You Are single and Everyone is Engaged

The holiday season is tough for single people – it’s a time for cuddles in sub zero temperatures (for most countries), mushy cards with sweet nothings and gift giving just because it is the conventional thing to do. With all the love in the air, it’s only fitting that it’s also the season for everyone around you to get engaged. So how do you survive it if you are single and everyone is getting engaged? Our guest writer Aniesa Holmes has a few pearls of wisdom. https://aniesaholmes.wordpress.com

Surviving the holiday engagement season

You know it’s coming. It always does. You log onto Instagram the day after Christmas only to scroll through a billion photos of giddy women with the same open mouthed expression, dangling sparkling rocks on their hands and sporting  tear streams with the caption “I SAID YESSSSS!” Another wave of them pop up on New Years Day. Suddenly you are single and everyone is engaged.

Wedding sites like TheKnot.com reveal that the most popular month for engagements is December, and some of your friends, college classmates and relatives will be among that population.

And it’s not that you’re not happy for them, but you can’t help but feel pangs of jealousy and failed relationships of the past begin to haunt you. Everyone is pairing off it seems, and you haven’t felt this left out since you were the last to be picked in middle school gym class.

Social media has a funny way of making everyone’s lives way more exciting than yours. We can become anxious or impatient when we run out of milestone moments to share with the world — our lives feel more boring than drying paint. The pressure to get engaged and married by a certain age has existed for decades, and it’s often more brutal for women. I will confess that earlier this year, I literally hid under the covers the morning of my 30th birthday, feeling slightly ill at the thought that I had officially missed my “marriage deadline.” 

But there’s no need to trash your vision board or make your partner feel guilty because it’s not your turn. 

The holiday season is immensely lonely for many people.  Sometimes it’s another reminder that we don’t have control over everything in our lives. However, we can always do something about the way we respond to the uncontrollable.

There’s a chance you’ll be asked to be part of those upcoming weddings, so think of creative ways to help make their moments even more special. But start by logging off your Facebook page and actually making a good old-fashioned phone call to congratulate them.

Realize that those special moments of life like marriage, kids and new houses come with their own responsibilities and expectations. The worst thing you can do is rush them or you’ll find yourself crushed by a mountain of misery. 

I’ve often been told that our 30s are years of discovery, so use this time to find the unique skills and desires that will keep your focus off of social media. There are always new places to see, languages to learn and friendships to form out in the real world. 

Remember that this season is about more than just showing off gifts, but giving them as well. There are others in the world who are facing difficult and unexpected situations around the holidays. Volunteer at a nursing home, read Christmas stories to children or collect canned goods for the local soup kitchen. These actions (if done from the heart) will help prepare you to give the love you’ve been waiting for when the right person comes.