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Why I Choose Being Single · The Search

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why I choose being single.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I still want someone.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just know what I don't want anymore.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: The other night, I wanted to reach out to someone.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Normally, I would have.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: This time, I didn't.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I was angry.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I was trying to prove something.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I simply thought about what would probably happen.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I've had enough interactions with this person to have a reasonable idea.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: What I wanted wasn't what I was likely to get.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: The feeling didn't disappear because I understood that.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: I still wanted to reach out.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes our expectations take a little longer to catch up to reality.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: For a long time,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I paid more attention to what a relationship could be,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: what a conversation could become, what someone might eventually be able to give.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm trying to pay more attention to what actually happens.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of what looks like curiosity isn't necessarily curiosity.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's a bridge.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: How was your day?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Can really mean, ask me about mine.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Someone can bring up something important to you because it creates an opening
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: to talk about something important to them.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: We all have needs.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: We all want to be heard.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: We all want reassurance sometimes.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I do too.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I need something else alongside it.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want someone who wants to know me because knowing me is itself interesting to them.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mind someone needing me.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want needing me to become the structure of the relationship.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because once that happens, I start occupying a role I don't want.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I become the person who listens, reassures, understands, steadies and absorbs.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, I stop feeling like a partner and start feeling like a parent.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned that I'm not interested in that kind of relationship.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean I need someone who has everything figured out.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly don't.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't need perfect emotional regulation, perfect communication, perfect reciprocity.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just want someone who can meet me somewhere near the middle.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why being single doesn't feel particularly tragic to me anymore.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Being alone has a lower cost than being in an asymmetric relationship.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean I don't want someone.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm open to meeting people.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm open to being surprised.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm even open to discovering that some of what I currently believe is wrong.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: But wanting a relationship doesn't mean I have to want every version of one.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I still feel the urge to reach backward.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the projection arrives before reality does.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can feel it without following it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not choosing against relationships.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm choosing the kind of relationship I'd actually want to be in.