Science has spoken: Being single can be just as fulfilling as being in a relationship. (Because duh.)

I don’t have a problem with being single—I have a problem with everyone else’s problem with it. For as long as I can remember, I’ve never been much for relationships. The few times I’ve attempted to go down that road always ended in a five-car pileup of alcohol and self-loathing. And not because the relationships ended, but because I kept trying to commit to something that’s not in my nature.

That’s not to say I won’t end up in a relationship eventually, but it’ll be because I sincerely want to, not because the couples in my life are uncomfortable with my perpetual singledom. Luckily, a recent study revealed what we single ladies have known all along: Being single can be just as satisfying as being in a relationship, but it depends on your attitude toward relationships.

The study, called “Happily Single: The Link Between Relationship Status and Well-Being Depends on Avoidance and Approach Social Goals,” was conducted by researchers at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. They surveyed 4,000 adults twice, one year apart—and since one-fifth of participants were single at the time of both surveys, researchers were able to get a better glimpse into what being single really feels like.

They wanted to find out how people’s temperaments impact their relationship goals, and found that people who tend to avoid conflict and drama in relationships reported that being single was just as satisfying as being coupled up. On the flipside, people who weren’t bothered by the hormonal rollercoaster relationships can turn into were less happy when they were single. Because avoiding drama isn’t a top priority for them, they’re able to focus on what makes a relationship great.

As for why some people find avoiding relationship stressors more important than others, that’s beyond the scope of this particular study. For me personally, I find the drama distracting, exhausting, and a total waste of time. I attribute these feelings to the fact that I’m naturally a reclusive loner who’s never prioritized the whole human interaction thing, and I also have severe commitment issues due to trapping myself in some pretty undesirable situations in the past.

But I only ended up trapped because I wasn’t trusting my instincts: I was letting other people plant seeds of doubt about who I am and how my life should be. Now, those people can suck it. This study (finally!) proves that there’s no one-size-fits-all way to live your life, and you can’t let other people dictate the terms, no matter how well-intentioned they are. Whether they realize it or not, they’re meddling in your life to make themselves feel better, not you.

You know what you want and need better than anybody—and if that’s being single, own it and enjoy the (millions of) perks while your friends walk around in their proverbial shackles. (Enter evil laugh here.)

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The post What Being Single and Happy Says About You (Besides You’re Awesome) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Signs you might be taking the whole single life thing a little too far.

The single life is awesome—the freedom, the endless amounts of “me time,” the fact that wearing pants is no longer mandatory—but there comes a time in every single woman’s life where she starts picking up “single woman” habits. You know the ones I’m talking about. And while they may be convenient and life-affirming in the short-term, in the long-term they may become red flags for potential boyfriends.

Is your particular brand of single life making you lose touch with the outside world (and personal hygiene)? Here are 43 subtle signs you may be enjoying the single life a little too much:

1. Every day is granny panty day.
2. You could start your own blog about TV dinners.
3. Your friends don’t bother offering you a plus one anymore because whatever.
4. Your favorite day of the year is February 15th, a.k.a. chocolate clearance day.
5. Your mom wants to set you up on a blind date.
6. Netflix knows you better than your friends.
7. You flinch at the first sign of human contact.
8. You have an entire page of dating apps on your phone.
9. You order dinners for two as a way to save money.
10. Your ex has had about seven girlfriends since you dated.
11. Your fridge is your BFF.
12. You’re thinking about staging Instagram photos so your fam doesn’t get worried.
13. You’re immune to the sympathetic head tilts you receive after a(nother) date gone wrong.
14. You can’t stand the thought of sharing your bed.
15. Your idea of fine dining is picking up takeout on the way home.
16. You’ve named your vibrator so that when you say you have a date with Mark tonight, technically you’re not lying.
17. The last time you shaved was for a date… with your gyno.
18. The cute bank teller smiled at you and you giggled about it for the rest of the day.
19. The only action between your sheets are food stains.
20. You can’t remember the last time you’ve had sex with someone more than once.
21. You’re allergic to PDA.
22. The only man who sends you a card on Valentine’s Day is your dad.
23. There’s no statute of limitations for how long you’ll talk about your cat.
24. Your mom constantly forwards you recipes for one.
25. Your friends are starting to wonder if you’re a lesbian.
26. Your call history includes your parents and your favorite pizza place. Oh, and a wrong number.
27. The love you have for your pillow can never be fulfilled by a human.
28. You’re starting to think that guy with the Chinese symbol tattoo and dark nail polish who asked you out isn’t “that” bad.
29. You’ve swiped so many times on Tinder you now have carpal tunnel.
30. The only love triangle you’re involved in is between you and your fave pairs of sweatpants.
31. Your Google search history includes “freezing eggs.”
32. To everyone else, it’s a rom-com. To you, it’s a horror movie.
33. It’s been so long since you’ve had sex you’ll probably have to take a class.
34. You share your bed with an iPad.
35. Every sponsored ad you see involves “young hot singles”.
36. Flirting has become an ancient pastime. Like gladiators.
37. You send yourself flowers.
38. Your friends think about their boyfriends as much as you think about cookies.
39. Your vagina probably has cobwebs in it.
40. Speaking of which, it’s like a jungle down there.
41. You can’t remember the last time you ate at a table.
42. The last time you went out on a date ICQ was a thing.
43. Even your cat has a boyfriend.

