In today’s newsletter, I’ve got a guest piece for you. It’s by Maedbh Pierce, a young writer who has been doing work experience with me through a scheme run by Freelancing for Journalists. She’s been helping me with some social media bits and bobs and doing some research for people I should interview. But she has also written this beautiful piece of writing for you all to read.

I thought it was interesting because it flips the idea that being single can empower you to know what you want from future relationships as instead Maedbh felt empowered by being in a relationship to intentionally choose singleness. I thought some of you might relate and others may get some food for thought from it.

Just a note to say, if you are struggling with feeling anxious at the moment due to all the Covid-news, I am with you. I’m going to send out a bonus email this week (to make up for the missing one last week) with some hopefully helpful resources and former newsletters that you may find comforting to re-read. Watch this space.

I also have an agony aunt column scheduled to go out to paying subscribers. It’s all about weekend loneliness and when you feel like you’re always the one having to suggest hanging out to your friends. If you don’t already subscribe, here’s the link:

Thinking of you all, especially if you are feeling low.

Nicola

Twitter: @Nicola_Slawson | Instagram: @Nicola_Slawson

Breaking up radically: my inching towards intentional singleness

By Maedbh Pierce

For a while, perhaps naively, I believed things would be different with Jaz. Ensuing concentrated efforts at self-persuasion, I’d near convinced myself that yes, this is the life I want. This is simple and beautiful. In this amity of tenderness and warmth, I am present, perceivable, tangible, loved. This can be it. I can relax. Right?

In reality, regarding this particular situation, at the least, I had merely slipped into a role. Like I always so helpfully do. Forever fascinated with other people, indebted to my chameleon personality, I have learned that I can never mix friend groups. Even more rarely can I settle down into any single role or relationship. (This is, of course, why I adore writing so much - there is always something new to be found.)

Yet, for this brief moment in time - the hiatus in my carefully curated chaos that was summer 2021 - it all slowed down. 

Jaz and I had met in the most mundane of ways, a dating app - HER. Swiping had been a much-resented hobby of mine for over two years. Yet, despite my hefty time advancement, Jaz was the first person I had been brave enough - or at ends with myself enough - to meet in person. And so, one emerald April evening, we had our first date. 

Trenched in the grasses of Fairview Park, a venue we hadn’t at that time known was formerly Dublin cruising central. And the place that witnessed the homophobic murder of Declan Flynn, provoking Ireland’s first, enraged Pride. Nor had we intuited that this singular date would lead to six months, three apartments and too much love to comprehend.

In the subsequent months, my relationship with Jaz would fill a void in myself that I had not realised was quite so gaping. Before our affections, textured clouds against a constellation, I remained eluded by much of what it meant to exist actively in this world as a Queer woman. In loving Jaz, however, there was no space for self-evasion. There simply was not time. 

Lost in Jaz’ beautiful, honest soul, I was so adrift I began to make out the shadows of the girl I had for so long forgotten about, the girl near smothered by shame, invisibility, loneliness. This spectre of my present self trusted in and wanted to feel this thing called love. It was what we all experience in healthy love: a reckoning with our darknesses, the recesses of our histories, not the narrative - but the frame. 

As a femme lesbian, when in a relationship, invisibility is further. Despite being completely out to friends, family, anyone who’ll give me an ear really, moving through the world as a femme means, to my community, I’m not always optically perceptible. 

And so finally, in a relationship coloured by Liffey nights and warm muffins every morning, it was, almost eerie, to feel so whole. So binding that I began to ache for myself, for the times I once espied such unity; alone, unaided. I wanted to return to what I then did not realise I had. I wanted to hold hands with the girl in the gloom. I longed to pull her back into me, reassure her that though the light’s bright, it doesn’t burn. 

Considering this: how could my energy be ready to merge with another person? 

I was still learning how to be overcome by myself.

Singleness, not a command but a possibility. Less a status than a state. Like queerness, it is spectral, webby. Yet, it has a spine, singleness is not a convoluted notion.  To be given a name, capitalised, placed securely on the higher shelf. Nor is there some transcending origin point or universal reason that needs to justify spending some, or a lot, of time with yourself. 

