Top three perks that make single life awesome

The other day I met an old friend of mine for a long time. As usual, after a while of chit-chatting, we got into exchanging the latest news about our love lives – or, actually, there were no news really; she’d been in a relationship with the same guy for the last four years, and me more or less single about the same time.

Anyway, she was rambling on about her boyfriend and how stressed she was about their parents having dinner together, without them. O-M-G I thought to myself, but she kept going on up to the point of preaching how much more relaxed, easy and fun life is when you are single.
 
Pause. If you really hated that much being in a relationship, why wouldn’t you break up?

Exactly. Being in a relationship can be quite awesome.

I kind of shut my ears to the whining – smile, nod, smile, and so on. However, later that day I got back to thinking about the privileges of single life. My friend did have a point. Being single can indeed be very much relaxed, easy and fun, especially for the following three perks.

1. Not giving a fuck
   
   Being single means you don't need to give any fucks about anyone other than yourself. How liberating is that? You don’t have to put up with anybody else’s shit. Be it tiny annoyance or some serious, overwhelming kind of shit that nobody should be put through, it’s shit anyway. Shit. Shit. Shit. And you don’t have to deal with it.
    
2. Freedom
   
   You can do whatever you want to, whenever you want to. A Saturday night out with the girls? Flirting with the cute bartender? Having the whole bed all for yourself? Wearing comfy granny undies? Watching an embarrassing chick flick? Don't mind if I do. Spend all your money on yourself? Go backpacking in India for three months? Move abroad? Go ahead girl.
    
3. That feeling
   
   That feeling when you meet somebody new, interesting and exciting. That feeling when you reply to his text messages. That feeling before the first date. That feeling after the first date. The first time you kiss. The first time you have sex. That feeling.

Of course, there are days when being single feels plain crap, but knowing that there will be a time and a place for a relationship in my life, I won't let it put me down. Single life can be pretty amazing, so you might as well enjoy it to the full. Just ask yourself Am I awesome, and check the answer in the mirror – or here.

Post by Jo

Digital Love

In the era of Facebook, it's not only you and me. It's you, me and the social network. 

When it comes to relationships, the digital age has definitely added a layer of complication to our love lives. As if defining the relationship just between the two of you wasn't difficult enough, at some point you also will need to consider adding a definitive relationship status on social media.

“Add your relationships”, the Facebook Timeline delicately suggests. In a Relationship, Engaged or perhaps even Married? What about stating openly that you are Single? Too bad more detailed attributes – Single And Happy/Excited/Desperate/Dying – are not available. (Just kidding.) Oh, and there's always the option for brutal honesty – just say It’s complicated. (Don't tell me somebody really uses this.)

On a more serious note, on average it would seem that of my Facebook friends, people known to be single are more likely to not show their relationship status on their profile at all, whereas people know to be in a relationship are more likely to have it published. Of course, that saves the single people from having to reconsider their public status after every date they go to, but on the other hand, I couldn’t help thinking if In a Relationship is the generally looked-for status.

Whatever the truth, what often follows the DTR on social media are photos to prove that you’re happy, and public messages of affection. Be it candle-light dinners, matching T-shirts, mutual hobbies or initials drawn on sand, the message is quite the same: our life is happy. Ideal. Enviable.

On all social media, we do try to give as nice, neat and polished image as possible, but especially with relationships, some cases just get out of hand. It's as if some people were more interested in how others perceive their love, rather than in how much they actually love and are loved in return.

Both as a protest and an attempt to save myself from focusing on irrelevancies, for now I’ve established a philosophy of not posting any relationship status out there. Ever. Again. Easy for me to say now as I'm single, I know. Punch me the day I break my word.

Post by Jo

Why so serious?

I'm dating a guy that is everything but ordinary. He is cool as hell and also the most entertaining person I have ever met. Our thing is by far the most easy-going and funniest relationship-like thing that I have been in. We are having a ridiculously good time.

Our connection is something really unique, and so is our time together. We don't do normal stuff or act as couples do. We don't kiss as we meet but we give a high five. We don't eat romantic dinners in candle light, but we do acrobatic tricks and end up lounging on the floor bruised. We don't argue but we throw water on each other while we're pissed and just laugh the thing off. We don't discuss our emotions but we do freestyle rap verses about each other.

Having a thing like this is at the same time the most awesome thing in the world and the most tormenting. Because we're never serious. 

He doesn't tell me he likes me, but he tells me I'm "the boss" or calls me the Mother of Dragons from Game of Thrones because of my gentle heart and my ability to rule the world. He doesn't tell me he misses me but he sends me links to a Google search made by the term "You're the best" in the middle of the night. He doesn't tell me he wants to be with me but he tells me he will painfully murder every man that is trying to approach me. 

We discuss our future and past - our teenage rages, our obsessions, our wedding speeches, and our upcoming twin baby boys - but never about the present. 

And it has started to tear me apart. I need words. I need to be assured that behind the humorous behavior there's actually a man that cares about me. What if this is nothing but a big joke?

Post by Sally

Is Less actually More?

Last weekend I met a friend of mine, and as all decent-behaving fine ladies do when they meet after a while, we analyzed the current situation of our sex lives, as well as other relationship related issues. Well, my friend told me the most ridiculous thing I had heard by far, or at least that’s what I was thinking when I heard the thing – she told me she only has sex with her boyfriend maximum once a week, since she wants to invest in quality instead of quantity.

I told her she could stop making poor excuses, and admit that three years in a relationship, a dog and a shared laundry bag have affected the intensiveness of her bedroom activity.

However, the more I thought about it, the more sense it started to make. One of the basic assumptions of human behavior in economics is the law of diminishing marginal utility – the more you have a certain good, the less extra utility a unit of the good gives you.  The first glass of wine gives you much more pleasure than the tenth one (though alcohol might be exception since the sufficient supply of it is free and unlimited).

This applies to human contact as well. The more you meet someone, the less special it gets. If you meet a guy rarely, the moments are loaded with expectations, belongingness and happiness. More often you meet, more everydayish it gets. Like if you start having lunch every day in a Michelin starred restaurant instead of your office cafeteria, you’ll get used to the quality of the food, and stop respecting its amazingness of every meal. In the end you start treating the Michelin star restaurant in your mind the same way as you treat the poor office cafeteria.

This applies especially in a situation when dating someone new is starting to get more frequent. After some while of dating the excitement slowly starts to disappear as the relationship starts to stabilize. It becomes everyday. And this is where we are heading with my guy right now. 

Though emotions are the only concept in the world that cannot be explained by science, the laws of social sciences might still have their points to apply in the market of love. I'm not ready to stabilize with my nascent relationship just yet. So taking some distance might actually improve our utility surpluses. I don’t want us to treat each other like office cafeterias. 

Post by Sally