How about you? Do you think the single life has a shelf life?

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Single life image via Shutterstock

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Because some of the best movies to watch are even better when you’re flying solo.

While one of the main perks of being a twosome is snuggling up and watching a movie together (or ignoring the movie entirely for a makeout sesh), there are some movies you can’t fully appreciate unless you’re single—either because it’s one of those movies your bf would mock endlessly (so not cool), or because you’d much rather be single than drown in the messy-ass relationships depicted onscreen.

Here are 8 of the best movies to watch when you’re living the single life:

1. “Kill Bill”

The “Kill Bill” movies are by far the best movies to watch when you’re single—especially if your last relationship was the shits. As you’ll learn from these amazingly bloody flicks, it could’ve been worse. Like, way worse.

2. “Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion”

If you’re newly single and down in the dumps about it, there’s nobody better to teach you how kick-ass singledom can be than Romy and Michele. (Just don’t pretend you invented Post-Its. It never works.)

3. “Frances Ha”

This movie is a rare find: It’s about a young woman who’s trying to find a sense of identity in the big city that doesn’t revolve around her meeting a hot guy and falling in love—proving you don’t need a man to be happy, but you do need more popcorn.

4. “Sleeping With the Enemy”

One of my biggest fears is ending up with a guy who works a side job… as a serial killer. (This could stem from my mom being a “Dateline” fanatic, but whatev.) The husband in this movie is basically every woman’s worst nightmare.

5. “Waiting to Exhale”

This is also one of the best movies to watch with your besties (because girl power). Four BFFs bond over their shitty love lives and how hard it is to find a good man. The story’s an important reminder that women need to stand together, and stop acting like dudes are the ultimate accessory. That slot can also be filled by a Gucci bag, with no heartache required.

6. “Fatal Attraction”

I really don’t need to explain this one, do I? But in case I do: Being single means never becoming the wife who’s attacked by the psycho mistress. Watching this movie makes my ovaries shrivel up into little raisins.

7. “Blue Valentine”

If you hate being single and are starting to write Facebook statuses about it, nothing will change your mind faster than watching this movie. In fact, watching Cindy and Dean’s dysfunctional relationship crumble will make you so grateful you’re solo, your friends might start putting “Sister Mary” before your name.

8. “Titanic”

If you’re single, you won’t have to worry about pesky things like who gets the door in the event of a disaster. You know, no biggie.

What do you think are the best movies to watch when you’re single?

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Woman eating popcorn image via Shutterstock

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The curious case of being single and awesome.

