to anything or anyone. During those years she wanted to “be in an exclusive relationship with myself.” She took time to take care of herself and find who she wanted to be, without worrying about committing herself to another person.

 

“Matrimania” is a term coined by Dr. Bella DePaulo who is a psychology professor from the University of California, Santa Barbara. It is, “the over-the-top hyping of marriage and weddings.”

 

So, it is the fault of those annoying girls who are on Pinterest, pinning every single fairytale wedding dress.

 

We believe that if we get married we will be happier individuals. This is not always true. Friedman believes married couples are less involved in their communities and their friend groups are smaller. But, when Friedman was in her “deep single” stage, she flitted from one group of friends to another.  

 

Will we be happy if we are single or if we are married? We will never know until we try. But the conversations about what we are expected to do with our relationships for the rest of our lives, needs to stop. We only have one life, so why not live it fulfilling to your personal values and not those pressured upon you by society?

 

On a side note, my parents have been happily married for coming up on 28 years this May. Congrats parental units!