Sara Eckel's Blog, page 4

‘Am I Just a Big Mess?’

Dear Sara: I’m 49 years old. I’ve never been married, and have no children. I dated a guy for 15 years, thought we would be married and have kids, and we have been broken up for over 10 years. It took me three years to get over that relationship because he immediately found someone 10 years younger, built like a brick house. [He] moved her in, bought her a car, paid her a salary, and got engaged. I immediately started working out, thinking if I could lose weight, he would want me back because he always told me if I would just lose weight, he would marry me.

I have been a successful business owner for almost twenty years and everyone tells me I’m single because I’m intimidating to men because of that. I’ve only dated about four guys over the last 10 years and all but one seems to have used me for money or sex. …

I ended up in a physical relationship with a married man who was also involved with two other women from the same gym. This relationship lasted for a couple years because I was upset with God and thought if I couldn’t find happiness with a man, I would take what I could get. I didn’t want him to leave his wife, so I guess we used each other. …

Since then, I met another old friend and I ended up spending over $25,000 on him in personal items, thinking he was interested in me. Then he dumped me for his ex-girlfriend after only five months, but would not give any of the items back. … I met another guy and we ended up seeing each other for all of a month and in that time he ask to borrow $8,500 or he was going to jail for back child support because his employer hadn’t paid it like he was supposed to. When I began to ask about repayment, he left, threatened me. I’ve never heard from him since. …

That’s been almost eight months ago and during that time, I’ve gotten depressed, been seeing a therapist, and closed my business because I didn’t have the will to get out of bed. I am now staying with my grandmother and trying to sell as much of my stuff as I can. …

Then two weeks ago, I finally met someone that I thought was a great guy. He came and hung out with me the entire weekend of the 4th and texted me everyday last week, but then out of the blue, he just stops texting after Thursday night. I texted him several times with no response on Friday and Saturday and then finally I just asked him if I had done something, said something, or if he had a girlfriend and would prefer I lose his number. He finally responded, he had to go out of town for work and for me to chill out. I responded back that I was sorry; I was just worried about him, when I hadn’t heard back from him. …

Am I just a big mess and need to get used to being alone and deal with the depression and loneliness, or am I just expecting too much and scaring the good guys away with my fear of rejection or the unknown? … I would normally never put my life out here like this, but I guess you can say I’m desperate. I could write a book myself with all the craziness in my life over my 49 years. I just wish I knew if I’m doing something to scare guys away, if I am intimidating because I don’t flirt or go after guys normally, if I’m just overweight and I need more self-confidence, or what I need to do to find a significant other. — S

Dear S: No, you aren’t asking for too much. You’re asking for too little. You need to raise your standards. A guy who says he will marry you if you lose weight is not a guy worth marrying. A guy who is intimidated by a woman who owns her own business is not a man. A guy who would cheat on his wife, expect expensive gifts, ask you for a loan to stay out of jail—these are not guys you want to be with.

You are having terrible experiences with men because you’re settling for men who treat you terribly. So no more “taking what you can get”—even if it means being alone for a while. In fact, I think it would be a good idea for you to give yourself a vacation from dating for a bit. I don’t mean give up—I mean take a break so you can focus on getting back on your feet. Restart your business or, if that isn’t possible, get a job—any job. Your main concern right now should be getting your independence back. If you happen to meet someone great in the meantime (that is, someone who is not married, not asking you for money or gifts, not telling you to lose weight) then by all means go get a cup of coffee. But you need to get yourself to a place where you feel strong enough to reject predatory men.

I don’t think the problem is that you scare the good guys away—the problem is you never get near the good guys. It’s going to be hard to find the nice guys if you keep getting tangled up with liars and cheaters.

The last guy you dated didn’t have any obvious red flags, other than not responding to your text. But, believe it or not, that’s enough. It’s rude to cut off all communication out of the blue like that. You have a right to ask, “What gives?” And you don’t have to pretend you were worried he was in an accident—you knew he wasn’t in an accident. When he wrote back telling you to “chill out” that was also rude. You shouldn’t have apologized—he should have.

