“Why am I still single?” 6 reasons and what you can do about them.
Even though I work with married couples, relationships, and singles, one of the main questions I hear time and time again - probably THE main question - is ‘Why am I still single’?
It fluctuates from that, to the slight variation of, ‘Where is my person?’, to ‘When will I meet them?’ to ‘How is it possible that I am still single…?’.
In all the clients I’ve supported over the years I’ve noticed certain trends and themes which I’ll share with you below.
1. You’re not prioritising relationships.
Whilst it’s all very good and well to let go of the outcome and focus on other things in our lives like our work, family, hobbies, the reality is that if we want a partner we have to prioritse them. This means even before we have them, we have to leave some room for them in our lives. Some spaciousness. That might look like ensuring you don’t have a fully slammed diary with meeting after meeting occupying every waking hour, or filling your time up with casual flings. We can get energetic and ‘woo woo’ (as I like to call it) here, but the simple rational reality is that we get what we make time for. If you want a partner, you have to create time for them.
More tangibly, that might look like leaving a few evenings a week free for yourself to have room for dates with the right person. It might look like consciously choosing to wrap up work at a certain time so that you can leave space for connecting with others. It might look like slowing down and and having the same sort of lazy, luscious, relaxed energy that you have with a loved one on a Sunday morning but with yourself. It might also look like actually taking the time to make this part of your life a priority - so, finding the time to do the inner work, do the healing, and strategise.
2. You’re sending out the wrong message
When we want a long term partner (deep down in your heart of hearts), and you are out there dating around, being casual, maybe sleeping with people and not overthinking the whole dating process, the reality is you’re sending out the wrong message to yourself, to your subconscious mind, to your energy systems and to others. You might think that no one can pick up on it, and maybe they don’t, but the reality is your own energy and attitude towards dating will shift. You will naturally begin to alter your own internal scheme and filter so that you make choices that aren’t inherently in your best long term interest. You will also be tiring yourself out. There’s a cruel reality that when we aren’t being discerning about who we invest our time and energy into, we end up diluting our focus. This dilution becomes inherently tiring since we aren’t concentrating on what we really want. So if you want a long term partnership, it’s helpful to amp up your discernment and prioritise people that make the cut, as much as it is to protect your own energy from leaking out with others that aren’t really worth your long term time.
3. You’re still enmeshed with another person
So many single people are still stuck or connected to their ex, or a previous fling. Whilst it’s natural to hold on to the past, especially when we had a strong connection, it can be unhelpful in terms of letting us move forward. Energetically, you are focused on the past and your subconscious mind will stay in old patterns, behaviours, and ways of being. This isn’t helpful when you want to move forward. Pragmatically, it means you’re also distracting yourself with something that ultimately, is broken. A favourite saying of mine is that most times something that leads to a break up, does so because it is broken. To that end, there really is no value in staying in the past.
To get over this, you need to get radically honest with yourself and notice where you might be staying involved with an ex, and how this is impacting you. Be really, really honest.
Is this working for you? What needs to change? How might you free yourself from your past?
Healthy boundaries and some honest conversations with yourself (and perhaps them) will be helpful in setting you free to move forward with your life.
4. You’re addicted to being single
It’s true - there is such a thing. You might not think you’re being addicted to singledom, but unfortunately modern day consumerism and the cycle of distraction that we find ourselves in societally is actually breeding more single people. These days, it’s much, much, much easier (and tempting) to distract ourselves with a new hobby, holiday, social media scrolling, new toys, handbags, whatever it might be. Humans are pleasure seekers by nature, and we look for dopamine hits throughout our life. We can get these through relationships - through the intimacy, love, bonding - but relationships also come more slowly, take more time, and will have their own natural ups and downs. We can get dopamine faster through more commercial means. Buying things, watching Netflix, scrolling on apps, we get much faster quick wins.
The problem is, these are short term and highly fallible. They aren’t sustainable - at all.
So over time, we get stuck in a loop of numbing out (because that is what it is really) through short term addictive dopamine hits, and miss out on the slower burn, longer term dopamine that we get from fulfilling relationships. One comes with a series of other benefits (health, mental health, longevity and so on) and one keeps us stuck in consumerism. Which do you choose?
The way out of this is to recognise the difference and learn to wean yourself off the short term dopamine hits and look to the longer term benefits of healthier, sustainable inflows - like, relationships.
5. You’re limiting your options through endless limiting beliefs
We all have limiting beliefs. They’re inevitable and part of being human. We get these as children and adopt more as we grow older. I talk about these plenty in my online curriculum. The main point here is that we all have these beliefs that limit us, and ultimately limit our capacity to meet someone. Oftentimes in relationships, we have plenty.
“I’m unlovable”
“I’m too old to find love”
“I’m broken”
“I don’t know how to date”
“Dating is too hard”
And so on.
One of the beautiful things about the human brain is that it seeks congruence. It doesn’t like to be wrong - and so it works very, very hard to prove us to be right. This means whatever you believe, on an inner level, the brain is working hard to recreate on an outer level. Its schemas, filters, ways of making you show up will be dictated based on your inner world, and create your outer world. There’s a tonne of science out there on this, but for now, all you need to know is what you believe about yourself in relationships will come true. So, what do you believe?
You want to start changing these beliefs to becoming more positive. That can be tricky to do alone, since the brain wants congruence so badly, so coaching is a game-changer here.
6. You’re not clear on what you want and need
Oftentimes we think we know what we want in a partner but when we dig deeper into this, it isn’t actually what we want and need to be truly happy. It might be inherited ideas from our parents, family members, society, school, even our peer groups. For example, much of my life I imagined I needed a tall, Oxford PhD graduate man with a legal background and European heritage. Why? Because that’s what my parents had drummed into me from a young age. After going to Oxford myself, I felt convinced I needed a peer. The reality is, my husband isn’t any of these traits. What he does do though, is meet the deeper needs and wants of my heart - the deeper material beneath the proxy of status, education, and so on. Had I not done the inner work on what I need and want to be truly happy in my own growth and coaching, I absolutely would have passed him by. I’m so glad I did the inner work.
What standards are you seeking? What proxies do you have for what you think you want?
Do you know for sure that these are going to make you happy?
Start exploring your expectations and get curious about what lies beneath them. What do you really want and need?