Relationships are great, don’t get me wrong—the loving, the bonding, the sexing—but there are so many amazing perks that come with being single too. So many, in fact, it’s difficult to ignore the awesomeness of flying solo:

1. You can get your flirt on guilt-free.

2. The entire bed. All to yourself.

3. You don’t have to waste time on his douchey friends.

4. You also don’t have to do the whole insta-BFF thing which his douchey friends’ douchey girlfriends.

5. You can skip shaving for months and nobody will ever know.

6. Your at-home rituals can be as gross and unattractive as you want.

7. You’re not financially tied to someone.

8. Vibrators don’t expect you to return the favor.

9. When you clean your place, it actually stays that way.

10. There’s no such thing as a predictable night out.

11. Sleep. As in, you actually get some.

12. You can be as bloaty and miserable on your period as you want without having to consider someone else’s feelings (or libido).

13. The recommendations on your Netflix queue are actually for you.

14. Closet space.

15. You don’t have to deal with someone else’s family when you can barely deal with your own.

16. Your future relationships will be that much better because you’re taking the time to deal with your shit.

17. You can order the exact pizza toppings you want.

18. You don’t have to compete with an Xbox for attention.

19. You can take as long as you want to get ready without someone getting all judgey.

20. You don’t have to find a place for his scary garage sale chair or gaudy football paraphernalia.

21. You can work late/accept anonymous invites without having to check with anyone first.

22. You can make mistakes without anyone holding them against you.

23. Freedooom!

What do you love most about being single?

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Top Image: Single woman photo via Shutterstock / GIFs: Giphy

The post 23 Legit Reasons Why Being Single Is the Best appeared first on EcoSalon.

Don’t stay for the wrong reasons.

Sometimes, relationships are like ugly old sweaters: they’re not flattering, they don’t make you feel good, and they’re actually kind of scratchy, now that you think about it. But they’re so familiar, you just can’t bear to get rid of them. Consider giving yourself room for something better – or just have fun being single for a while. Here are signs it may be time to part with the familiar.

You barely spend any time together.

It’s no surprise that, with both partners often working full-time jobs, modern couples may spend less time together than ever. Some couples juggle a lot of responsibilities and strain to see each other on a regular basis – that’s fairly normal. However, a big red flag should pop up when you find that you just aren’t mustering the effort to make it work. If you’d rather stay home and watch movies alone than go out on a romantic date or even just a casual get-together with your boyfriend or girlfriend, something is not right.

Your partner makes you feel bad about yourself.

You should never find yourself believing that you’re not good enough due to your partner’s words or actions. Even if it’s said in a joking way, a jibe about your looks, your job, your intelligence or any matter that relates to self-esteem can really hurt. Don’t just sit back and take it when the “jokes” keep adding up, or your partner doesn’t even bother to cloak his or her constant criticism. There’s a difference between constructive feedback or advice and comments that are meant to tear you down.

You can’t stop fighting.

He doesn’t help out around the house. You nitpick the way he drives. He ate the last cookie that your mom made for you. You made a funny face that could be interpreted as eye rolling. The sky is blue. If you find yourself getting into arguments over nothing and everything, there’s trouble brewing. Constant fighting is a sign of high tension, and while stress can certainly be a big factor in this, there are often underlying relationship issues causing your conflicts. When you can’t work them out – or simply don’t care to – say goodbye.

Your goals in life don’t mesh.

You’re on a quest for self-improvement, or at least a better life, and he’s content to sit in that armchair playing the latest XBox game until the end of his days. You’re growing as a human being, thinking about getting a better job or moving to a new place or having children, and she’s thinking about doing the same old thing she has done virtually every day for the past five years. Don’t sit around waiting for your partner to change. Unless you settle for less than what you truly want in your life, or your partner has some kind of epiphany, things aren’t looking good.

You try to justify repeated wrongs.

Making excuses for your partner’s ill deeds is not doing anyone any favors, least of all yourself. You tell yourself that he’s cold because of his relationship with his mother, that she doesn’t comfort you in your time of need because she’s distracted, that he cheated those three times because he was drunk and you were working late. If even after discussing these issues, they continue to recur, don’t keep justifying them; it just gives your partner permission to continue hurting you indefinitely.

You daydream about leaving.

You used to get lost in visions of cozy domestic life with your love, and now you’re longing to pack your bags and live like a bohemian artist in Paris. Everyone thinks about these things every now and then, but the danger comes when such thoughts become almost like an obsession. When you’re soothing yourself to bed at night with fantasies about starting fresh, you’re looking for a way out.

You’re staying out of self-sacrifice.