You’ve been putting yourself in the position where men are the judge and jury of your worthiness, and you need to flip that around. Instead of asking yourself How can I get him? How can I please him?  You need to instead ask: How he is treating me? Does he make me feel supported? Does he make me feel safe? Do I trust him? When I tell him about something I need, does he listen or does he lash out and tell me I’m being needy or irrational?

You should also look at how this person treats others. Is he polite to waiters and cashiers? How does he talk about his friends and family?

There are certain ways that decent guys behave, and if you want to be in a relationship with one you need to be able to spot them.

I’m guessing you’re worried that with preconditions like these it will be a very long time before you meet this hallowed good guy. That’s okay. It’s far more productive in the long run to spend a few years taking care of yourself than to sacrifice it for a selfish jerk. You need to be kind to yourself, so that you can recognize that kindness in others.

There are good guys out there. But they can be a harder to find. Some of them are shy, maybe a bit socially awkward. Many are home, watching Game of Thrones, listening to their vinyl collections, playing Halo. They are single and would like to have a girlfriend to treat well. They have jobs, so they won’t need your money. If they have children, they take responsibility for them—without legal intervention. They might be clueless in certain areas. They might forget to text, call or say “You look nice” at times, but if you tell them what these things mean to you, they will listen. They want to make you happy.

I know you can’t snap your fingers and summon a guy like this—believe me, I know. Raising your standards is only the first step toward finding a good guy, but it’s essential. Instead of wasting time and energy on the wrong men, focus instead on taking care of yourself and clearing space for the right one.

Yours,

Sara

 

 

Sara Eckel is a personal coach and the author of It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single.  You can her any questions here. You can also find her at saraeckel.com,Twitter and Facebook.

This post first appeared on eHarmony.com.

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‘Is Self-Doubt Harming My Chance of Finding Love?’

Dear Sara: A while back, I had a “come to Jesus” moment with a [single] friend/mentor when she was implying, yet again, that marriage is a sign of spiritual maturity. I argued it was luck. I said, “Tell me one thing a happily married woman (I decided to make it easy for her by excluding the unhappily coupled) knows that I don’t.” She said, “She knows how to show up in the world completely as herself.”

This resonated so deeply with me. Not only do I struggle with intimacy/shame/perfectionism issues, so do all my single friends. It made sense to me that in order to be happy in a relationship you have to be courageous enough to show up as yourself. I really appreciated your mentioning how courageous it is to continuously put yourself out there in dating, but for me, that’s social courage; I know how to present myself favorably to a wide variety of people. I think intimacy is a deeper kind of courage.

I showed up in a completely different way in my next dating relationship and the whole experience was different (he was surprised/intrigued by my vulnerability). As easy as things were between the two of us, I experienced a lot of internal struggle with self-judgment. I didn’t know, until he pointed it out, how relentlessly hard on myself I am. He and I didn’t ultimately work out, but it got me thinking. I was also thinking when I read your book , that though you feel like you married later rather than sooner because you needed to meet the right man (not because you needed to change), it seemed like it also came after you had spent some time (a few years?) working on acceptance.

So I’m wondering, while it seems that you place a high premium on luck in the happy marriage sweepstakes, do you think self-acceptance is in the mix? You write that you can be happily married and still messed up, but do you think a happy partnership is possible without self-acceptance? – S

Dear S: You and your friend seem to think there is a hard line that distinguishes People Who Accept Themselves from those who do not. The PWAT have gained entry into the land of happy coupledom, while you and your single friends can only press your noses between the bars of the gate, berating yourselves for not accepting yourselves enough.

