Women who are single, how do you deal with everyone around you being coupled-up and/or engaged? Does the pressure get to you?

18 comments

1. I don’t know if it’s pressure or my biological clock but yeah, I guess it does. A lot of my friends got engaged this year and it made me realize that I just really want to find “my person” already. Hopefully that’s possible.

2. I don’t really feel any pressure because of that. I’m pretty happy being single. If I found the love of my life tomorrow I’d be happy about that too, but I’m not really actively looking right now.

3. I plan on eating an entire cake daily.

4. I sit and cry 😭 while asking why

5. I personally realized I’m not ready for a relationship and don’t really want one. Being in a relationship is way more pressure. I’ve never been able to just be myself in one, and I’m focusing on myself and feeling far better than I ever did while dating someone. I’ve also had really bad experiences with the men I’ve dated, so it just doesn’t appeal to me at all. I also don’t want children so that helps. The amount of messy divorces around me too definitely puts me off.

   I just don’t see the benefit of a partner – it’s always benefited him, but not me.

6. It’s hard sometimes. I get lonely with my cat I won’t lie.

   I feel pressured from family sometimes, but not enough to rush into a relationship just to please others. I’m happy to wait for someone compatible with me.

7. I’m pretty content with being alone, dating sucks (hookup culture i despise, people hung up on other people, dating several people at the same time, emotionally unavailable and toxic) and i have other priorities but sometimes my family pressures me a bit, i’ll make a joke i’ll only marry a woman and my mom drops the conversation 🙂

8. [removed]

9. I try to tell myself that the reason I’m single is because I have chosen to put myself first and that I refuse to settle. I’m becoming the best version of me for myself and my future person, who is probably out there doing something incredible right now that I will hear all about in a few years time.

   Then I get sad and eat lots of ice cream.

10. I feel the pressure when I visit family members after a long time traveling for work, and on my birthday. Sometimes maternal instincts kick in on their own and I feel so heartbroken that I’m not holding my non-existing child in my arms yet. It’s a strange feeling, like there is a hole in my heart.

    But this pressure comes in waves, and most of the time it’s not there at all and I can just **be**. It’s just those certain rough moments that can make me wanna curl up in bed for a week and sleep my troubles away.

11. What pressure? I don’t feel any pressure.

12. Nope. The pressure of begging for consistency and someone to treat me right gives me pressure. Right now I’m very much content in a bubble and MY STANDARDS WILL NOT BE DROPPED FOR ANYONE

13. I’ve been single for nearly a decade. When I was around couples constantly, I did feel pressured to find a partner.

    Not because I needed one or even was in a place to have a partner, but because it’s so hard to come second all the time. Your friends, who you’ve known for many years, enter into these relationships and suddenly you’re an after thought. You’re not as important as the person they’re dating

    So yes I did feel pressured to find my person because I wanted very badly to come first to someone. Could I have found this with a friend? Yes, but I haven’t. Romantic relationships are valued so much more than platonic ones. It’s very lonely to realize that

14. It doesn’t bother me/make me feel pressured that most people around me are married/engaged/dating. I’m personally content with being single! What gets hard to deal with is when people actively actively pressure me to start dating. Friends, family, people I’ve just met… eventually they will always start having “the talk” with me. It ranges from “I’m just worried about you, I don’t want you to be alone” to “you need to stop being so picky” to “you’re going to end up a lonely middle aged weirdo at this rate” (thanks Mom lol). It was easier to deal with and deflect when I was in my 20’s, but now that I’m entering my 30’s….it’s becoming more difficult.

15. I have a roster of men I’m dating, so other people’s lives don’t tend to phase me much.

16. It’s not so much pressure as crippling loneliness. The big one is holidays, I’ve pretty much accepted if I want to go anywhere, I have to go alone. I’ve floated the idea of girls weekends or even very small mini-breaks more times than I care to remember and it never goes anywhere.

17. I don’t feel pressured. I find it annoying that you can be accomplished and yet other women aren’t happy for your academic or career success. They barely acknowledge it. The questions I get asked is, are you lonely, are you stuck. Without acknowledging how hard it is to find a good and compatible partner. Almost like people would like to see me miserable with someone than happy and alone.

    Do I wish that I have a loving partner whom I am also madly in love with? Absolutely. But I know how rare it is and will be patient and expect nothing.

18. When I stopped comparing myself to others I stopped feeling like I was behind, or unworthy/unlovable. It’s been a total game changer, and now I actively enjoy being the 3rd wheel 🤓