How to Deal With Loneliness When You're Single

I’ll tell you why you feel lonely. Because what you get from an intimate partner is something you can’t get from anyone else. You feel lonely because you want these things and you haven’t found someone to experience them with. And that’s okay. Stop judging and labeling it. If you haven’t slept, you’re going to feel tired.

If you haven’t loved anyone in a while, you’re going to crave that experience and feel lonely. But there’s a difference between the feeling of loneliness and “I am lonely.” One is an experience, a feeling that comes and goes. The other is an identity, tightly tied to your sense of worth. Instead of just being aware of the feeling, you have attached added meaning to it. But it’s not your fault. That knot has been tied by society. Whether you know it or not, you have been programmed.

Loneliness is the struggle that needs to be overcome. Once you conquer it, only then will you feel happy. You can understand the roots of this feeling, but understanding it doesn’t take away how real and constant it is. It’s an ongoing state that can make you lose hope and wonder, will I ever find love again?

When we feel loneliness for long enough, we start to believe no one wants to be with us. We start to believe we will always be alone. The loneliness grows into hopelessness. It’s a one-two punch. But you are not lonely the way that you have brown eyes or small feet. It’s time to reevaluate the situation. You need to redefine your old concepts and stop assuming that being alone is the same as being lonely.

First, stop ruminating while you’re having that lonesome feeling. Stop asking yourself if you will ever find the kind of person you’ve always dreamed of. Maybe you won’t. But if that shakes your world, the last thing you need to be in right now is a relationship. Because that desperation will only poison whatever relationship you do find yourself in.

So let’s address your fear right now, head on. Take a deep breath and ask yourself the following question: What if you never find a partner?

Did your heart stop? It might have for a second, but despite what you may feel, you’re still very much alive. I’m not saying you will never find love. I’m saying that this looming question you allow to follow you around like a dark cloud is what’s stripping the vibrance out of your life. This giant what-if you keep asking yourself is preventing you from truly living.

Instead, you are waiting around for something to happen to you, and that waiting produces the feeling of loneliness. But it’s actually not loneliness you’re struggling with. At the core, it’s the deep belief that you will always be alone. It’s hopelessness. That’s what’s crippling. To turn the lights on and get rid of this heavy shadow, you must face this belief head on. How? Accept it. Fully.

Radical acceptance is the practice of accepting life on life’s terms and not resisting what you cannot change. Radical acceptance is about saying yes to life, just as it is.

This doesn’t mean giving up on love. This doesn’t mean denying your wants. And it certainly doesn’t mean taking yourself “off the market,” deleting all your dating apps, and staying home every night. It actually means the complete opposite: Go out and live. Stop waiting, hoping, and being afraid. Before you can do this, though, you must be okay with the possibility of never finding your “one.” Again, that doesn’t mean you won’t.

Acceptance just means that, if you don’t find the one, your world will not end. You will still build a wonderful and meaningful life. I’ve helped many clients build amazing lives without a partner. Clients who came to see me because they felt incomplete and less than because they hadn’t found their one. People who started to move their life chips from we to me and started to bet on themselves.

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The more you accept this truth, the sooner you will stop feeling that being single is linked to a lower sense of worth, the less you will tell yourself you need to find someone to be happy, and the more you will be present in your life instead of obsessing about the future.

Accepting this truth, you will start to run toward yourself instead of into the arms of the next person to come along. And when you do meet someone—because of course you will—you will bring a more interesting, alluring set of skills and experiences to the table. Instead of meeting someone who will save you from your situation, you will meet someone who can share your current joys.

Look, no one wants to be alone. Not you. Not me. We all want to share our life with someone else. Ten years ago, the question What if I never find a partner? would have sunk my soul. Imagining myself doing life alone terrified me. No one to share meals with. No one to hold or think about. But ten years ago, I didn’t have much of a life. And that’s the difference between me then and me now. I’m not any less of a hopeless romantic. I don’t want love any less. I just have a richer and more complete life now. A life that doesn’t hang on being with someone.

Love and relationships are only one part of your life, not your entire life.

There are so many other aspects of your life that are meaningful and fulfilling. Your art. Your career. Exercising your voice and the dent you’re going to make in this world. Your friendships. Your family. Your passions and hobbies. Your curiosity leads you to explore, learn, grow, and expand. When you actually build your own life, a life that is honest to you and stands on its own, the fear of being alone starts to fade.