So the first thing I’ll say is, we married folk aren’t so great. Many of us still question ourselves and suffer serious bouts of low self-esteem. In fact, when I think of the people I know who have the kind of self-acceptance you’re talking about, I don’t see any correlation to relationship status—I know single people who possess a deep, quiet confidence and I know married people who are at war with themselves.

It’s true that bringing your full self to a relationship is important, but to me that is like saying being honest in a relationship is important—it’s not a skill or a character trait that some people have and some don’t. It’s a simple choice, one you’re always free to make, regardless of your past and regardless of how difficult it is for you.

And you did make that choice in your last relationship. Yeah, it was hard and the two of you didn’t end up together forever, but you still did it. You saw that things were different, maybe easier, so own that and realize that this experience can carry you forward into your next relationship.

Your ex said he was surprised by how hard you are on yourself, which I think is another way of saying, “Hey you’re not so bad—we’re all pretty terrified deep down.” Being afraid to be vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re damaged—it just means you’re a person.

The thing about trying to hide yourself from your partner is that it’s a losing game—if you’re together for any length of time, they’re going to figure it out. And that’s a good thing because any partner worth having will see your flaws and frailties and love you anyway. (I’m not saying he’ll find your quirks adorable, but he’ll be willing to put up with them because on balance you’re worth it.)

If you show up as your full self in a relationship, then the people who aren’t right for you will leave. This is good news. This will save you time. It’s not that you need to dredge up all of your childhood traumas on the second date—you’re entitled to your privacy until the person you’re seeing proves worthy of your trust. But the ultimate goal here is not to impress the other person; it’s to see if the two of you are a fit.

And, ironically, the less you worry about what people think of the “real you,” the greater the chance they’ll like what they see. Because you won’t be thinking about yourself—you’ll be thinking about the other person—what are his hopes, dreams, fears and deep insecurities. How can you be a friend to this person? What can you do to ensure that he feels heard, supported and safe? This is not a sacrifice; this is something you do for the two of you, because a good relationship is a virtuous circle: The more support and compassion you offer, the more you’ll get back. (And if you don’t get it back, well then you have your answer.)

I did find a lot of self-acceptance during my single years, but if my husband and I met when I was younger, I’m pretty sure he still would have liked the more insecure version of me. Either way, I’m glad I did that work because it made me happier and calmer—both when I was single and now that I’m married.

That’s the other reason I don’t like to think of self-acceptance as a pre-requisite for a relationship: It’s a worthy goal in and of itself. And perhaps the first thing to accept about yourself is that being vulnerable and showing your imperfections is hard for you. You don’t need to wait for your next relationship to do this. Worry less about presenting yourself favorably and see how it feels to bring your full self to your relationships with you friends and family. It’s not just our partners who deserve to see our true selves.

Yours,

Sara

 

Sara Eckel is a personal coach and the author of It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single. You can get a free bonus chapter of her book at saraeckel.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. Ask her any questions here.

 

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My Conversation with The Secular Buddhist

I started binge-listening to The Secular Buddhist podcast last year because the host, Ted Meisner, always has such fascinating guests and offers such a smart take on Buddhism in the modern world. So a few months ago, I summoned my nerve and asked Ted if he’d be interested in talking to me about It’s Not You and the way Buddhist teachings helped me deal with the challenges of being single and of dating. I was thrilled when he invited me on the program.

In the conversation, we talk about how I discovered meditation and Buddhist thought, how it has helped me personally, and how I ended up writing an “inspirational book” even though that phrase makes me a little queasy. You can listen here.

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Book review: ‘Labor of Love’ (The Washington Post)

Here’s my review of Moira Weigel’s Labor of Love for The Washington Post

Let’s Talk About Dating–Seriously

It’s a sad truth: No matter how much progress women have made in the workplace — and it’s still pretty limited — the message about our romantic prospects remains stubbornly mired in the past.