When it comes down to it, you realize that you’re no longer in love, but how can you leave? He just wouldn’t be able to get by without you. Maybe you’ve got children, and you worry about how the dissolution of your relationship will affect them. That’s totally understandable, but you’ve got to give yourself more value. Are you really helping your partner by staying with him or her at this point? Is your unhappiness affecting your kids anyway? Don’t waste what little time you have. Give yourself a chance at something real.

You keep secrets.

Once, there was nothing you kept from each other. You confessed all of your deepest secrets and told each other about virtually every aspect of your day, from the antics of an annoying co-worker to worries about your health. But now, things have changed. You conveniently forgot to mention that you’re back in touch with your college sweetheart, or that you’ve been putting money into a secret savings account that’s just for you. Being in a healthy relationship doesn’t have to mean giving over every little detail of yourself, but there definitely shouldn’t be any deception involved.

You’re not having sex.

Libidos change, and sometimes medical issues can cause serious shifts in sexual desire. If your sex life has gone off a cliff, eliminate any physical causes first. Then examine the state of your relationship. If either you or your partner just aren’t interested anymore, it may be a sign that your relationship changed from romantic to platonic when you weren’t looking. It’s not the end-all be-all issue for every relationship, but for most of us, sex is an integral part of a healthy union. When the spark fizzles out despite all efforts to revive it, you may be better off as friends.

The thrill is gone.

A big part of graduating to the real world of adult relationships is realizing that the early butterflies-in-your-stomach phase is supposed to blossom into something more stable and, perhaps, less exciting. Chances are, even if you’re with your “soul mate,” you don’t feel quite the same way about him as you did when you first met. But what if seeing your partner after an extended absence stirs no strong emotions whatsoever? Stop accepting mediocrity and meting it out in return. It’s time to move on.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

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Photo: illusive photography

The post 10 Signs It’s Time to Leave Your Relationship appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s not what you think.

Swinging singles? Just by its very sound it seems unsustainable, as if one person can have so much fun, an item should only have a single use or, god forbid, it might take more than one person to save the world. This week’s Friday Five focuses on the extraordinary number one, the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.

As a young woman you had sex just to tell the story. You traveled the world looking for romance finding it in the most unexpected places. Your life was full of it. Your cherished secrets nobody can (to this day) take away but one morning you woke up and realized it had gotten complicated – and maybe even a little crowded. Sex by Numbers columnist Abigail Wick discusses her new life as a single woman in 6 Months and Single: “My habitat is quiet, my heart is crystalline in its clarity, and my mind is no longer buzzing with white noise. It’s just me, my professional ambitions, my new friends, and an abiding sense of silence. ”

We believe there’s a special place in hell for single use kitchen products and thought a nice list with images to show you how dumb we’ve become as a society to want them was in order. Enter The Rachel Ray Garbage Bowl and Other Ridiculous Kitchen Products. If you have any of these things…we don’t want to know.

One of the hardest things you might be faced with as a woman is being single and people not thinking you’re doomed to spinsterhood, not to mention facing people who don’t understand you also don’t want children or the low sex drive that comes with long term marriage. In 9 Things You Don’t Need To Be Happy, writer Kim Derby celebrates celibacy and gives the middle finger to being forced to find a home for her eggs.

You have clothes with only a single use? That is so ’80s. Here in 2011 we like to maximize the use of our clothing to do double and triple duty and how lucky are we that more designers are jumping on the bandwagon to accommodate us. From the Video Vault: Convertible Clothing features designer Lara Miller whose Callie Cardigan made us freak out the first time we saw it in this video.

Critics warn that large-scale eco-communities aren’t all they’re hyped up to be. Shelter Editor, K. Emily Bond, writes that “despite all of your personal homesteading, composting, upcycling and permaculturing efforts, one-off sustainability is simply not enough to make a meaningful impact on the world. Rather, it takes a village to raise the world to a higher standard of living.” In Does it Take an Eco Village to Save the World?, we learn that plus one might just be one of the most empowering things we embrace.

The post The Friday 5: Swinging Singles Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnOur love and relationships columnist weighs in on winter, women, and welcoming the come-what-may.

