Do you need a partner?
When I ask, Google is more than happy to provide me with dozens of helpful articles and web pages informing me that au contraire, you do not need a partner. In fact, if some of these articles are to be believed, this whole relationship thing is nothing but BS that somehow got thrown out there into the ethos and won't die the f down.
Obviously, there are some that are more tempered that argue you're better off alone than in a toxic relationship (100% agreed). But that you're not better off single than in a relationship, period.
I think you need a partner. Even though it seems a faux-pas to say it or even think it. Perhaps it makes me a bad feminist. I don't honestly know. But it seems logical to me that the right partner can strengthen and vastly improve your life. And by "right" I don't mean the one or your soulmate or any other such notion. I mean someone who is close enough and compatible enough and with whom you agree to build something. Someone who can be reliable and keep their head and tether you when you're losing yours sounds a lot more romantic than the classic sweep-you-off-your-feet Romeo we're used to wanting.
I also think you need time alone. Lots of it. Especially when you're young or at intervals. I think you need time to discover who you are, what you're like, what you want and don't want. Or perhaps re-discover those things. I think the people who jump from one relationship to another are just as fucked as the people who shun them altogether.
Google tells me you can be perfectly happy on your own. No doubt. If you're unhappy on your own, I don't think securing a lover will make you happy (unless they're a really terrific lover, and even then temporarily). But I do think once you learn the ropes of being happy on your own, you could get happy-er by finding a healthy and safe partner. It's not a downgrade, but a step up towards a different kind of happiness.
I think our society and young generations in particular trip up on that. We somehow live in a time where being single (or coupled) has become a social identifier. Like it's part of who you are. You take pride in it. You're strong. You don't need a person.
Except you do. We all do. The vast majority of us, anyway. Someone to share life with. Someone who'll listen to the minutiae of our day or pay attention to the small, insignificant dramas of work or listen to and believe in all our silly dreams. Someone who'll let us be cranky or overzealous or moody or just too lazy to get out of bed. And still stick it out with us. Someone who'll get us.
'Cause otherwise, there's an emptiness. And when that happens, we try to fix it by putting it on our friends or our parents or our work to fill that empty. It's too much. Our friends, family and work can't bear the weight, nor are they meant to. Not to say a partner is supposed to be your sole provider of comfort, laughs, understanding or whatever else. I just think having one creates a better equilibrium in your life. I think we're missing out if we buy into the whole "you should be perfectly happy on your own" ideology. Because there is an unspoken "should" there and it is an ideology.
It's fine if you're single right now. I am. However, I don't identify as someone who is, nor do I make it a point of pride, which I think a lot of people today are doing.
I get it. We're coming from a society that told women (in particular) that they were incomplete without a man, and that was damaging. But now we've veered in the other direction. Family and monogamy are passe and we're supposed to celebrate all lifestyles. Except maybe not. Maybe saying "you need a partner" was helpful, in that it might push people to step back and think. Why am I having intimacy issues? Why am I terrified of commitment? What is it about living with a man that freaks me out? Saying everything is suddenly okay somehow negates the need for healthy change or the challenging of some harmful patterns and beliefs. So maybe we shouldn't.
I was actually asking Google for a friend. Having reached the conclusion that she needs a partner, I instantly felt guilty. We're not supposed to think like that or judge. Except, it's not me saying she needs a man because a woman can't have value otherwise, but because there's something that she is obviously needing and missing. A connection, the sort that is typically found in a romantic partner. It's a lack that is making me, as her friend, feel overburdened.
It's fine if you want to be single. It's fine to use your single time to develop interests and hobbies and a life worth living. It's actually highly desirable. It's less fine when you're just marking time and using your friends, cats, plants or whatever else to fill a hole in your life. It's not to say everyone who's single is faking it, just that I think there's more people who are and who are somehow getting overlooked by a society no longer allowed to judge.
We did develop the crazy cat lady stereotype for a reason, and it wasn't all bad. Not all social shame is bad, as my dear Lionel Shriver once pointed out. We need some of these peer reviews and judgments to keep us on the straight and narrow.