Reposted from: http://www.mode.com/stories/what-happens-when-you-stay-single-for-too-long/10400920
Reposted from: Jamie Rae
Let’s face it, if you go years and years without being in a committed relationship, you’re probably going to become a little selfish. Single people have much less emotional responsibility and can pretty much do whatever they want. But while the endless brigades of self-love and ‘me’ time are valuable, you will probably start to think you’re the centre of the universe pretty quickly.
It’s very likely that someone who has been single for a long time it’s because they’re too picky. Being picky to a certain degree is a good thing because it shows that you value yourself and you aren’t willing to settle. So people who have been single for a long time become less and less reliant on relationships, thus more and more picky. Unfortunately there are no perfect relationships out there.
Now continuing on with the too picky point: if you’ve been so long without a relationship, you may be scared of getting into one after being out of the game for so long. For this reason you might run for the hills at the first sign of adversity, or after the first quirk or dark characteristic of your new partner is revealed. Instead of working at it, you will be more inclined to just give up.
It’s possible that if you go so long without being vulnerable or putting yourself out there, you are going to run the risk of closing yourself off. Particularly the older you get, the harder it will be to let someone in. This might even result in a fear of intimacy, difficulty creating and maintaining intimate relationships, as well as a fear of commitment. Intimacy takes practice.
This is a big one for people that have been so long without a relationship: you forget what it’s like to coexist with another person. Single people have grown so used to doing their favourite thing every single time. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and basically operate on their own schedule all the time. Relationships are about learning to communicate and coexist together.
When you’re single for a long time you can sometimes lose some of your capacity and habits for caring for other people. And you can’t find true happiness until you learn how to care more for others than you do yourself. Being in a relationship is going to help you to learn how to not be so obsessed with what is going on with you all the time and care about someone else’s life every now and again.
Okay, now that this chronically single person is finally involved in an exclusive relationship, their hard work is only beginning. If you have been single for so long then you haven’t had to worry about how your behaviour is going to affect someone else. Until now of course. This can result in a few bumps, as how you act when you’re single is much different than how you act in a relationship.
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