Do we really need to learn to be alone?

When it comes to self-love and solitude, have we taken things too far?

You only have to take a quick glance around mainstream culture to see it.

Candy-coloured Instagram posts listing 10 solo date ideas. T-shirts and mugs emblazoned with slogans like “Dump him!”. Literary heroines choosing themselves over a love interest. Emma Watson making the term “self-partnered” a thing.

Self-love is everywhere. Solitude is the new black.

And to be honest? I think it’s overrated.

For most of my adult life, I’ve been single. To an extent, I’ve found the growing narrative around selfdom (which Google tells me is a word) helpful.

I can see its good intentions in de-stigmatising being single. It’s definitely encouraged me to explore my relationship with myself, which has made me more thoughtful about what I need from and how I show up in relationships.

But (in the words of fellow long-time singleton, Carrie Bradshaw), I can’t help but wonder: have we taken our obsession with self-love and solitude too far?

A brief history of self-love

Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge the history of self-love, which has served as an important socio-political tool in movements for mental health, LGBTQIA Pride, and third- and fourth-wave feminism.

The roots of self-love are in resisting systemic oppression, prejudice and violence, and we have many incredible voices to thank for bringing it into our collective consciousness.

“All too often women believe it is a sign of commitment, an expression of love, to endure unkindness or cruelty, to forgive and forget. In actuality, when we love rightly we know that the healthy, loving response to cruelty and abuse is putting ourselves out of harm’s way.” – bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Learning to be content, if not comfortable, in our own company can be an act of strength, resilience and even defiance. It can teach us to know ourselves — what we like, what we dislike, what we long for, what we won’t settle for. It can give us rest and recuperation after trauma and pain. It can say a big fuck you to the expectations and standards society imposes on us.

I don’t deny the importance of respecting ourselves enough to put our own needs, boundaries and fulfilment before the desire to be partnered. Neither do I want to undermine the value of the self-love movement.

And don’t get me wrong, as an introverted only child, I love my alone time.

The problem is (like many things in life), what started out as a strategy for survival has been co-opted by mainstream culture into something quite different from where it started…

When self-love becomes another form of self-optimisation

In her seminal essay “Athleisure, barre and kale: the tyranny of the ideal woman” Jia Tolentino writes about the culture (and often, cult) of “always optimizing”. It’s about the pressures modern women face to be “beautiful, happy, carefree and perfectly competent” and how this traps us “at the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy”.

I think about this essay a lot. It strikes me that the driver to always be optimising applies to much of modern society, and doesn’t just affect women. Whether it’s our dating lives, our sleep, our supermarket shops or our mastery of meditation, we are constantly in pursuit of convenience, efficiency, productivity and general betterment (primarily through money-making apps).

I wonder if our fascination with self-love is an extension of our obsession with self-optimisation. And perhaps the self-help industry is to blame for over-simplifying it into something as trite as a bubble bath or as tangible as a triathlon.

Through my own immersion in the narrative, I absorbed the idea that learning to be alone is a sign of emotional maturity; something I needed to “master” before I was ready for a healthy, fulfilling relationship.

Two years into my first long-term relationship, I no longer think that’s true. Yes, deepening my relationship with myself has set me up to have a healthier relationship with my partner. But, as is the premise of this newsletter, I don’t think we are ever full-formed, nor do we need to be to deserve love and happiness.

For me, the pressure to love myself has sometimes felt like too much: yet another thing I have to strive for, do perfectly, prove my worth through.

From a psychological perspective, trying to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be can sometimes be counter-productive. There’s a concept called Gestalt’s Paradoxical Theory of Change that I love. Essentially, it says that change only happens when we accept what we are, not when we strive to become what we are not.

Rather than feeling like we’re failing at self-love, perhaps a better goal would be self-acceptance. And part of that self-acceptance might be admitting that, deep down, we do want to be with someone.

Performative singleness

In a society where ideas around romantic love have changed dramatically in a relatively short space of time, it can feel easier and safer to choose solitude.

Writer Chanté Joseph uses the term “performative singleness” to describe the “insufferable independent girl boss” side of her that comes out when conversations turn to dating. It’s a defensive, spiky stance that I know all too well — because I’ve been guilty of it too.

After yet another dud date or a situationship that ended badly, I would try to mask feelings of hopelessness or rejection by lambasting men or decrying that I was better off being an egg-freezing, high-flying career woman who would end her days in a female-only commune (which to be honest, still sounds pretty great).

But was I really “taking time to focus on myself” (a go-to retort to prying relatives) or just jaded and deflated by dating app culture? Or scared to confess that, despite my exciting career and buzzing social life, what I really craved was someone to rewatch Game of Thrones with?

