1. You get to design your living space exactly as you want it, and appreciate the serenity and freedom that comes with no one encroaching on your little bubble.
2. You get to make a list of all the things you want to do and move through them one by one without ever having to stop and ask another person if they are okay with doing it.
3. You learn what it means to define yourself as an individual, and not even tangentially as part of a unit.
4. For many things — from sleeping through the night, to feeling good about yourself, to trying new activities — you learn to rely on yourself, and to be your own support system when you need it.
5. You can go home to your family, or take a trip somewhere new, for a period of time if you need to, and not have to worry about anyone else’s life being affected by your distance. You don’t have to maintain any relationship while you are away.
6. You don’t have to take anyone’s opinion into consideration when planning a vacation.
7. Every day you live holds the potential of starting an entirely new love story — whether with a partner or a city or a book — and you never know when or where yours is going to start.
8. You can dedicate nearly all your social time to developing and enriching the friendships which sometimes fall by the wayside when you are consumed with a new relationship.
9. You can figure out the things which are important to accomplish by yourself, and work on achieving higher and higher goals on your own.
10. You can throw yourself fully into your work — even to the point that you’re not seeing your friends as frequently as you’d like to — and don’t have to worry about it coming at the cost of your relationship.
11. You don’t have to feel guilty about being the most important thing in your life.
12. In the absence of someone else’s opinion or touch or reinforcement, you can decide exactly how you feel about your own body and how you would like to improve or change it, if you’re not happy.
13. You can engage in long moments of self-care, and not have to explain to anyone why you’re upset or why you need to be by yourself for a while.
14. No one is going to take your solitude personally.
15. You get to spend extended periods of time wandering around, reading, people-watching, drinking tea, and listening to the kinds of things you think about when no one is telling you what they want to do next.
16. You can decide the things that you love about being single — the parts of you that you absolutely don’t want to disappear when you get into a relationship — and learn to set boundaries around them. You can refuse relationships that encroach on your personal time or ability to make your own choices.
17. Because of all the time you are able to spend working on your platonic or familial relationships, you realize how essential and affirming all of these different connections can be, and how much you need to care for them when you’re back into a relationship again.
18. You can take as much time as you need to lick your wounds from previous hurts or disappointments.
19. All of your energy can go towards taking care of and improving yourself, from working hard on a project to learning a new language to redoing your entire apartment, and you don’t have to reserve a designated amount of time to taking care of someone else.
20. The fear that we all live with — the fear of being alone, and that somehow denoting failure — begin to ebb as you realize that being alone can be just wonderful.
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