Amy Roullier is a British writer and author of Silent Reflections of a Fragile Heart. Through her blog, she challenges the negative stereotypes surrounding being single, while candidly sharing her experiences with mental health, personal losses, and the complex, often misunderstood realities of adulthood.
I’ve come to learn that being alone is powerfully compelling, once you’ve reframed alone time as not something that has happened to you, but as a time to make things happen for you. And there is an unexpected beauty in being alone, especially in public. I used to see alone time as an an involuntary circumstance forced upon me. A sign that I wasn’t wanted. Uncomfortable and lonely. That’s what …
I’ve spent so much time waiting on others, not signing up to experiences or exploring the world. Waiting on friends and family to have time, waiting on the next boyfriend to appear and be ready for an adventure or do a thing. It never occurred to me that I could, or in fact sometimes should, go for it anyway. As a single person in her thirties, I realised that if …
Do We Have a Responsibility to Worry About Someone Else’s Singleness? I think not, and here’s why. In my day-to-day job, I attend a lot of conferences. There’s networking, nice chit chats with work colleagues across the industry, and a lot of intro conversations. Which all go something like this: “Hi, What’s your name and where are you from?” Usually followed closely with: “Are you married. Dating? Oh, just Single …
Happiness Doesn’t Start with Someone Else—It Begins When You Truly Meet Yourself. Or does it? It’s certainly not the story I’ve been told. Meet someone, settle down, get married, have kids. Happiness and joy is found through others. When I reached my mid-thirties as a singleton, the pressure of these societal goals came to a head. How could I ever be happily single, when happiness is only truly possible when not? …
I wasn’t aware that I had such a deep rooted disagreeableness with being single until about four years ago. Aged thirty six, fresh out of yet another short lasting relationship and back into my seemingly inescapable interconnection with being single, the overwhelming disappointment of being single again hit me hard. Wasn’t I supposed to be with someone by now? Who’d have thought nearly six years after my divorce that I’d still …
No-one seemed to mind as much when I was single at sixteen, eighteen or twenty one. However, single at thirty five, something changes. Single stigma seems to heighten with age. Because there is something about being single, especially once you reach your thirties and beyond, that suggests that you are now actively going against the grain. You are also now still single. Rather than just simply, single. And you should …
All in all, it’s fair to say that society can be fixated on conventional accomplishments and mainstream milestones, ones often intertwined with some aspect of partnership. Milestones like weddings, moving in with a partner, getting engaged, starting a family or beginning a new relationship. Whilst all of this is lovely, it does mean that other accomplishments, ones achieved whilst single, ones no less deserving of some celebration, frequently fall under …
I’ve been in my fair share of situationships over the past seven years, because apparently they are on trend. Lucky me! And the most painful thing about those situationships, has been them waking up ready for a label, but not with me. Was I merely the warm up before the main event? The one who got them there, got them prepped for commitment, ready for something more but not the …
Why am I still single?’ I’ve lost count of the times I’ve asked myself this question. Often accompanied with the following, ‘Am I not a nice person, not deserving of love? Have I not endured and suffered enough frogs? Am I too bossy? Too confident? Should I be less opinionated? Is it the way I look? Where I live? Am I not pretty enough? Perhaps I should be more amenable? …
It wasn’t until I went single no mingle, that I realized how much dating had become an important part of my conversations with people. And by making who I was dating a highly discussed topic, I had inadvertently sent the message to myself that nothing else was more conversation worthy than this.
And if nothing else was as interesting, then nothing I had to say that wasn’t about when or who the next date was lined up with, mattered much.
