“But What About Loneliness?”

Script, allow me to happily flip you.

Originally published at Medium on April 10, 2022

“But what about loneliness?” As a solo-dwelling single, this is in the top five of the most irritating questions someone could ask me. In a philosophical sense, it’s irritating because it ascribes a universal aspect of the human condition to a specific subset of people – the romantically unpartnered. In a practical sense, it’s irritating because it’s an intrusive way singles are expected to produce complex explanations of their inner lives, often in the inane context of small talk with family, friends, or co-workers.

The final leg of this tripod of annoying? There are no comparable inappropriate questions for partnered people, as they get to hide behind the vaunted “privacy of the couple.” So if you’ll indulge me, here are 10 examples of what it might look like if couples were asked similarly presumptive, intrusive questions with no self-awareness or shame. Each primary question in bold has follow-ups if the coupled person chooses to engage.

“But what about lost time?” Embarking on the second half of my life is beginning to seriously alter my concept of time, and my awareness of how little of it we have in this life. Each second that ticks away is one closer to stepping off this Earthly platform and into the Great Beyond. You just spent 15 of those seconds reminding your partner, a grown adult, when their mother’s birthday is. Does spending your precious seconds in this way alarm you?

“But what about people you can’t stand?” Your partner’s relatives, friends, or kids of any age they brought with them into your relationship: how do you deal if they drive you insane? How often does your mind wander to spending that time with people you enjoy or with no one at all?

“But what about compromised ideals?” Do you find that putting someone else at the apex of your life has slightly to severely compromised all the ideals you held before that relationship started?

“But what about interrupted flow?” Flow is the state whereby you are so engrossed in an undertaking that hours can pass with barely a notice. Being in flow can have great benefits for creativity and mental health. How is flow compatible with the constant demands of a partner? Is interrupted flow particularly annoying when your partner needs you to “adult” in their place?

“But what about interrupted sleep?” Sleep science has come a long way in the last few decades and has reinforced just how much proper sleep is important to health in ways that were inconceivable 50 or 100 years ago. Does that concern you if your partner snores or kicks you in bed? Do you find that conflict in the relationship affects how you sleep?

“But what about monotony?” Sexual monotony. Dietary monotony. Recreational and the-kind-of-shows-we-watch-on-TV monotony. Isn’t it impossible to avoid this when you spend years in close quarters with another human?

“But what about infidelity?” I keep seeing stories about how many coupled, and even married, people are on dating apps. And that doesn’t even count all the people your partner encounters in real life that they might find attractive. Doesn’t that worry you?

“But what about financial infidelity?” I keep seeing stories about how financial infidelity – the hiding of debts, assets, spending, and income – is all too common among American couples. Are you ever worried that your debit card will be rejected at the grocery store, and you have no fucking idea why until you ask your partner and the look on their face immediately tells you all you need to know?

“But what about when your partner changes?” Are you sure you can handle the process of aging together? What if they start struggling with their mental or physical health? What if they fall down the internet conspiracy theory rabbit hole and emerge the next QAnon Shaman? What if they decide to take up gambling and it gets out of control?

“But what about when you change?” What if, through the alchemy of human growth and maturing that leaves us feeling like different people with each passing decade, you find that the life you enjoyed at 35 is intolerable to you at 45? What if you learn things about yourself over time that makes your relationship increasingly unworkable? What if that unworkability derives from the notion, now inescapable, that the person who you once felt held you up is now holding you back?

Think about how awkward you’d feel asking a coupled person any of these questions, and contrast that with the ease with which “but what about loneliness” rolls off the tongue. Those contrasting feelings get at a much larger truth that we still face in our culture: that for single people, many believe that the greatest height that can be reached isn’t “thriving,” it’s “managing.”

While it may take beyond my lifetime for this to really change, I think that change is already underway. There are so many single people in society now, and only more projected in the future, that our collective voice will be harder to ignore if we steel ourselves to use it. If I’m in earshot of “but what about loneliness” in the future, my first step in the proverbial thousand-mile journey will be thus:

“You’re a human being, you know what loneliness is. Tell me about your experience first.”