Marriage, Being Alone, Self-Improvement, and Critical Thinking

We suck at being alone.

The fear of being alone as well as autophibia, the fear of being single, have become an epidemic circulating among young women worldwide. Aside from just loneliness and biology, it goes deeper into how our patriarchal society has continued to morph expectations of women, our expectations from ourselves, and our utter fear of the consequences if we do not achieve this. It has been continuously fed to us that we are not successful until we are married because our success is overlooked and invalid if we do not have someone to share it with– people assume we are not truly happy. Personally, every time I go home to my family I am bombarded by inquiries about my search for a boyfriend, as we assume that this constant search exists in all women.

We are expected to be put together and portray “wifey material” qualities because a woman exploring her sexuality and being too free in modern society is deemed as promiscuous– instead of being a wife, she is a 'one-night stand'.

These mentalities have underlying effects on our mental health and so many women are in a frantic state of disappointment, stress, and sadness when they are alone. I feel happiness levels can be in a much better place if this narrative of marriage and being in relationships was reprogrammed, and maybe instead of being cautious of being by our lonesome, we can avoid living boring lives. Instead of not having someone to share life with, maybe having someone there will hold us back. We do not necessarily need to have an anti-marriage outlook, but there should be an attempt to reframe our ideas on being in a relationship in society as it praises this so much.

Aside from the romantic outlook on not being alone, the pandemic was an intense shift in our definition of loneliness and has even instilled some PTSD in some who struggled during this time. For many, being alone with our own thoughts left people overthinking every aspect of their lives.

Being alone was already a daunting task for those with anxieties before COVID-19, but with this event and the recent exponential increase in social media and technology use, anxiety levels are through the roof. Much of social media still does glorify marriage, young love, and movie clips or other supporting evidence that a woman is helpless without a man. Though, what has come out of select sides of social media is actually a promotion of being by one's self and engaging in this self-help and self-improvement dream. Especially on Tik Tok, girls turn to guidance from influencers to hear how we can see through rose-colored glasses to live a more empowering life by spending more time on ourselves and listening to podcasts, etc.

Alongside face masks in our nighttime routine, I have seen lots of advice that in being alone, we should become critical thinkers. Critically thinking about our mental, and social life, dependencies, governing styles, individuality, the list goes on. But what really has come from this? As a dynamic generation, what do we have to show for our critical thinking? It seems we just have a society with worsened social skills, no community, and an increase in mental health disorders. The main burden we have collectively developed from all of our increased thinking that social media tells us is essential to being alone is judgment.

Overall, our generation, and especially women in our generation because of the underlying patriarchal influence, have no clue how to be alone.