Maybe It’s Okay To End Up Alone After All

The notion of settling down brings me to my next point: the Ashley Madison scandal. As if I wasn’t already feeling jaded enough about dating, let’s throw marriage into the mix. If you’ve been living under a rock and somehow haven’t heard of Ashley Madison, it is a website specifically set up to find affairs for people who are married or in committed relationships. Recently, a group of anonymous hackers released 30 million email addresses associated with the website. 30 MILLION. Think about how many people that is. That is roughly the population of Canada, for crying out loud. These are not single people just looking for fun with other people who are looking for the same thing. These are people who have committed partners and families at home. I don’t even want to think about the amount of families that are going through turmoil and being torn apart right now. I don’t want to think about the fact somewhere out there little kids are going to school while rumors circulate amongst the students and teachers that their moms’ or dads’ email address were included in the Ashley Madison leak.

What is the point of putting yourself through the emotional rollercoaster of the dating world just to finally find someone who you believe is “the one” only to have something like this happen to you?

Lately I’ve been trying to adjust my perspective on relationships. We are conditioned all of our lives into thinking that one of the ultimate goals in life is to find your perfect match; a partner who completes you; your soulmate. We are taught that this person exists somewhere out there for everyone, and that we will all find them someday. After much reflection on the subject, I think that’s a bit too idealistic.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there are people who find their perfect match, and people who fit so well together that it gives everyone a reason to believe that they, too, can have that fairytale. I’m sure we all know at least one couple like that. However, I don’t think that’s something that is made for everyone. People can spend their entire lives searching for that kind of bond, thinking that they are entitled to it just like everyone else. I, however, think that kind of love is much rarer than most of us realize. I think finding a love like that is closer to winning the lottery than it is some sort of rite of passage that gets handed out to everyone in due time. So if you know, deep down in your soul, that you have that relationship with someone please know that you are one of the lucky ones. You are the exception, not the rule. Hold onto it with everything you have and never let it go.

I’ve been trying to teach myself to unlearn all of these things about love and relationships that have been taught to us all for our entire lives. Maybe there isn’t someone out there for everybody, or maybe there is but the likelihood of actually finding them is so small. Maybe most people end up settling, and maybe that’s why the divorce rate is so high. Maybe being alone is actually better than settling for something that is kind of, sort of love, and passionate only sometimes. Maybe I just don’t want to put my heart through the ringer trying to date people in hopes that I might eventually find that magical unicorn of a perfect match, so that I can end up married someday (which is something I don’t even know if I want and can’t even envision). Besides, why should marriage be my end goal if even that doesn’t offer any guarantees?

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t believe in love. I’m just not naïve enough to think that I am automatically entitled to a modern day fairytale. I would rather be alone than settle for something that doesn’t set my soul on fire, and I do not want to exhaust my energy searching for something like that in a dating world that is so devoid of emotional attachment and honesty.