The coronavirus pandemic has brought to light an unpleasant puritanism in some people, who revel in the ability to keep an eye on how others live. One doesn’t even need to break a rule to earn their displeasure, just express dismay at things they consider unimportant or, worse, hedonistic. Even complaining about what it feels like to live alone and not being able to date anyone at the moment is considered unseemly, dismissed as trivial. After all, some have not been able to visit vulnerable elderly relatives all year. Couples have a tough time too, with many working from home in cramped rooms, not to mention those living with young children.
The complaints of a single person do not aggravate or contradict the pain of a mother or an anguished daughter who misses her sick father. Our difficulties are not undermined if society also admits that there are people who once gained substantial meaning by interacting in ways that are now impossible: through dating or casual sex. We also went through something painful, without even the socially approved validity of the nuclear unit to back us up.
Most of society doesn’t really believe that casual, non-monogamous encounters can have meaning, rather than simply serving as a crude way of venting. I know they can. Purposefully living as a single, promiscuous person was a way of meeting others, a way of finding joy in the world, and it’s gone for now. Single people have lost something important, and should be allowed to regret it. I don’t have to want children to understand families; You don’t have to share my priority to accept its validity in my life. There are not a finite number of ways I have felt pain this year.
A friend asked me a few months ago if I did not regret ending a long-term relationship in early 2020, at such a bad time in history to choose to be alone. I’m not going to pretend that it didn’t cross my mind that life would have been so much more enjoyable if I’d been with my ex during the worst time of confinement. Not only would it have been nice to have company in general, but I also missed him, specifically. I loved him; I still love him, which doesn’t mean he made me happy to be in our relationship.
I quit because I identified that my wants and needs were not being better served by monogamy. This would have been impossible in my previous life, when I was paralyzed by need, running away from me to every man that passed by and it seemed like I could fill that boyfriend-shaped hole in my life. Back then, he couldn’t refuse the offer of companionship and love any more than he could with water and air.
Now, I need something different. I need very little from individuals, but I am hungry for the world. And why not? Why shouldn’t it be? It is reasonable and decent greed, fueled not by despair but by a tremendous love for the world and the people who inhabit it. How could I be ashamed of that? Just because this momentum was thwarted in 2020 doesn’t make it evil.
Some single people do not constantly wait for the relief of a marriage to end their suffering. This year’s restrictions happened to better suit couples and families, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us made mistakes in life.
As we move into 2021, I know now more than ever that I was right to do what was best for me. I’m not going to pretend I want things I don’t want for the sake of temporary comfort. I will wait until the life I want — vulgar, frivolous, and shallow as it may seem to some — is possible again.
Megan Nolan (@mmegannnolan) is a writer and critic. She is a columnist for the New Statesman, where she writes on culture and politics, and the author of the upcoming Acts of Desperation, next to leave.
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