Over the past 5 years since I started college, my mom has managed to bring up my imaginary boyfriend in virtually every conversation. The older I get, the more anxious and helpless I feel. Where is this person whom I was told would be “magically waiting” for me somewhere? As I see friends getting engaged, I cannot help but question — what’s wrong with me? I can already picture myself single at age 35, forced to lower my standards and marry someone random only to live unhappily ever after.

Social-distancing unexpectedly pushed my thinking on this front. I suddenly realized my desire for that significant other doesn’t quite come from me. It comes from society telling me to do the right things at the right age. Being subjected to a life of solitude for the past month has made me realize how precious it is to be able to fully focus on developing myself and how much I enjoy my own company. Being single does not mean being “in-between relationships” or “incomplete”, rather it’s the perfect opportunity to work on myself: who I am, what I stand for, and what I want out of this life. If the goal of being in the relationship is to live a great life, then I can provide that life for myself today — no relationship required.

Chinese society’s vision of a woman’s life

*Written from the viewpoint of a heterosexual woman.

From birth to high school: Be a good girl. Innocence is great, child. No looking at boys. Dress ugly highly encouraged.

From College until 25: You should be on the hunt. Did you hear XYZ’s daughter got engaged? Any cute boys in your class, your neighboring 10 colleges, or at work?

25–28: Find a boy and stick with him. You will work through all the problems. And if there are problems? Congrats, such is life.

28: Time to get married. By the way, 30 is the absolute deadline. No extension afterward otherwise there is clearly something wrong with you.

30: Where’s my grandchild? Mom has been planning to take care of them since 10 years ago. Not ready? Don’t take too long. It becomes dangerous to give birth after 35. You might die! Also, you could be a young mom like me. You are still so fit to take care of your daughter’s child and even her child’s child!

After 30 until you die: Be the best mother, best wife, best daughter to parents on both sides you can possibly be. This is your MEANING IN LIFE!

What this model got wrong

If you take a close look at this “vision”, you immediately realize the protagonist of this woman’s life is not herself. The goal of her entire youth is to be prepared to find this man. After she finds him, the entire rest of her life is centered around him. The danger of this model is it’s leading girls to live their lives for someone else. Am I pretty enough for him? Am I smart enough for him? Am I too dominant for him?

It takes no brainpower to realize that at the end of this life, whether it was a great life or not, only we ourselves know and honestly, care. Facing the anxiety of being single, I have to ask myself: what’s the goal of it all? The only answer I can find:

To live a great life

Do I know what a great life looks like for me?

Partially, and I found 80% of my vision for a great life in the past year after I started working. I honestly could not have provided a thoughtful answer when I was back in college. What I realize is that ever since college I have been experiencing an explosive amount of growth. Every year, I reinvent myself; I create a new vision of what I could do. This sea change leads me to question: If I were to have found someone back in college, is there a reasonable chance I would be striving for this life I am living now?

If I put my current vision of “my great life” at the center, it becomes clear that I do not want to find someone and mold myself into their life. I want to find someone who’s similar enough in values to me that we don’t need to mold each other. We can fit seamlessly into each other’s existing lives: augment each other’s mission in life, enjoy each other’s social circle, and savor this beautiful gift that’s life, together.

You might laugh at me, saying “don’t be so naive, child”. As much as recognizing I am an idealist, I still believe I can eventually meet such a person after seeing so many power couples in my life. It’s just hard to come by because what it takes is two individuals who both had ample time to work on themselves. Understanding who you are and what life you want to lead takes a lot of time. Most people aren’t patient enough and rush to meet deadlines.

Another thing this model gets wrong is that life doesn’t happen on a set schedule. It doesn’t have a script with characters performing a routine. I like Milan Kundera’s words in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, “We live everything as it comes, without warning, like an actor going on cold.”

Sticking to a schedule pre-defines life. It puts power into someone else’s hands. Nozick’s thought experiment, the Experience Machine, has proved to us that type of life is not desirable. When participants were asked whether they want to live in a VR machine with experiences that can be controlled by themselves, almost no one wanted to. We want life to happen in unexpected ways, even though it’s anxiety-inducing and makes us feel insecure. There is no other way. We just have to embrace it.

