You’re smiling real big in your first job after getting your graduate degree in a boutique VC start-up in Manhattan… or serving drinks at a real Cowboy Bar making killer tips and saving for 2 more years of school for that first BA or BS degree. Maybe you are an artist or coder living in a modest apartment waiting to unleash your amazing talent on the world. Whatever you are doing and doing as a single person makes you unique, and uniquely qualified to be a part of the brand new kick ass global community known as “ProudlySingle”.
I offer you a hearty and warm Welcome. You know, other than sleeping and working very little (meaning a 40 hour job) the average person has about 72 hours a week doing what they love, alone and with friends and sometimes a lover or more casual acquaintance. If you’re like me, a good part of that time is solemnly given to yourself in a selfish scheme to pamper or indulge whatever it may be long hot baths, decompressing at a museum or eating french fries at a diner you do NOT want anyone around since it really is for you and you alone. You do this twice a week for 2 hours. (just saying)
How did I come up with 72 hours…. read on.
How much time does that give us for the 1 friend we do schedule things with at least once a week to do an outing or meditate or punch each other out… what ever it is it’s together. Probably 5 hours, maybe a few more if you hangout a bit. Lets say you go out one more time per week in a different setting with maybe more people around, drinks after work or visiting a studio to see about how you and your team is going to get this one done.
Then it’s requisite things. Now not everyone has these but for the most part if you have family, a dorky little brother you have to see once a week or dinner with the family or a great aunt visiting you can write off at least 6 hours and write off another 4 just because you are not going to do anything else much on that day except hopefully squeak in that sauna to rid yourself of the grime.
That’s 19 of a precious 72 hours blown and you haven’t even had sex yet. If you’re like me I already work 60 hours a week and taking another 20 out (because it’s our future) we have a meager 30 hours left to be single and looking or single and not looking but maybe a smidge of intimacy may grace our path.
Since you’re so bloody young you have set aside 15 years to get to that place (even though you are moving at the speed of light already) where it matters little that you had a partner along for the ride because in actuality the partner may be the destination rather than the trip. Some people 25 years later that did have the partner all along find themselves in the awkward position of being “ProudlySingle” a little later that they should have. This all means, by all means find yourself now and spread your joy among many rather than just one. The remaining 30 precious hours left in your week is not to go out and be a slut but to engage in meaningful contact with a like (or more than one) minded person that is on the same amazing self aggrandizing journey and wanting to share their victories and accomplishments with a great and possibly intimate friend.
This is not to say a year goes by, you trash the 15 year plan and move in with the person perceived, that dreamboat guy or gal. Go for it, but if it doesn’t go that way and you do really want everything for yourself until that daym plan to accumulate wealth and experience more so on your own than on the back of a diminished focus.
Now this is not a laser focus, but as a person that got professional Phd psychoanalyst counseling by an Imago certified Therapist (trained by Harville Hendrix) you have to get a hold of the book “Keeping the Love you Find”. Without the therapy itself, or the workbooks & workshops it’s an amazing journey to help figure out the why’s, ins and outs of a good relationship worth keeping.
Update June 2017: Lot of traction here from social networks focusing on dating in Toronto. Didn’t mention I spent my youth before 12 years old in Montreal, but moved to Oakville and then to Cobourg so Toronto being smack in the middle I can say I grew up in Toronto in those very impressionable years of adolescence 13-19