I’m 22, graduating college next year. I’ve been with my current girlfriend since I was 18, and then my previous girlfriend from 16-17, and a bunch of dating/hookups before and in between the two. I’ve come to realize that I haven’t been single or not “chasing women” since I was like 15.
It’s been on my mind recently because after I graduate in less than a year, I will be looking for a full time job to start a new career and move out, potentially to a different area. But obviously being in a long term relationship, my choices are limited. I’ve always wanted to move out and live on my own (fully by myself) so I could learn independence, have full control of my life, and not be tied to anyone else.
I guess I’m a little scared that by not being single in my early adult years, in the event that I breakup with my high school girlfriend, I’ll find myself in my mid/late 20’s having zero experience living on my own and making my own decisions.
But at the same time it’s hard to justify throwing away a really solid relationship that I might not find again, just to experience living on my own.
I’m just wondering for those guys with more life experience, how important is it for young men to be single (not in the sense of hooking up, but rather for the life experience of finding your own way).
Comments
It’s not important to have been single, what is important is the capability to be alone. Knowing how to budget money and time to do everything that needs doing etc
Just enjoy it while it lasts.
not important at all
if you can maintain a relationship and run a home at the same time you will already be doing better than most people in the world
I’ve had roommates all but 1 year since I was 14 (I’m currently 36). Whether you’re by yourself or not doesn’t make that much of a difference in adulthood imo. It is different if it’s with a significant other, probably, since that’s more likely to be more cooperative living. A roommate might not want to coordinate meals, but a partner might, for example. I still don’t necessarily think that it’s a hindrance as long as your relationship is fairly equitable, and you don’t assign each other singular responsibilities. I did enjoy living by myself for the year that I did, but sometimes it did suck to come home to an empty space.
Edit: to be more direct to the question, I don’t think that living with your girlfriend, or anyone else, would automatically set you on a disadvantage if you had to live by yourself down the line.
32M who was in relationships from 14-22 and hasn’t been in one since by choice. If that voice is creeping in and it’s natural that it is, you should probably listen. You may not feel like this cuz I didn’t at the time but you are still basically a kid. If you have that ambition to create independence and explore you need to follow it, now. You are in a position so many young men find themselves in and they choose not to listen and end up essentially trapped and have to restart their entire lives for the first time at 35 way behind the 8ball. You don’t have to necessarily end things outright but you should express these thoughts to her.
At the risk of sounding crass, I think ultimately you need to breakup and find out who you really are in your 20s without trying to mold your life with another effectively random human who will also be figuring out who they truly are.
My advice, breakup, spend 22-28 focused intensely on your career and your physical fitness. If you do that I promise when you are 29 you will be an EXTREMELY eligible bachelor who literally has had to beat women off along the way.
Godspeed son.
It isn’t
That’s kinda weird
Be single if you want, find a relationship if you want. Life is about choices.
The people you’ll meet on their second or third divorces in their mid/late 30s are the people who never learned to enjoy being by themselves. That said, you don’t technically have to live alone to learn how to enjoy your own company. It certainly helps though…
I’m happy that I got to have the experience of living alone for a few years, although ultimately I did end up deciding that it’s not my preference, whether I’m living with a significant other, roommate, or just have my vagrant nephew crashing in my guest room because he’s fighting with his mom.
Keep the relationship and don’t break up if you don’t have to. But living not with your parents, very important. My life changed drastically for the better when I stopped living with them.
I have no idea what it feels like to be single as an adult. I got a GF at 13 and I’ve been married to her for 14 years. I’ve only known HER.
If she’s a good one, keep her. That’s basically it. I lived wild out in the streets and while I had fun and had stories, ultimately I wanted something more substantial and solid. If it turns out that you end things with her, just figure it out. It’s not hard, you’re not gonna rot.
But let me tell you that not all that glitters is gold and you would be surprised what folks are like after the honeymoon period. All of your flabbers would be absolutely ghasted at how some folks operate, but they can certainly look put together. So keep your lady if she’s a good one.
The only value to being single is knowing you’re good on your own, not becoming dependent on a woman, and preventing yourself from being talked out of your own needs by your desire to be in a relationship. They are, in themselves, not nearly enough to send one woman away hoping to eventually find one as good.
Just live near her in your own place guy
You learn a lot about yourself, when you live alone. Every person should spend a period of time, alone.
Being single and living alone is by far the best way to find out if you are good at household chores. Living alone allows you to not do laundry, not clean up after yourself, not do dishes, not sweeping or vacuuming your place. It’s the ultimate litmus test to see what living WITH you would be like.
Obviously you can learn and do all of this while living with other people, but it can be difficult to grasp how much you are and are not doing when other people are also in the shared spaces.
Edit: I just reread the post, and if you are considering what it would be like single again. Just dump her, the relationship will not last if you are having these thoughts. The only thing holding you in is the sunken cost fallacy and fear of being alone.
Never throw away a good relationship because you feel you didn’t date or chase tail enough. You’ll never get it back and will always regret that.
You can find yourself and your independence without breaking up. In fact both if you can help each other find how to do that.
I wouldn’t worry about it. If the girl you’re with is someone you like being with, and you can genuinely envision her being a good wife and mother of your children, then definitely do not throw that away on a lark.