Through coaching, I was able to explore and own that longing and yearning for a relationship. Funnily enough, only when I did this did I actually find one.

But owning this longing wasn’t easy — there was a lot of shame, guilty and fear attached to it.

Bad feminism

Research shows that there’s a growing divergence between the ideologies of young men and women. For heterosexual women like me, this gulf can be hard to reconcile with our pursuit of love and partnership. If solitude and independence aren’t enough for us (as the self-love narrative tells us they should be), it can feel like we’re “letting the side down”.

I still struggle with this inner conflict now. Making space for interdependence has meant letting go of some of my independence — and it can be easy for this to slip into codependence. I notice that I rely on my partner to do stereotypically masculine things. I toy with solo holidays and compile Airbnb wishlists, only to duck out for fear that there will be no one to carry my bags and work out the exchange rate.

(This is where my inner feminist warrior tells me to get a grip)

But more than that, the truth is that I really love spending time with my partner. I don’t want to force myself to enjoy a meal or a view alone when I could share it with him — or my mum, or a friend, for that matter.

Which brings me to the crux of my cynicism towards self-love and performative singleness: as humans, we were not meant to be solitary creatures.

Is a life of solitude something to aspire to?

Those slogan T-shirts and nicely curated Instagram feeds show us that self-love has been commodified into something aspirational.

But I’m not sure if learning to be alone is really something we should aspire to. Or if it’s something we cling to to assuage the deep-seated loneliness of modern life.

Part of the problem with today’s narrative around self-love is that it’s a convenient carrot for our increasingly individualistic, capitalist society to dangle in front of us. It benefits the economy and systems of power that uphold it if we put work before people, and consume more than we give.

Relationships, interconnectedness and community have lost their market value. In many ways, it’s because of progress — for example, doing away with oppressive religious regimes, outdated ideas about marriage, or prejudices around sexuality.

But moving away from our families, living in cities where we never meet our neighbours, sitting in our home offices, choosing potential soulmates from a sea of faces in our phone, and not having access to once-pivotal third spaces have, doesn’t seem to be making us happier.

And arguably, cutting ourselves off from people isn’t good practice for being vulnerable and intimate with a future partner, either. If we take solitude too far, become too set in our ways, “self-love” can become selfish.

When I spend too much time alone, I can grow overly introspective and downright weird in the company of others— in fact, most people I speak to feel like they are still relearning social skills following the pandemic.

Accepting our own humanness

The truth is, humans are pack animals. We’re hardwired for connection and thrive in partnerships and communities. Only in very recent history have we taken to siphoning ourselves off into nuclear families and solo domestic units. Our Paleolithic brains still find safety and comfort in a sense of belonging, and feel stressed when we’re cut off from the pack.

It should be no surprise, then, that loneliness kills. So, instead of aspiring to be more alone, perhaps we should aspire to be more together.

I think the discourse around self-love can be short-sighted in its definition of this togetherness. Self-love tends to be viewed through the paradigm of romantic love, meaning it’s often held up as an alternative to partnership. But this misses all the ways we can find joy, fulfilment, comfort and connection outside of partnerships.

Rather than hiding behind solipsism, maybe we need to remind ourselves that it’s OK to want someone, whether romantically or platonically. It’s OK to bring a friend along to a party for company and security. It’s OK to knock on your neighbour’s door and ask if they fancy a glass of wine or a cup of tea (although if you live in London, they might call the police). It’s OK to want a relationship. We don’t have to force ourselves to face the discomfort of a table for one, or brush aside the piercing sadness of coming home after a long night out and just wanting someone to hold you.

Advocacy for self-love and the freedom of single life can hold a lot of empowerment, inspiration and liberation. At the same time, it can mask fear — not only of vulnerability, or compromising our political beliefs, but also of our own humanness.

Keeping our hearts open

When I look back on my own life, it’s not my own company that has taught me the most. It’s my relationships with others.

It’s through the unwavering support of my family that I’ve got through my darkest moments. It’s the mirror my best friend holds up to me that helps me see my value. It’s the pain of longing for partnership, and the heartache of lost ones, that have drawn me down the deepest path of self-discovery.

It’s taking a chance on date after date, and choosing to keep my heart open over and over again, that have led me to true love. And it’s through exchanges with strangers, from the everyday to the once-in-a-lifetime, that I’m reminded of my faith in humanity — and how glorious it is to not be alone.

What are your thoughts on self-love? How do you feel about solitude? This has been a complex one to unpack, so I’d love to hear your perspective 👇

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