Should I choose to accept it... is to reconcile myself to spinsterhood, to being the Spinsterella of this ball that is life.
Dan Savage, a married advice columnist, may in fact have the BEST advice for reconciling oneself to Spinsterhood. I am happy that someone in this world is keeping it real (sans Chappelle level consequences....):
Savage Love 12/24/98
It's possible to be happy and single, but you'll have to disabuse yourself of a couple of myths in order to do so. These myths? "There's someone out there for everyone." "If you keep looking, someday you'll find him/her." How many people have to die alone and miserable before we stop jamming that someone-for-everyone crap down people's throats? The cold hard fact is that there isn't someone for everyone. Endlessly repeating that there is causes people for whom there isn't to waste their whole lives looking for someone who isn't out there.
To my mind, the stock advice given in response to questions like yours--keep looking, don't give up, she's out there somewhere--is far crueler than anything I'm telling you. False hopes dashed again and again can drive a person mad; cold hard facts, accepted and adjusted to, can relieve a person of much misery...
Now here's the usual line of Pollyanna crap that we advice professionals are supposed to squart out for people like you: There's someone out there for everyone, kiddo, hang in there! But that's a lie, ALONE, and you know it and I know it and everyone who's ever said that knows it. If it were true, then... no one would be alone all their life. Unfortunately, I can't just tell you to accept that you're going to be alone all your life because we can't know for sure that you were one of those people—one of those people destined to be alone all his life—until your life ends. So here's what you need to do between now and death: Keep a roof over your head, put food on your table, get some help with your emotional problems, and take your pleasures where you can. Do things you enjoy—alone, if you must—and you might meet someone along the way. Or not.
You may very well be alone for the rest of your life, LASS, but you're already doing everything I urge lonely people to do: You're getting out there and living your life, you're being yourself, you're doing shit, you're going places. Happy, active, and self-actualized people are more attractive and likelier to attract mates—so put up a few personal ads and see if there's anyone in your area who wants to join you for dinner, snowboarding, horseback riding, whatever. But more importantly, LASS, always remember this: It's better to be a happy, active, and self-actualized single person than a miserable, sedentary, and the-opposite-of-self-actualized-whatever-that-is partnered person.
There isn't someone for everyone—I've been saying that for years (much to the consternation of some readers (mostly partnered ones (it's always the partnered who seem most invested in seeing others live in false hope)))—so single people are well advised to build lives for themselves that are rich and rewarding (meaningful work, good friends, hobbies) whether or not they expect to remain single all their lives.