In my late teens, I stumbled (clumsily, with the fevered passion of a young person just learning to sniff out the pheromones of the opposite sex) into a relationship with a dark-eyed boy who had the fullest lips and strongest biceps of anybody I’d ever seen. We empowered one another in our young, exploratory passions, and he left my body crawling with unabated animal urgency.

A few years down the road, came another man whose muscled legs and vast mental catalog of the world’s literary masters mesmerized me. There was overlap, the shameful but giddy awkwardness of an affair, and the new guy and I ran away with one another from Austin, Texas to San Francisco. A few more years down the road, came another one with a globe-trotting music career and emotional intelligence on par with some wizened, bearded ascetic. I was hooked and promptly moved into his apartment.

At some point, however, this lifetime of love was too much for me. I’d been lucky to have taken up with adoring and kind men. But a cloying sense of – I don’t know what – took root in me. After parting on compassionate, amicable terms with my latest long-time boyfriend, I packed a week’s worth of clothing in a small suitcase and bought a one-way ticket to Berlin.

Ten years after all this sometimes selfish, always delirious shacking up, I now come home at the end of the day to a child-sized single bed in a completely empty room occupied with nothing else but the contents of the aforementioned luggage. My habitat is quiet, my heart is crystalline in its clarity, and my mind is no longer buzzing with white noise. It’s just me, my professional ambitions, my new friends, and an abiding sense of silence.

In the past, I felt sorry for people who were single. They must be so lonely, I thought. I was, of course, wrong. What I have lately lost in constant companionship, I have gained in self-examination and access to something much bigger than my previous shelter of endless dyadic reflection. It took me months to start dating again, and I’m glad for the time I allowed myself to simply be. It’s astonishing to understand just how little I knew about men and women, love and dating.

Six months ago, when EcoSalon’s editor Sara Ost invited me to launch this weekly column, I had no idea what was in store for me as a woman, as a writer, and as a contributor to a cultural conversation about modern love. This gig was a serendipitous fluke, and in the intervening period in Europe I have found myself occupying what is, at least for me and in my own small way, a brave new world–next month, I have my final visa appointment to become a long-term resident of the E.U.

It’s something to grow up, have boys hurt your heart, and to wake up one morning with the discovery you’re really you. For the first time in my life, I’m just me, with no other identity markers than those of my own self-reliance and a completely new community of my own making. I’m grateful for my friends. I’m buoyed by my family. What’s more, I’m floored by all of you who have been generous enough to encourage – and challenge – me along the way.

Thank you for sending me letters, friending me on Facebook and, most importantly, opening up and sharing your experiences with me. The more people make contact with one another, the fewer strangers there are in the world. We can all be anchors for one another, and it’s a supreme honor and gift to share the love.

It’s nightfall here in Berlin, and already the weather is cold – with the beastly, Northernly winter already beginning to slink through the streets here. The forthcoming season will be endlessly dark, uniformly gray, and chill me in a way I’ve never known. I welcome it.

Sex By Numbers is an ongoing look into the emotional and sexual lives of the modern day woman. Follow Abigail Wick weekly here for insight and inspiration as she explores the “sex” of women and the terrain they must travel.

Image: le xav

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ColumnIs it possible to fall in love while still retaining your freedom?

This week I received a philosophically-compelling letter from a friend back in the States. This year, like me, she has elected to be single after a long term relationship and has been savoring the sweetness of her alone time. This isn’t to say that her experience has been a flipping frolic in the rhododendrons, but rather that she has been pleased to witness her own strength, gratified by her solitude, and keen on exploring her self-sovereignty.

She has indulged in a few one-night stands, finding fresh encounters with new men both purgative and healing, but she has recently found herself in the awkward position of falling in love when it’s the last thing she was looking for. The guy is a formidable mind, severely handsome and a leader in his community, and their intimacy is the product of respect and mutuality. My friend, who has for the past few months been so emboldened by her single status, is quite rightly freaking out. She is not interested in giving up a good thing like her freedom.