“I belong to a generation that grew up hearing that girls could do everything,” Moira Weigel writes in her fascinating social history “Labor of Love.” And yet Weigel, who is in her early 30s, contends that women are still judged in large part on their ability to secure romantic partnerships. “Since we were children,” she writes of herself and her friends, “we had heard that romantic love would be the most important thing that ever happened to us. Love was like the final grade: Whatever else we accomplished would be meaningless without it.”

Despite these monumental stakes, she notes, love and romance — the ways humans begin their most intimate relationships — are still dismissed as silly girl stuff, fodder for pink-covered books and scented fashion magazines.

The lack of serious conversation about dating has left Weigel with rich territory to explore, and she makes excellent use of it. MORE

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More Podcasts: School of Psych and Unclassified Women

When you do a lot of interviews about your book, you can sometimes fall into some fairly canned answers. But a great podcast host will fix that, and recently I had the pleasure of talking to two who got me thinking about things I had never contemplated before:

The School of Psych

Jared DeFife was such a delight to talk to–I kind of forgot that we were being broadcast.

School of Psych episode 4: Why Am I Still Single? A causal quagmire:

Unclassified Women

More recently, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Australian Life Coach Michelle Marie McGrath about life without kids for her Unclassified Women podcast. Childless? Childfree? Non-parent. It appears there is no good word for those of us without kids, so we talked about that and many other things.

Unclassified Women 35: Fulfillment Later in Life

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Dating Advice: ‘It’s Hopeless. You’re a Mess. Why So Negative?’

This week a client wrote me about a disappointing evening. She met a guy she liked at a networking event and … it didn’t go the way she hoped.

Anyone who has been single for any length of time has probably had this kind of night. It can feel very significant in the moment, even though it doesn’t really mean anything other than that you’ve had a bad night.

Unfortunately, my client went home and read a blog post that made her feel much worse.

I hesitate to link to this post—I’ve lived happily with my husband for ten years, and it stressed me out. I also don’t mean to pick on this blogger in particular, as I’ve seen variations on this message in countless books, articles, posts, and television segments. But that is the point, so here goes:

The post begins with a letter from a woman named Betty, who is in her late 30s and having a hard time finding men her age to date—she noticed that the men who approached her online were usually ten to twenty years older. Naturally, she was frustrated and worried.

The blogger, identified only as Moxie, confirmed that her situation was very bad indeed, and proceeded to make some very disheartening, blanket statements about men. The guys who wanted children would surely look past her, but she would also have a tough time with men who didn’t want kids:

A 40-45 year old man who’s not interested in having children is going to want a woman who isn’t dead set on having kids. Most will assume that a 38-year-old woman will want kids. And soon.

Moxie concurred with Betty’s observation that men on dating sites were mostly only interested in women decades younger than themselves, but bars were no better:

Guys in bars are looking for the 25-32 year old gal. Or they’re looking for desperate women who will be easy to get in to bed.

The only bright side to such a conclusion is that at least the reader can know it’s not her fault. It’s just math, and men who are too timid or shallow to date women their age.

But that’s not where Moxie goes. The dating market is brutal, and Betty is screwed up:

I haven’t met one person over the age of 35 who’s still single who wasn’t that way for a serious reason. And it’s usually one of these: We want it all right now. We want to know where we stand. We want to know what’s what right now. We aren’t willing to sit back and allow things to unfold at a natural pace. We assume that if someone doesn’t feel the same way we do when we do then they aren’t right for us. We grow resentful of those people who do have an easier time meeting someone and that resentment morphs into bitterness and negativity. All of that stuff comes from a place of fear. A fear that we will never meet anyone, that we will end up alone. A fear that we will be hurt or left or abandoned or that we won’t be in control of the situation. If you continue to feed in to that fear you will end up alone. Or, worse, you’ll settle.

Once again, a space for compassion and sanity opens up. Wanting to help liberate Betty from that crippling fear, Moxie could have suggested she take some of the pressure off by accepting herself as she is and allowing her life to unfold at a natural pace. No one has complete control, no one is perfect, but we all deserve love. So why not relax, enjoy your life and do your best to find a man who has the good sense and maturity to appreciate a woman his age?