That's not to say the break-up wasn't ugly, that we didn't run to and from each other far more times than justifiable, that she doesn't have a tattoo that will forever remind her of me. I see parts of her, us, everywhere. She's scattered around my room, dotted in my wardrobe, lazing in my bed, sunk deep in my skin. From the brand of deodorant I buy to the boxes of her stuff still piled up in my parent's home - she's there. 

When we consider all those we have loved, and all those waiting to be loved by us, it is a ridiculous theory that we can ever be alone. Love comes in many forms. Right now, mine's from me, and for me. So yeah, you could say I’m single. 

And I’ve never been happier about it.

Currently living in Berlin, yet tragically, not a fan of techno, Maedbh (she/her) is an English and Philosophy graduate (UCD, Dublin) and freelance writer. To date, her writing explores and celebrates queer identity, life and culture. For more of Maedbh, check her out on Instagram or LinkedIn. 

Things you should check out

• I took part in a panel discussion on Saturday with a stellar line-up that included Single Supp friend Shani Silver and other awesome women. It was all about the festive season and how to navigate it and enjoy it on your own terms when you’re single. It was recorded and you can watch (or listen back) on the Gateway Woman website. Let me know your thoughts if you attended live or if you watch it back.

• The escalating costs of being single in America – if you read one thing, make it this. It’s focused on the US but many of the issues are universal/replicated elsewhere.

• Avoid ‘unnecessary socialising’? As ever, the pandemic hits single people the hardest – this is spot on from Angelica Malin. Late to share this, but it’s still relevant.

• Incidentally, have you pre-ordered Unattached, the book Angelica edited yet? – I have written an essay for it and going to record the audio this week! It would be a great thing to ask for as a Christmas present. You’ll get a nice surprise when the post arrives in early February!

• I Thought We’d All Be Single Together – This is about being single when all your friends are not: “It sometimes feels like being the only naked person in the room.”

• Stop Seeing Your Breakup As A ‘Failure’ – This by Vicky Spratt is a nice follow on from the interview I did with her for this newsletter.

• The Problem With Posting About Your Breakup Online – Another article from Refinery' 29’s weeklong series on break ups called Losing You.

• Kerri was 'extremely single' for years. She says it was better than being in the wrong relationship – “There's this perception that if you are not coupled up that you're somehow lesser – and I am certainly not more now than I was a year ago.”

• Biases Against Single People Are Different for Women and Men – Bella DePaulo says much of what we see as sexism or gender bias is also about singlism.

• 3 Things About Single Life That Are Nobody Else’s Business – Shani Silver on the invasive questions about dating and singlehood we shouldn’t have to put up with.

• I ran away from my wedding – now I’ve got cold feet about my new home – Katie Glass on her fear of commitment. (She also wrote about seeing her ex for the first time)

• When To Trust Your Gut Instinct (& When To Ignore It) – I thought this was interesting and I related to the solo travel story.

• Coping with grief: 14 women explain what loss has taught them about life and love - “I’ve learned to trust myself and show up with courage when the going gets tough.”

• Oliver Burkeman on how to not waste your time (Is This Working? podcast) – This gave me lots of food for thought!

• Confessions of a personality test addict – enjoyed this – and also this, which is related and also by Tiffany.

• Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram, where I spend most of my time!

Words I love

jenniferaniston

A post shared by Jennifer Aniston (@jenniferaniston)

People certainly project onto you and all that, but my job is to go, “Listen, I’ll show you what I’m capable of, and you decide if you want to subscribe.” So, you disappear as much as you can, you have fun, you take on these weird roles, you don’t give a shit, you enjoy yourself, you remember that you have a gorgeous group of friends and your life is blessed and you do the best that you can. I used to take it all very personally — the pregnancy rumours and the whole “Oh, she chose career over kids” assumption. It’s like, “You have no clue what’s going with me personally, medically, why I can’t … can I have kids?” They don’t know anything, and it was really hurtful and just nasty.

– Jennifer Anniston on the interest in her private life and being accused of choosing a career over kids/love

About me

For those who don’t know, I’m Nicola Slawson, a freelance journalist who lives in Shropshire, UK. If you particularly liked this edition, you can buy me a coffee, here’s the link to my Ko-Fi page. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.

Did someone forward The Single Supplement to you? Sign up here.