After I published my book, It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single, many single people began writing to me about the frustrations of navigating a world oriented for couples and nuclear families, a challenge that intensifies during the holidays.
Readers tell me about nosey relatives who grill them about their romantic lives, about tossing and turning on air mattresses while married siblings enjoy guest-room accommodations, and about wanting to vaporize during New Year’s Eve kisses.
But perhaps the largest source of grief is the simple understanding that a time that is supposed to bring joy so often brings pain instead.
The holidays can have a time-lapse quality. You frequently hang out with people you see only once a year or so—cousins, uncles, high-school pals, family friends. As the years tick by, you notice that some very obvious things in their lives start changing, as gradually your peers begin bringing home partners and later children.
This can make a single non-parent feel like her life hasn’t budged. Many readers say that the holidays often make them feel like kids, as they’re still defined primarily as sons or daughters, rather than husbands or wives, fathers or mothers.
I experienced all of these complicated emotions for many years, and it was hard. But I gradually came to see that my life was moving forward, just not in a way that was apparent at a holiday dining table. A short story I’d published in a literary magazine was not going to command the same attention as a family friend’s new baby; my solo trip to Thailand wasn’t going to garner as much conversation as a cousin’s wedding.
At first, this frustrated me, but then I realized it was OK. I’d be back to my regular life soon enough. More importantly, if I wanted to feel like an adult, trying to get people to praise and acknowledge me was exactly the wrong way to do it.
In other words, I realized that having a spouse or a child is not what makes a person a grown-up; putting other people’s needs ahead of your own is. And that impulse has nothing to do with your relationship status or whether or not you’re the official host of the event. All you have to do is shift the attention from yourself to others. It might be listening to your great-aunt brag about her grandchildren, asking your sister-in-law about her time in the service, or volunteering to pick a cousin up at the airport. It could be a simple as checking to make sure everyone has a drink or washing the dirty dishes in the host’s sink.
Of course, lots of single people already do stuff like this. For me, the shift was internal. When I approached the situation with the intention of being helpful, rather than asserting the rightness of my life, I relaxed. It’s very difficult to feel bad about yourself when you’re being good to others.
I also realized that self-consciousness is a form of self-absorption, since most of my dining companions weren’t sitting around wondering why I was single. They were wondering when it would be OK to ask for seconds, what kind of pie we were having, and whether or not they should get on the road before the snow hit.
I was lucky. When I was single, I never had to deal with truly obnoxious questions, or people acting like I had a “disease,” as some readers have reported. If this is your situation, the challenge will probably be greater, but why not take it? The goal is not to change anyone else’s mind about you. The goal is to cultivate self-respect. That’s not always easy, especially in a culture that is frequently very disrespectful to single people. But the principle behind it is quite simple: Think about the way a person you respect behaves, and then do that.