Moxie doesn’t go there. Instead she proceeds to stoke that fear:

You’re competing with women younger, possibly thinner, and probably making just as much money as you are and are equally successful. Either step up or move on to another league. And by step up I mean do the work you need to do to compete. That could be simply reorganizing priorities to dropping 10 pounds to going in to therapy to taking up yoga to learn how to relax. Is there something about you physically or personality-wise that might be turning men off? Because that might be it.

The final fix — an attitude adjustment:

People who tell themselves that there is ‘no one’ out there for them or who focus on how they don’t have someone will continue to have bad luck in the love department. You literally have to stop yourself from saying things like ‘Every women/man’ is this or that. You have to de-program yourself from thinking negatively.

In short: After overgeneralizing about men and women, Moxie tells Betty not to overgeneralize about men and women. After assaulting Betty with sweeping proclamations about her low value in the dating market and her messed-up attitude (a diagnosis that appears to be based on nothing more than a single email query), she tells her not to be negative. After pumping the reader with fear, she tells her to stop being so fearful.

Now that’s Moxie.

Like I said, I’m writing about this post not because it says anything new, but it because it reiterates a message that women have heard again and again and again. And I’m really, really tired of nice, smart. and utterly sane women buying into it.

The next time someone tells you to “be positive,” I’d suggest asking “about what exactly?” Does being positive mean “embrace the fact that you’re 38 and have the wisdom and crow’s feet to show for it”? Or does it mean “capitulate to a culture that tells women over 35 they have little value”? Does being positive mean “be kind to yourself” or does it mean “mold yourself into someone else’s idea of a desirable female”? Does being positive mean “stand up for yourself and don’t take anyone’s crap” or does it mean “bow to the status quo”? Does it mean “be happy” or does it mean “behave”?

I’m sure you know where I stand on this. Does taking my advice guarantee you’ll find the partner of your dreams? No. But at least you won’t have to hate yourself in the meantime.

Sara Eckel is a personal coach and the author of It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single. You can get a free bonus chapter of her book at saraeckel.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. Ask her any questions here.

 This post first appeared on eHarmony.com.

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The Joy of Cooking For One (or Two)

When author Klancy Miller was attending culinary school in Paris, she came down with a bad cold and yearned for a bowl of old-fashioned chicken noodle soup. A single woman who lived alone, she realized she’d need to make it for herself.

The incident set Miller on a path that ultimately led to her first book, Cooking Solo: The Joy of Cooking For Yourself, which is full of bright, easy-to-prepare dishes for singles to make for themselves, their friends and their romantic interests. Miller recently spoke with me about what she loves about cooking alone, how a novice can get started, and why a good rib eye can change your outlook on life.

Why did you decide to write this book?

I had always cooked for myself, for my family, for special occasions, etc., and my parents suggested I write a cookbook because I have so many recipes. Then I read an article about Eric Klinenberg’s book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone. He talks about how single people are now outnumbering married people, how there have never been as many single people as there are now, and the fact that it’s not just a trend in the U.S.—it’s global. That was exciting to me and I thought, Single people need a cookbook! Most cookbooks serve four or six or more, and I thought, We should have a cookbook that is more representative of what it’s like to cook for yourself.

Many people say that cooking for yourself is too much work—with all the pots, pans, cleanup, etc. What’s your response to that?

I don’t think everyone should be cooking all the time. That’s why restaurants exist. But if you have the energy, it’s a nice treat. I see it as a meditative act; it’s also very practical. It makes me a little sad when people say ‘It’s just me. Why should I do it?’ I think we all deserve nice experiences.

If you’re not used to cooking for yourself, or at all, what’s the best way to start?

