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Living a single life and living it well is considered an art form in the modern days. More people are single now than ever before. There are those who are single because they choose to be so, while others stay single until they find themselves in relationships. And there are those involuntary singles that are not exactly sure where to head and what the future has in store. If the latter holds true for the most of us, then, the question is, how do we plan on living our lives?

People change. And as we change, so do our expectations. If you are single now, you can choose to live this life today, or you can choose to change it and tinker with it so that something different turns out.

This is not to say that all options are available to everyone. This simply means that living a single life can open doors to a variety of possibilities and dimensions that are there for us. If we cant’t see it ourselves, we can learn from other people’s experiences. Then, we can begin making comparisons and parallelisms to see what we lack or need to improve in our own lives and what strategies we might want to try out.

Flying solo is an art – a craft that involves learning, growing and mastering the methods to living the single life, discovering new ways to raise our social IQ, and exploring the various facets of human relationships.

Since we are already in the subject of the difficulty of finding love amid a highly materialistic and career-centric environment, let us enumerate the reasons why discovering love in this day and age is harder than drilling oil in China.

1. In most areas, the number of women who are looking for relationships are slightly greater than the number of males who are also available and seeking relationships. (Though some statisticians say this is highly debatable because not all ‘surveys’ are representative of the whole population.)
2. Hooking up with eligible members of the opposite sex is not as easy now as it was when we were younger. Then, we had parties and meeting new people was not so awkward.
3. Career attitudes of being business-like, professional and rather stiff and calculating are being encouraged by society more compared to genuine honesty and intimacy. Therefore, we find it hard to give ourselves time to devote to love and to seeking love and, often, feel guilty when we do.
4. The work values that are constantly pounded into our heads make us ill-prepared to comply with the kinds of attitudes and demands intimate relationships require of us.
5. Women and men are at different levels right now, with women becoming more empowered and work-oriented, bent on beating males in the rat race, while males are more reluctant to simply give in and are becoming more frustrated with relationships. Females have more quickly assimilated into the male world, than men have with the female world.
6. Both sexes are fearing commitment more because of the multitude of other relationship setups that are available, like open relationships, temporary co-habitation, same-sex relationships, and others.
7. Sexually transmitted diseases are becoming prevalent and spreading fast that people find it difficult to agree to be in a committed relationship with another person. STDs cause people to become more dubious about their potential partners, thereby giving rise to more trust issues than usual.

In reality, it is really you who can determine and plot a way out of being lonely. It can take a lot of practice and patience, however, so you might want to start with the following suggestions.

Learn to listen
Listening to music when you are alone is, for many, a great antidote to loneliness (as long as what you’re listening to is not rubbing salt to your emotional wounds). If it’s talk you want to hear (or any other sound), your radio or television is always there for you. All you have to do is listen.

Learn to see
You can begin by using your senses. Look around at people and enjoy the expressions on their faces. Observe their clothing, their ways of walking and manners of speaking. Watch kids at play. Watch pets running around. Look at the beauty of your surroundings. Try to get outside of yourself every day by seeing one new thing in your world. You might notice something you never have before and make new discoveries.

Eliminate the “shoulds”
Enjoy what you’re doing without wishing for something you can’t have or wish to change right now. This can be a little difficult, as the media constantly bombards us with images of people and situations on what should be and how relationships should transpire and move along. These “shoulds” can be poisonous to your well-being. Reject them immediately and stop comparing your situation with other people’s, especially the fictional ones you see on TV.

Nurture friendships
Friends can sometimes help you cope with loneliness. But friendships can’t always bear the weight of one person who is too needy. On the other hand, you might also be ambivalent about baring too much of your feelings to them. Don’t be afraid to reach out to friends, but don’t abuse the patience of your support network …