You don't need a perfect weekend, you don't need a partner to do it with...
Bank holiday thoughts from a single Asexual 30-something.
May in the UK is a seemingly endless Bank Holiday. Something about a Crown next week and Easter only just happened and it seems like we’re in an endless sea of Mondays without focus. And while I am very glad of the days off, the ‘expectation v reality’ of Bank Holidays throws a lot of stuff into focus.
Firstly there’s the pressure you ‘should’ be doing something. My ADHD and the general need to be productive, do not do well with doing nothing. Add to this endless juggling and overwhelming jobs/projects in the last months I have trouble taking time off. Add to this a neverending decorating project, and I have not stopped for the past two months. Longer, really, but in a literal sense, the last two months. But beyond my neurodiverse need for routine and novelty at once, Bank Holidays and weekends also throw into sharper focus all the ‘shoulds’ of things.
I think I ‘should’ be out doing things, seeing people, doing ‘Bank Holiday things’. I should be going out on day trips, drinking in beer gardens, going on mini breaks (how very Bridget Jones, engrained idea for my 00s teens there).
Firstly the reality is I ‘do stuff’ a lot. I have a four-day streak of evenings ‘doing stuff’ that I’m tired thinking about. I have plans next bank holiday weekend to see people. This one I chose not to, I chose quiet and catching up with writing projects and general life stuff. But still I feel the should.
But I think it’s that deeper ‘should’. The ‘should’ of where you should be in life. You should have this magical, mythical group of friends to go to a beer garden with. I’ve never had that. I have individual friends who largely don’t know each other. Many of them don’t live nearby; many don’t live in the same country. I have people I see on regular rotation for coffee and lunches. Or I have situational friends and acquaintances, to do with hobbies, or theatre or whatever. I never had the group of friends thing (Hi late, diagnosed autistic queer person here…)
I’ve grown ok in the last few years, too, with the letting go of the friends who were never meant for me or those who were meant for a season. I’ve let go of most of the hurt associated with friends who dumped me when they found a partner. I’ve let go of the hurt of being ‘too weird’ for some. I’ve let go of the feeling that I probably won’t ever be part of the ‘in crowd’ for fandom friends. Mostly, some things still sting. Mostly I’ve grown to appreciate that the friends who are good for me will stick around, and while I’ll always show up, I’m done fighting to keep people in my life who don’t want to be there.
I’m also happily single. Having in the last few years understood my asexuality and now my neurodiversity more, I understand how relationships are more possible now. But also, I am fully at peace with not having one. But just because I’m happily single doesn’t mean I don’t feel the isolation of being a 30-something single person.
Because while there is the lonely feeling of everyone being paired off (hello, Bridget Jones again, is that you?), there’s also the judgment, silent, sometimes unintended, about what you as a single person are doing…because if you’re single, then you should be living that ‘woo hoo’ beer garden, group day trips and holidays life right?
Or are you, in fact, just quietly living that life alone, mostly ok but sometimes, yes, really lonely?
Because choosing to be single, or at least not actively trying not to be, isn’t the same as always wanting to be alone. While I choose not to chase relationships, it doesn’t mean it isn’t just sometimes fucking lonely, really fucking sad. Especially when you get the ‘Bank Holiday’ feeling of everyone else having somewhere to be. Someone better than you to do it with. Because that’s what being the single-30-something feels like as well sometimes; everyone’s backup option. The one that gets a call when your partner AND all the couple friends are busy. Or sometimes the one who stops getting the call eventually.
And that’s fine you know, I don’t want to be anyone’s backup option.
As our Queen Taylor Swift (and newly single 30-something said) ‘Puttin' someone first only works when you're in their top five’ As I get old, I’m done with wasting my ‘sparkling’ on people who give me none. And I’m learning to remember whose top five I might be in. As Queen Taylor also said, don’t put me in the basement when I want the penthouse.
You know who always gives me the penthouse of my heart? Me. And as much as it can be lonely, frustrating, really fucking sad sometimes…I will take it to honour what I want in life. As much as I might look at the beer garden girlies and think in another life that could have been me, I can also honour what I have, and do what’s right for me. With the lonely is also independence. And while I could dwell on that ‘oh, I’m all alone this weekend’ and wish everyone wasn’t so busy just to text or talk for a bit. I also know that I have the freedom to do what I want. Whether that’s cleaning the house or choosing for me to spend a day with my creative projects, free of interruptions and other people’s expectations, it’s knowing I don’t have to put on a mask and pretend, I don’t have to expend energy I don’t have for social obligations I and someone else agreed to. I don’t have to find the energy to be a human for anyone other than me. And I know, too, that spending time alone is what I need to be able to be a human the rest of the time.
All you people with people, do remember to check in on your single friends. I don’t mean to check their cat hasn’t eaten them. Remember to talk to them…when they might not have had someone to talk to for a while.
But also remember this; they aren’t ‘behind’ in life because they’re single, without a ‘family’. Their family might not look like yours. They might have chosen this life. And being in a couple isn’t a marker of success. Again, being in a couple isn’t a marker of success; it’s just a relationship status.
And away from the 30-something being alone element there’s also the…some of us don’t have interests that also align with the ‘doing things crazy bank holiday’ way of being…in all honesty I’ve got no desire to sit in a park and drink cider, or a beer garden. I don’t enjoy pubs and clubbing. I enjoy theatre, hockey and skating, music, books, and writing. I don’t like crowds. Nothing about ‘holiday’ weekends really ‘vibes’ with things I like…so hiding away, doing my own thing at home makes sense. I do those things I love many other days of the year, not just on a day we’re told we ‘should’.
And that’s the thing too, it’s all a scam. From the capitalist drive to do and spend on weekends and holidays…to what we think everyone else is doing. It’s an illusion; nobody is out doing perfect weekend or Bank Holiday things the whole time…we’re all out here catching up on housework, watching TV, or in a deep dive on the internet for a thing we shouldn’t be. The ‘weekend moments’ the ‘bank holiday outings’ are tiny snapshots of time. Nobody puts the screaming row they had over who was supposed to pack the snacks after all. Nobody tells you that the trip to the pub was hellish because it was so busy, no matter what the pictures say. Of course some people have the perfect weekend but most of us I think are just having distinctly average ones.
So I choose to stay home. I choose to catch up on things around the house, I choose bits of work to free up my week a bit. I choose to spend time with my creative projects, and I choose alone time. None of that is a failing on my part.
Nor is the fact I’m ‘alone’ in the broader sense, no matter what the broader narrative says. It’s not a life failing, it’s a life choice.
You don't need a perfect weekend, you don't need a partner to do it with...
I feel this. Thanks for sharing.
All you bloody do is moan.
BORING ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