Start simple. Don’t dive into Beef Bourguignon. In my book, there is a recipe for a Curried Tomato Omelet and a salad, which is a perfectly fine, breakfast, lunch or dinner. In any cookbook, you can peruse the list of ingredients. If there are under ten ingredients, chances are it’s probably going to be a pretty simple recipe. It doesn’t have to be a major masterpiece. It can be avocado on toast or grilled sardines. If you have good food, you can make something really simple and delicious without much effort.

When you made that chicken soup for yourself in Paris, you were really taking care of yourself. Is that part of what you like about cooking alone?

Yes. I’m very slow in the kitchen. I take my time and that can be very enjoyable. I like the process of, on the one hand, being present while I’m preparing a meal but also working through some thought or problem. Also, I like knowing what I’m putting in my food. That’s the big difference between cooking for yourself and going to a restaurant. I love going to restaurants, but you will never necessarily know what’s in your food. The way I feel after eating out at restaurants several days a week is different from when I cook for myself several times a week.

There are times when I have cheered myself up over a meal. I have a recipe in the book for a Mood-Boosting Rib Eye, which I made for myself on a Valentine’s Day. I have been single and coupled on Valentine’s Days, and I usually don’t care about it, but about four years ago, for whatever reason, I was really bummed that I was single. So I went out of my way to make a really luxurious meal for myself. I was living on the Upper West Side [of Manhattan] and went to Fleisher’s in Brooklyn and got a luscious rib eye and they told me how to cook it. Then I went to Little Italy and got an awesome bottle of Italian wine. I felt like I had attained a certain level of bliss by the time I finished the meal—it was so good. And I was really able to laugh about my feeling down because I was single.

What’s the difference between cooking for yourself and cooking for others?

When you cook for yourself, there’s no pressure. If you make a total mess of things, no one has to know. There’s also no compromise. If the person you’re dating or everyone in your family is gluten-free and you’re not, you can go to town on the pasta.

It’s also great practice for cooking for others. Because I cook for myself on a regular basis, I’m not nervous to cook for other people. When you know what you’re doing and have a few of recipes that you’re good at, you can then give them to others.

Like someone you’re dating?

It’s a very nice thing to do with a date or romantic interest. I remember reading a column about the 36 questions to fall in love, and I thought, People just need to have more in-depth conversations or be in places where it’s possible to make more of a connection. In general, cooking a meal for or with someone is a very intimate experience. I think it can be a really good way to get to know someone, and it’s a generous act to offer a home-cooked meal. And it’s really fun!

Cooking Solo is available at major booksellers. You can also visit Klancy on Tumbler, Twitter or Instagram.

Sara Eckel is a personal coach and the author of It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single. You can get a free bonus chapter of her book at saraeckel.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. Ask her any questions here.

This post originally appeared on eHarmony.com.

 

 

 

 

 

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‘All The Single Ladies’: Happy Women Don’t Settle

During Rebecca Traister’s many single years, she was often irritated when the men she dated disrupted her routine. She didn’t like it when they urged her to leave work earlier than she wanted, or when their presence in her apartment obstructed her weekly cleaning ritual. She was impatient with men who called too frequently, or who wouldn’t try the bars and restaurants she liked.

“I got used to doing things my way. I liked doing things my way. These men just mucked it all up. I knew how I sounded, even in my own head: picky, petty, and narcissistic. I worried about the monster of self-interest that I had become,” writes Traister, in her terrific new book All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation.

One evening, Traister was engaged in some fairly classic intransigent singleton behavior—waiting for her takeout order at a restaurant bar—when she met the man she would later marry. Soon Traister didn’t care one bit about her cleaning routine.

In this kind of single-to-married story, the narrative usually goes something like this: “I used to be a selfish jerk; then I grew up and learned to love.”

But that’s not how Traister sees her situation—or the situation of the record number of American women who are spending a substantial portion, and sometimes all, of their adulthood on their own.