In her letter to me, she posed this question: Can a girl fall in love without losing her liberty? Well, damned if I know, but it sure as hell doesn’t hurt to examine the matter and try to figure it out. Here it goes: EcoSalon’s weekly Sex by Numbers, penned as an open letter to my dear friend and in truth, as much a letter to myself as it is to her:

You are privileged. For 99.9 percent of human history, women have rarely had the choice to be alone. Marriage and family were inflexible obligations beginning in one’s teenage years, and you are absolutely and utterly privileged to have space and self-determination to develop as a person in your own right. At the same time, there are scores of contemporary women who, unlike you, never made the decision to be single and who deeply yearn for companionship and relief from loneliness. You are so lucky to be at such a juncture, to have the power and privilege to chart a trajectory of your own choosing. Be flooded with gratitude for it.

You are whole. It is a many splendored thing to be a full and psychologically integrated creature with a sound mind, a convention-defying career of your own making, and an emotionally rich life teeming with people from around the world who love and adore you. You are the rare sort of woman who is unafraid to kneel down and kiss the ground in worship for life, despite all of its inanity and cruelty. You inspire others to be bigger than themselves and recognize their belonging to a sum far vaster than their own small experience. You are complete and ever becoming.

You are uncompromising. You have said it yourself, repeatedly, that it is in your best interest to stay single right now. I am reminding you of your own voice and convictions. It’s so nice to make love with a beautiful man and allow the neurochemical spell of sexuality to lull you into its sweet embrace. In fact, there’s nothing easier in the world than falling into a relationship. A partnership is nourishing, it offers the comfort of safety. It’s also the very thing that distances you from confronting you and from staring headlong at the bullshit and personal history from which it’s far more pleasant to run from than reckon. Don’t give up your reckoning. Don’t obfuscate the demons of your own heart with yet another boyfriend. Please wait, don’t bend, and choose the hard road. You know it will be worth it in the end.

You can have it all. I am by no means suggesting you abandon this very joyful and pleasurable development in your life, but simply encourage self-governance and vigilance. Yes! Revel in the effervescence and ecstasy. Give yourself over to love and longing. Be heedlessly sexual and luxuriate in all manner of life affirming things. At the same time, steel yourself. Guard that dark-black onyx stone in your heart of hearts. Don’t show it. It’s not for sharing. I don’t believe that openness and affection are incompatible with hardness. I believe that a woman is validly wild and free only when her emotions are kept in check and uncomplicated. Complication is the enemy of pleasure.

You can cultivate non-attachment. This isn’t hippie science, this is the modern woman’s way. Be in love, but be methodical. Don’t project a future onto him/it/you. Curry your freedom with the same measure of passion you do your orgasm. Being in relationship with a man doesn’t have to mean being in a relationship with him, dig?

You can have so much sex. Awesome! Keep it up. Sex by Numbers unequivocally endorses this. Do it with abandon and send me frequent (and immodest) updates.

Thank you for inspiring me to be a better person and, what’s more, thank you for being my friend.

With heaps of love and admiration,

Abigail xoxo

Sex By Numbers is an ongoing look into the emotional and sexual lives of the modern day woman. Follow Abigail Wick weekly here for insight and inspiration as she explores the “sex” of women and the terrain they must travel.

The post Sex by Numbers: Can I Stay Single but Commit to One Man? appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnSix reasons it’s hot to be single right now.

American women are marrying later in life than ever before – the Pew Research Center just released a report indicating the average marrying age is now 28. Coupling-up and exchanging wedding bands used to be considered the gateway into adulthood. Now, individuals trend toward greater concern for their own self-growth, postponing marriage until their personal lives are in order – college, career, world travel, financial security, emotional preparedness. The maturity and economic stability that come with age actually makes divorce less likely for those who wed in their late 20s or 30s. Delaying long-term partnership actually increases its chances for lifelong success.