Face the anxiety

No matter how much I want to tell myself to be patient, the unsettling feeling creeps in. To get over it, I have to look into the eyes of anxiety and ask “what am I afraid of”? Here are the top ones:

1. Quality men are running out

A legitimate concern for traditional societies, because it’s more likely that an older guy would marry a younger girl than the other way around.

For a cerebral girl living in a liberal society, this is not really a concern. I’d like to think as much as the men are running out, my time for realizing my life’s mission is also running out. It would be best if these come together, but if I had to choose, I’d rather spend time chasing my dreams instead of trying to find a man lest they might be taken tomorrow. From conversations with my guy friends, the guys I’d connect with are probably doing exactly what I am doing, also building their character and soul searching. If I waited, it might have actually increased the chance of finding someone intellectually and emotionally attractive because we would both have the time to grow.

Since the ultimate goal is to live a good life and I know I am the protagonist of my life, if I happen to meet someone who is in the same train heading in a similar direction, we’ll go together; otherwise, happy to solo trip for a while.

2. Are my standards too high?

Yes. But should I lower it? No, because that would be terrible for both of us.

I sometimes think it’s a curse, when it comes to finding a partner, to be so cerebral, and having studied freaking philosophy. I blame myself sometimes: why am I so complex? Why do I have to think about all these things? Why can’t I be more simple-minded and be happy with anything and anyone? My mom told me many times that it takes a lot of cognitive load to have a simple conversation with me because I like to pick fights. While I am gradually learning when to just smile and nod, I simply can’t bear with a false claim. I had to correct them by having a rational discussion. I have a genuine desire to make sure I am on the same page with people I love so dearly. I can see how I can be torturous to someone who’s not intellectually curious and open-minded.

Apart from living in my brain 99% of the time, I also have a complex identity that I am still constructing to this day (read more: The Not-so-Asian Not-so-American Experience). I am a vegetarian (read more: Why I Became a Vegetarian), and deeply care about social issues (read more: What’s our takeaway from COVID-19). I have constantly been told I am “too much” for a lot of guys. My mom has been advising me to tone it down when I talk to potential suitors. Obviously I haven’t followed that advice, given I am still single AF, because I actually prefer to weed out whoever can’t handle the diva in me.

However, it’s still important to assess my standards and determine which criteria are genuinely mine, which ones are “highly recommended” by society-at-large (a.k.a my mother). These recommended criteria include things like “similar familial socio-economic status”, “>5’9 height”, “well-educated parents”, “parents not divorced”, “either Asian or White”. A few months ago when a friend asked me about my “standard”, these criteria started to emerge from my subconscious mind. I caught myself and was ashamed. Intellectually I understand these standards are not just unfair as they are completely outside of the individual’s control, but also genuinely unhelpful. As much as one’s family environment influences a person, there are so many other environments that can shape one’s character. I genuinely have more respect for people who can transcend their circumstances than those who were born into the perfect family. This instance points out that I need to be more deliberate about what I truly value and let go of the things that don’t matter.

3. The biological clock is ticking

No matter how I understand having a kid is the biggest damage you can do to the environment to the point that it doesn’t even matter that I am vegetarian, I still think it makes the best side project I can ever work on. However, a simple Google research made me gasp:

• Women are born with all the eggs they’ll ever have — about 1 million of them.
• At age 25, the odds of conceiving after 3 months of trying are under 20 percent.
• By age 35, the odds of conceiving after 3 months of trying are about 12 percent.
• At age 37, it’s estimated that you’ll have around 25,000 eggs left.
• The risk for miscarriage and genetic abnormalities also begins to rise after age 35.
• At age 40, the odds of conceiving after 3 months of trying are around 7 percent

My heart was racing. What’s worse was when I read “a man’s fertility declines only starting around age 40”. Apparently, evolution doesn’t care about gender equality.

If there is anything I learned in college science classes, it is not to take any data at face value. I dived in deeper and realized we are all being taken for fools:

• The source is from the historical population. The source of a widely cited stat comes from French birth records from 1670 to 1830. The life expectancy for an English male in the 18th century is apparently 34 (source). Of course, these women have trouble getting pregnant. They are already ready for their graves.
• Another problem with the study of fertility rate is that it’s hugely based on human memory of how long they’ve tried. Just ask yourself when you started to wear shorts this summer, the standard deviation is probably a month.
• Yet, another problem looms even larger: women who are actively trying to get pregnant at age 35 or later might be less fertile than the average over-35 woman. This is because high fertile women might either have gotten pregnant accidentally or whenever they wanted at a relatively young age. Those who are left are the less fertile ones. So the biological effect on fertility rates is overestimated (source).