Traister’s personal story is a very small part of  All The Single Ladies. Using historical research and original reporting, Traister chronicles the rise of single women in America and shows how they’re transforming our society for the better. She also offers an incisive analysis of the many cultural forces that have repeatedly shamed single women for acting like … people.

The self-help industry, for example, has a long history of informing single women that their outsized sense of entitlement prevents them from forming romantic partnerships. Two recent iterations of this message came from authors Lori Gottlieb, whose book Marry Him! urges women to get over themselves and settle for a good-enough guy, and Tracy McMillan, whose book Why You’re Not Married Yet is divided into chapters that include “You’re Shallow,” “You’re Selfish” and “You’re a Bitch.”

“McMillan and Gottlieb’s logic was pernicious,” writes Traister, “absorbing some of the appealing building blocks of independent female adult life—commitment to careers, to friends, to health, pets, homes, and individual desires—and recasting them as itty-bitty personal concerns magnified to silly proportions by cartoonishly drawn examples of feminine self-absorption.”

By contrast, Traister argues that when women invest in themselves and pursue their interests and desires, they build solid foundations for lives with or without partners. They’re also doing something historically unprecedented.

“When people call single women selfish for the act of tending to themselves, it’s important to remember that the very acknowledgement that women have selves that exist independently of others, and especially independent of husbands and children, is revolutionary,” writes Traister.

Taking care of yourself can mean many different things: Staying in front of the computer until midnight because you’re so absorbed in your work, stopping everything for your daily 5 pm yoga class, flying across the country for a friend’s birthday party, or spending an entire Sunday afternoon flopped on the couch with a library book.

But however it looks, when a woman’s life is rich, meaningful and—yes—pleasurable it raises the bar for her romantic partnerships. Why resign yourself to the dull pain of a mediocre relationship when you’re doing just fine on your own?

When Traister was pushing men away for what seemed like trivial reasons, she was sometimes disheartened that she couldn’t resign herself to a lukewarm relationship. Now she sees that what then looked like stubbornness and immaturity was actually good sense.

“The only action I took in my life that had a direct impact on meeting the man I wound up marrying was that I didn’t marry anyone before him,” she writes. “… I didn’t pursue people I wasn’t crazy about because I was busy doing other things that I enjoyed more than being with men I wasn’t crazy about. That abstention meant that, when a good relationship with someone I was crazy about became a possibility, I was free to pursue it. I wound up happily married because I lived in an era in which I could be happily single.”

The point is not to create a happy, independent life so you can have a higher-quality relationship; it’s to have a happy, independent life. And to recognize that, contrary to what women have been told for ages, the two things are not at odds.

Sara Eckel is a personal coach and the author of It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single. You can get a free bonus chapter of her book at saraeckel.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. Ask her a question here.

This post originally appeared on eHarmony.com.

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Why Singles Get Such Bad Advice

Dear Sara: I am 37 years old, and I am single. I have had two long relationships but have been single for a while now. Sometimes I feel great about my life, and sometimes I feel very depressed about being single. Sometimes people are really supportive toward me, and sometimes they are not.

I discovered that my strength is that I go on dating sites, follow dating coaching, and go to networking events, etc. But I find it difficult to allow feelings of sadness to just be instead of doing things all the time to desperately change my single status. I realized that, underneath all this, I feel that I am not good enough the way I am. One date mentioned that I was too sweet. Another guy gave me the feeling that I was not rich or trendy enough. I had the feeling that in order to make us fit together I had to change the interior of my apartment into a more modern style and come across as somebody who loves to socialize a lot just as he does.

I’m learning to be vulnerable and share my feelings. I tried to open up to a married friend of mine by saying that I’ve just had enough of dating for now and shared how I felt. She only asked how many men I have contacted on dating sites. She gave me the feeling that I was not working hard enough to change my single status. Two other married friends gave me the feeling that I should work harder to find someone; otherwise we won’t have enough things in common to keep the friendship working.