It is a uniquely privileged point in human history to be without the imperative to trade nuptials and reproduce as soon as you leave home. Our culture of singledom is, in fact, an anthropological luxury. Then why is it that so many of my girlfriends – attractive, twenty and thirtysomething urbanites with rewarding jobs in creative fields – are so focused on circumventing their singleness and honing in on a man who’s the one? In my view, no pursuit could be more pointless. What other opportunity in all of your days will you have the choice to be alone? Maximize this chance while you can. Being single is a temporary state you should relish, rather than run away from. Now is the time to luxuriate in the pleasure of yourself unto yourself, with the how and why all laid out neatly in our weekly Sex by Numbers:

1. Unbearable Lightness of Being: Inevitably, most humans shack up and make babies; indeed, the bulk of women reading this article will spend the greater percentage of their existence in the role of mother and domestic partner. Probably you’ll cohabitate, maybe you’ll marry, and likely over the course of your lifetime you’ll end up doing this several times. The fact of the matter is that your lifespan provides precious few periods to be recklessly happy and accountable to no one but yourself. Women across time and culture could only fantasize about such unprecedented freedom and lightness of being.

2. No One Is Going to Save You: All the struggle, striving, and fretting to find a man is misdirected. This attitude can make you worrisome, stingy, single-minded, and unattractive. Your interior state, no matter how much a person seeks to hide it, manifests in your exterior – whether that be a complaining disposition, lines on your face that register self-pity, or an unhealthy body that reflects emotional and psychological imbalance. Try as one might, there is no masking disproportionate attention on meeting the man you think might save you from your single state. Hear this: If you’re really in need of saving, the only one who can accomplish this is you.

3. No Overeager Beavers: Don’t shy away from sharing affection and enjoying new experiences with men – just don’t peg hopes or expectations on him. It’s not fair to the guy and, even worse, leads to the aforementioned single-mindedness. He and you have only known one another a short while – whether that be a week or a year – and you have no obligations toward and no contract with one another. Be excited about novel experiences, fresh input, and animal attraction – but chill, girl. It’s much sexier to exercise remove than overeager projection of desire.

4. There’s Nobody Eating Finger Paint: You don’t have to clean up after your careless and untidy domestic partner, nor do you have to reason with your four-year-old daughter about the dangers of ingesting her finger paint. Right now, you have only to attend to your personal needs, and you should do so lavishly. Never again will you get to live for yourself, and only yourself. I’m not going to patronize you by enumerating the endless (and endlessly cool) healthy habits and hobbies you could be cultivating, but you’d better be damn sure to throw yourself headlong into the one shot you’ve got at kicking ass and taking names. (In my world, this might include learning how to pickle sweet summer vegetables, taking an Afro-Haitian dance class, learning conversational German, and downloading lots of Noam Chomsky podcasts to listen to on my morning walk to work.)

5. Be the Girl Who’s Game: There is no better opportunity to cultivate a circle of intimates than the present. The profound sense of connection borne of romantic relationship is infinitely rewarding, but so is being the life of the party and belonging to an ever-expanding network of friends. So long as another person is worth the time and energy, never turn down a social invitation: Who knows what meeting for tapas and sangria with a loose circle of acquaintances will lead to? Every cocktail party, every lunch date, and every let’s-go-jogging-together-at-the-park could very well result in unforeseen adventure.

6. Savor Selectivity: The city, and all the boys in it, are your playground – but don’t you remember that the best part of recess was choosing the swing-set over the see-saw? If this metaphor isn’t clear, let me spell it out: Sure, it’s fun to try out all of the implements and apparatuses on the playground, but it’s much more fun to avoid the the tennis courts if you don’t like balls flying at your face. Get it? If a guy asks you out, it’s okay to say No, thank you. The aforementioned be-game-for-anything doctrine doesn’t apply to meh men. It’s much more fun to stick with the hot shit rather than tolerate something mediocre just because you feel lonely. Go on a late-night bike ride, grab a drink with a colleague, or buck caution and stay out late dancing with friends. Whatever you do, don’t let him touch you unless you’re grooving him without equivocation. Being selective is sexy, but more so it spares you unnecessary emotional clutter. This summer, minimalism is tres chic.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

How to Deal With Being Lonely

23 Free and Fun Date Ideas

True Stories of Hooking Up

Sex By Numbers is an ongoing look into the emotional and sexual lives of the modern day woman. Follow Abigail Wick weekly here for insight and inspiration as she explores the “sex” of women and the terrain they must travel.

Image: Anthony Albright

The post Sex by Numbers: 6 Reasons to Love Being Single appeared first on EcoSalon.