Being Single Is Not A Punishment

How to stop viewing it as one.

Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a newsletter by Shani Silver.

Let me just get this out there, because dancing around it isn’t helping anyone feel better any faster: Collectively, single woman have to stop thinking there’s something wrong with us. It is vital, it is imperative, it is 2025. You don’t deserve to be single. You aren’t single because of your “flaws” or your “incorrect approach” to dating. I know this is hard to process: Being single is not your fault.

Singlehood is not a punishment. It is not a stack of dues you have to pay before you’re “ready” for love. It is not a bank of bad experiences you save up to eventually cash out a partner. You aren’t single because of anything you have control over. You are single because you haven’t met your partner yet, and none of us have any influence whatsoever over Fate. I need single women to stop listening to people who tell us we’re single because we have work to do. They are fucking lying.