One of the other reasons I am working so hard to find a husband is because I would still like to have children. If my biological clock was not the issue I would feel more at ease about being single. It is painful to see much younger friends of mine being married for more than five years already. Some of them are pregnant with their third child already. It hurts a lot. As if I am being stabbed in my heart. It feels as if it is not fair. – E

Dear E: You’re right. It’s not fair. But people don’t like admitting this—especially those who have exactly what you want, a spouse and children.

I’ll get to them in a second. But first, these guys: Too sweet? Not trendy enough? This kind of feedback says a lot more about them than you. The only thing it reveals about you is that you’re a nice person who isn’t overly concerned with superficial things like home furnishings. Would you even want to change this about yourself?

Okay, your friends. People in couples tell their unhappily single friends to “work harder” for nice reasons and for not-so-nice reasons.

The nicest reason is that they love you and want you to be happy. They can’t stand seeing their sweet, thoughtful, non-materialistic friend feeling lonely and anxious. They want to help, but since they can’t help, they offer advice. Telling you to try harder feels optimistic because they’re essentially saying you’re in control.

On the other hand, the people who said you need to find a partner or else the friendship “won’t work” have a different agenda: their own comfort.

Life is unfair—we are told this as children. But in my experience, people currently sitting on the sunnier side of this equation want to believe that their happy circumstances are a result only of their hard work and fine character. Those are important, of course, but when it comes to romantic love chance plays a big part, too. For your friends to grant that you’re simply unlucky, they also have to face the idea that their more pleasant situation might also be a result of chance, rather than character. Telling you to “get back out there” is a lot easier.

Whatever their motives, your friends are ignoring your actual experience—you are working very, very hard. So I don’t have any advice on how to find your person, but I do have some thoughts on how to manage this emotional terrain in the meantime.

First, if your friends are unable to hear you on this topic, I’d suggest you stop discussing it with them. You don’t need their uninformed opinions in your head—you need to access your own wisdom.

The best way I know to do this is to allow yourself to feel that sadness without judgment. This does not negate doing the work of dating—the “getting out there” blah, blah, blah. In fact, I think it makes it easier. Allowing yourself to have those uncomfortable feelings is a good way to practice self-acceptance—to develop it, like a muscle.

Feeling sad is not an indication of a character flaw—it’s an indication that you’re a human being. I have found that learning to accept my darker emotions—to say, “I feel sad right now. That’s okay, everyone feels sad sometimes” makes them a lot easier to handle. When you learn to relax into your uncomfortable emotions, you develop both self-acceptance and bravery. This can give you a kind of confidence that isn’t contingent upon external circumstances.

Obviously, this kind of transformation doesn’t happen overnight, but if this interests you, there are many wonderful resources that can help get you started. Let me know how it goes.

Yours,

Sara

Sara Eckel is a personal coach and the author of It’s Not You: 27 (Wrong) Reasons You’re Single. You can get a free bonus chapter of her book at saraeckel.com. You can also find her on Twitter and Facebook. Ask her a question here.

This post originally appeared on eHarmony.com.

The post Why Singles Get Such Bad Advice appeared first on Sara Eckel.

Podcasts and other things

I’ve had the opportunity to have a lot of fun conversations on podcasts and other outlets. Here they are:

I had a blast talking to Jacqueline Raposo and Ben Rosenblatt on Love Bites Radio:

It’s Not You! You’re Single in Your Thirties? Enjoy It!

It was also great to talk to Janelle and Rob Alex on the Mission: Authors Talk About It podcast:

27 Reasons You’re Single

And while I didn’t always agree with WABC’s Errol Gluck, I really enjoyed talking to him:

http://glucksolutions.podomatic.com/entry/2016-01-15T09_56_03-08_00 …

On the non-audio side, M.M. Finck at Women Writers, Women’s Books asks me some really interesting questions. Here’s our Q&A.

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