My brother has been with his wife since they were 17 (they’re 32 now), and neither of them have any regrets, at least not to my knowledge, and are very happy.
The glorification of the bachelor lifestyle is something that is exaggerated and glamorized by movies and TV. At the end of the day, most of us are looking for someone to spend our lives with, and if you genuinely think you’ve found that, don’t throw it away.
You have a envious position that many would go to war for. People chase to get what you have. If you do break up, it’s not too difficult to catch up at all. Don’t destroy a good thing because you’re bored.
It’s not something you HAVE to do, but I would strongly suggest learning to live independently. It will give you a chance to spend time with yourself and figure out what YOU want in life.
I didn’t truly live by myself until I was 31. Before that it was a series of couch surfing, roommates, group homes, girlfriends, and a wife. When I rented my first home by myself it was a bit of a shock. All the bills were in my name. Rent was 100% my responsibility, not tossing money at the lease-holder. It forced me to look at my finances and make future decisions rather than making decisions on what I money had on me at that moment.
At the end of the day the routine was come home, check the mail, take a breather, clean up the house, make dinner, eat dinner, clean up dinner, take a breather, do adult stuff (bills, finances, grocery list, planning for the next week etc.). Then it was movies, tv shows, video games, go to a party or a bar, whatever I wanted.
It sounds boring but I was 100% in control of my life, something I’d never had before. I strongly suggest it.
I think it’s worthwhile to have the experience and know that when push comes to shove, you can take care of yourself. As long as your partner isn’t a parental stand-in, you’ll gain a lot of those skills regardless and should be able to transition to single life a lot easier than the straight move-out-of-home.
Slightly related anecdote that you might glean something from, someone recently vented to me about never being taught to be independent. Their parents did a lot of stuff for them in regards to setting up accounts and buying things for them all their life, so they never really picked up the concept of trying to figure out bureaucracy on their own. There was a lot of “i never learnt how to X and don’t know how to do it” which I could only answer with “neither did I, until I tried”.
There’s a lot of pressure on somehow inherently knowing how to do stuff which isn’t really based on anything IMO. The only way to learn is to try. The more you try, the more confident you become at tackling things you’ve never encountered before.
It’s important to learn how to take care of yourself, but you can certainly do that within a relationship as long as you take on your own share of most roles, at least some of the time.
“She cooks and I clean up the dishes” – fine most of the time if that works for you, but if you literally never cook then…you’re not going to learn. So don’t take a 100% hard division of labor with household tasks.
The same goes for basically everything else – as long as you’re not pushing off tasks wholly on her and never learning them yourself, then you’ll be fine in the life skills department.
There is also nothing inherently stopping you from doing things on your own sometimes while in a relationship, and I’m generally of the opinion that it’s healthy to have some time apart and at least sometimes do things solo or at the very least not with your partner.
It’s important (to me) to learn that and to be comfortable with it, but again – it’s not something that being in a healthy relationship should block in any significant way.
Take this with a grain of salt, but if you truly do love your girlfriend, then I think your focus shouldn’t be on being completely alone just for the sake of it… Your focus should be on establishing boundaries and ensuring that your relationship is a priority to both of you, but not your only priority.
It’s very rare and most young people aren’t able to do it, but it is possible to maintain your independence and give each other the freedom to change and grow into the people you’ll eventually become. It’s when one partner appears to “outgrow” the other that the problems typically arise. One partner feels held back while the other one feels left behind and then resentment, jealousy and possessiveness can grow.
But just deciding to be single for the sake of being single seems a bit odd to me. Ultimately, you should do whatever you want to do and don’t lead her on if you’re not invested in a relationship anymore… But just know that if she is good enough for you to have dated her for this long, then there are going to be a lot of other men out there who will be interested in her as well. A lot of guys your age would kill for a girlfriend right now.
It’s really difficult to find balance in life, but this is one of those situations where you definitely shouldn’t settle just because you’ve been with someone for a while and feel like that’s what you should do… But you also have to be careful and make sure you’re not falling victim to the mentality of the “grass is always greener on the other side”. Because it rarely is. Nobody can really tell you what to do, you just have to follow your gut instincts.
There’s something to be said about learning self sufficiency
But don’t let that be a deciding factor
Lived 1000 miles away for college age 18-22 negative net worth at graduation. lived at home from 22 till today 27, on the verge of moving back out. Net worth is around $330k.
I get out of the house pretty much all weekend to visit friends in the city and get some healthy space between my parents. I go to work, gym, hobbies from 6am-8pm about every weekday so barely spend time at home anyway.
If you have a healthy relationship with your parents, its 100% worth it. However, you have to go out of your way to make sure you’re not babied. Contributing around the house to grow/mature is very key.
But dating is absolutely harder living at home.
It’s not important. The reality is you don’t get to live 15 different lives. You are always going to pine over what type of lifestyle you don’t have. The grass is always greener, etc. Just do what you want if it makes sense. If you want to live alone, do it. Don’t make decisions about missing out on an experience or some bullshit. You will go around in circles with that forever.
Be Comfortable in your loneliness, because before you know it you may find yourself hating it after having being placed there again after finding comfort with other
Living alone? It’s not.
Living away from your home so that you are responsible for yourself? That’s a bit different and can help you become more responsible and independent.