That helps, but you might find this more helpful:

• A study with data based in the 20th century shows that the difference in pregnancy rates at age 28 versus 37 is only about 4% (source).
• A 2016 study found that older mothers are more patient and tend to yell and punish their children less. Their children also have fewer social, emotional, and behavioral problems in elementary school.
• Research has also found that children born to older mothers are generally healthier and end up better educated than their peers who were born to younger mothers.

Ok, time to chill and stop stressing about being a sad, childless woman; but honestly, is having my own child important to me? Not really. What I am passionate about is raising a child, not necessarily being the biological mother. All humans are genetically related anyways. If we are playing with the concept of legacy and immortality, the vast majority of how a child turns out depends on the nurturing. A part of who I am is passed on to this child even though I am not the biological mother. Needless to say, this is the best environmental action I can take.

4. You will be lonely and helpless when you are old

In general, loneliness is a concern. To combat it, I have been cultivating hobbies, making friends, and pursuing worthy causes that are larger than myself. I have simply been too busy with all the things I am interested in and social groups I can create or join to feel bored or lonely. I hope this can last into old age.

My vision for retirement is to run my own nursing home. I will purchase a home near nature and near a university, invite my closest friends, and hire people to take care of us. We will keep each other entertained, crash university courses, and write our life stories into books. This honestly sounds more fun compared to living only with my partner or with my kids.

I also find the Chinese tradition of bearing a child for old age troubling. It turns the love between parent-child from something that should be unconditional into something that is transactional. Child-raising becomes an exchange:

“I raised you so now you have to take care of me, no matter if you want or not. If not, your ancestors of the past 10 generations would condemn you from wherever they happen to reside.”

It wasn’t:

“I have unconditionally loved you which hopefully you feel grateful and therefore want to voluntarily love us back.”

I think it would feel better to have a child who genuinely wants to be there for you rather than someone who’s guilt-tripped to fulfill their duty. It’s also probably better to not live at the mercy of someone else. I am spending my entire life increasing my level of freedom so that I don’t need to be subjected to someone else’s kindness when I am old.

5. I am unworthy of love

This is the hardest one for me. It’s incredibly unfortunate how deep this runs. After attempting to work on myself all these years, thoughts like “maybe you just aren’t attractive”, “you are a bit much” or “nobody likes you” still creep into my mind. I am still learning how to unconditionally love myself (read more: Under the Shiny Cover, I was a Mess)

A lack of self-love is often at the core of a dysfunctional relationship. In the past, I have hurried into relationships in fear of uncertainty and feeling unconfident about myself after moving to a new location or starting a new job. I was hoping that the relationship would provide me with the emotional stability that I desperately needed, only to eventually realize true stability comes from within: to be able to live between my breaths and accept my imperfections.

Unworthiness has to be rattled by ourselves. No relationship can just “fix” it.

Embrace the most important relationship

Bingo! You got it right! The most important relationship we have is with ourselves. To live a good life, we have to invest in that relationship. Can we spend the amount of time we would spend with a significant other with ourselves and genuinely keep ourselves entertained? Can we provide the same high standard of life we would have with someone else even if we are alone?

Being alone in the past month has shown me I can provide myself with the life I desire. There is no need for prince charming. Before this, I was always hoping to meet someone and together we would live in a beautiful place and experiment with different recipes in our free time. While I haven’t found that person, living in a white-walled space and eating instant ramen is fine. Unbeknown to me, it is so empowering to learn how to cook and pamper myself with delicious food; it’s so wonderful to create a space that I feel delighted to live in. All the while, I am still single, but loved by the most important person in my life: myself.

So, what’s the takeaway of this monologue by a perpetually single person? First, we need to tune in our inner desire and find out whether we want a relationship sincerely or we think we should be in a relationship. Second, if there is any experience of anxiety of being single, ask where that comes from, and if there are ways to overcome it. We might desire a relationship but never need it. Lastly, embrace the most important relationship in our lives: the one we share with ourselves. We don’t need to rely on any other person to live a great life. We can live that life we always desired, today. We are all we need.

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This blog is published with permission from Mojia Shen