Rooted Before Romance
I’m a strong advocate for loving your own company. Going to restaurants alone. Sitting in the cinema watching a film alone. Walking through shops without needing someone beside you. There is something deeply powerful about being able to enjoy your own presence.
If we constantly need others to fill our time or validate our thoughts or even our existence, it’s worth asking why. Solitude isn’t loneliness. It’s a relationship with ourselves. And like any relationship, it requires effort and honesty. If we are always surrounded by noise, we rarely have to face what’s within.
This is partly why the idea of getting married and sailing “off into the sunset” with all of life’s problems solved has never fully sat right with me. The fairytale suggests partnership is the solution, that once we find someone everything aligns. But the reality is that having a partner doesn’t automatically remove problems. In fact, if we look around at relationships today we can see that with the wrong person, it can magnify and multiply problems.
A relationship should enhance our peace, not become the source of it ;and it should certainly not be the source of chaos. It should add depth to an already good life, not become the foundation of our identity.
Ultimately, it’s about being strong within ourselves first. Liking who we are. Being able to embrace life and our choices. Creating a peaceful, fulfilling life independently. When we genuinely enjoy our own company, our standards rise to be careful on who we invite into the peace we’ve built.
I’m not anti-love. I’m not anti-men. In fact I am the opposite. I believe in partnership, in building something meaningful with someone. But I don’t believe relationships are saviours. I don’t want to be someone who crumbles when others leave, but instead someone who still has the strength to see what remains and appreciate that. No person should carry the responsibility of rescuing us from a life we haven’t learned to embrace on our own.
How others choose to live is their choice. But for me building inner strength and independence feels empowering. I want to be able to cultivate a life on my own, while still enjoying the presence of others without relying on them as emotional crutches. To book that trip alone. To sit at that table alone. To move through the world confidently and at peace regardless.
As someone who’s hugely family oriented and very close to my parents, that is a non negotiable for me in the type of dynamic I like. That’s where my bar is. Either someone meets me there, or I continue on the path I’ve built, one which is with a lot of peace already.
At the end of the day life is unpredictable. People are human. That’s exactly why our sense of stability cannot rest entirely in another person, but instead must always be within ourselves first to be able to embrace life. Strength within ourselves is the foundation; everything else is an addition.
Life will always be difficult in some capacity and I’ll end this with one of my favourite quotes I came across online:
“Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Pick your hard. Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Pick your hard. Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Pick your hard. Communicating is hard. Not communicating is hard. Pick your hard.”
This illustrates that life will always be challenging, there is no route that is without problems and so it would be naive to think that relationships and romances are cures. The real power is building inner strength so that we can face the struggles and the hards that come with whichever route we pick, to remain rooted in ourselves and our values first and foremost.