At least once a week or so, I choose a weekend afternoon or evening to spend entirely alone. During this time, I’ll treat myself to something fresh and enjoyable: it could be seeing a new movie, trying a new restaurant, diving into a book, or even holing up in my living room wrapped up in blankets and binge-watching Netflix. The main point is to disconnect from the world and spend some quality one-on-one time with myself.
I do this often enough that people ask me why I’m so insistent about spending this time alone, but the answer is simple: to make sure I am happy and enjoying my life. The easiest way to figure that out, for me, is by spending time alone. The way I look at it, I have a date night for myself to make sure that I’m doing well.
In the past, I’ve felt that spending time alone was a sign of a failure, that I was making mistakes in my social life if I wound up alone on a Saturday night. But the older I become, the more I appreciate this time to decompress and reconnect with myself. In fact, I’ve learned that the better I understand myself, the better my other relationships become. I realized that if I didn’t want to spend time alone with myself, how could I expect other people to want to? It wasn’t my most pleasant epiphany, but in the long run, it has been invaluable for building up my confidence and self-worth; now I can feel comfortable and happy in my own skin, all by myself or in a large group.
However, there is a stigma associated with wanting to spend time alone, or to “date yourself” that keeps many people from being happier than they could be. By allowing others to dictate the best way for you to spend your time, you’re basically eliminating your choice in the matter of how to live your life. By going along with others’ plans, simply for the sake of convenience, you’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to figure out what you truly want to do.
Don’t get me wrong, I have been convinced to go out many a time, after some initial protest, and thought, “Eh, I probably could have stayed home and enjoyed myself just as much.” But it’s nights like those that make me appreciate the ones I have all to myself even more.
One issue seems to confound my peers. If I want to have a date-like night out such as dinner and a movie, why don’t I find a companion? In my mind, it always goes back to my initial question: if I don’t enjoy spending time with myself, how can I expect anyone else to? Even if I was in the most amazing, perfect, unrealistically problem-free relationship, I would still need to be dating myself as well. Otherwise, I would lose touch with who I am and, as a result, the relationship would lose its footing and fail.
Over the course of my life, the most important relationship for me to monitor is my relationship with myself. Not that my other relationships won’t be valuable as well, but without a firm and stable foundation within myself, everything else will be weaker as a result. We spend so much time worrying about others, that sometimes it can be easy to forget about ourselves.
By taking care of myself, whether it be buying myself a brownie from the bakery on my way home, seeing a new movie, or simply being alone with my thoughts, I can help to make sure all of my relationships survive and thrive. Even if you don’t think the whole “dating yourself” thing is for you, give it a try; you might be surprised at how happy taking a little me-time can make you.
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