Being resilient in times of crisis with singlehood
By: Fidhia Kemala
Tags: Pandemic Diaries, Quarantinelife, Single Life

The life we hustle offers contentment that lasts in immediate moment. The gratitude we embrace will dissipate gradually as the time is slipping away unnoticed. At the beginning of the quarantine period, I was able to reclaim the time of crisis as a valuable solitude without ignorantly perceived the misfortunes that happened to others. It was the first time I embodied the power of equanimity state where I could carry the misery and the bliss at the same moment with a whole grace. I felt content and accepted regardless there were plenty of inadequacies adhered to the time clock that I could not comply yet. But too little did I know that pleasure and suffering cannot last too long in harmony. The balanced state is always challenged throughout time.

The state of completeness I experienced in the first place shares similar nature with the honeymoon phase. As it passes over, the sense of incompleteness begins to swirl around and permeates the whole night like it used to. The sturdy mental barrier I developed for the last 6 months that I assumed as highly impenetrable is slowly deteriorating. As it gradually crumbles, I feel increasingly enclosed in my own solitude.

Often times, I hollow out in the hole of unconsciousness whilst I seem helpless to draw myself back to the present moment. This mindless state can bring the lost memory back reminded me to acknowledge the acute pain, the cause of rejection I accepted from someone who was no longer projected in my hopelessly romantic dream for the past year. The occupation of this painful feeling in my body is so vivid to sense as if I’ve been rejected for the second time yesterday.

Physical reaction likewise will manifest because of this mental turmoil. There were times when my body worked in the utmost mechanical way like its autopilot button was pushed to switch the whole mechanism on for the survival emergency mode. The autopilot system seemed to impede the ability of the body to sense. Within time, it might develop dysfunction in the brain to process emotional impulses because the whole sensation that I could objectively discern was mere numbness. As the energy depleted through the day, I was immersed in the surge of immense exhaustion. Later I figured out, this experience is close to the elaborate symptoms of pandemic fatigue.

In the honeymoon phase, I could relish my time alone without disturbed by feeling lack of something. Indulging the day with my own interests and productive routines successfully maintained my sense of control and altered the isolation as the moment of consolation. The idea of living without codependence seemed possible at that time. As I ensured myself that I was not dependent on the social relation, whereas on its merit it’s always essential to the formation of individual existence. To feel connected to the world means developing a strong sense of self-worth.

Everyone actually shares similar estrangement to one and another as the universe has been in the trial of social distancing. We’re not allowed to engage in direct physical contact or meeting in person, but social media has long provided an altered form of intimacy for human relations. In the isolation case, the platform would compose interconnectedness between the users so we can feel less alone. However, what occurs to us now the way the algorithm has been controlled and manipulated makes the idea that social media can integrate connection seems overpromising.

Since Mark Zuckerberg “haphazardly” invented Facebook (according to The Social Network), social media has never weighed on the quality of human relationship. What it always serves is displaying limitless information as fast as possible and restraining the engagement time as long as it’s plausible to derive valuable incentives. I don’t have any intention to blame the platform as the actual problem is genuinely at the hand of the green and unregulated market that highly favors the neoliberal-economy system.

The ecosystem of technology market has egged on social media not to help us get closer to each other instead it has trapped us behind the screen with its illusion of intimacy. That compensates a coherent dispute to the inquiry of why we mostly feel excluded and distant from the world represented in the timeline instead of the other way around. Perhaps also a relevant reason for the raging discomfort of why I’ve never felt connected virtually during this crisis time. Regardless of my personality is embedded in the low extraversion spectrum, being in another person’s presence is the kind of intimacy that’s always transfixed me to feel okay, likewise to solidify my own existence.

This pandemic alienation also has ability to reveal the unspoken fear of dying alone. Before the disclosure, this fear was repressed internally long in the labyrinth of subconsciousness, but it’s the type of fear that would likely explode if I perpetually keep diminishing and discounting it with excuse of gratitude. It’s easy to understand if this concern is coming from a person who spends a multitude of years in singlehood like me because from the outside people can simply categorize it as a pathetic rumination.

At some point it may ring frankly right what I experience is loneliness, regarding the current situation somewhat converts my worries into a hostile captivation. It’s enough to make me jump to the conclusion that I’ve been suffering from chronic loneliness as the unmet desire and unexpressed frustration seem never find their own way to fully disperse since my early struggle as an inertly self-conscious child. All the things associated with remoteness, separation, and solitariness do set a proper home for a lonely and single person like me.

It’s hard to track down the main triggers of its emergence as everyone relatively gets lonely in the time of limited social interaction, but what appears to be obvious that the fear of dying alone indeed inextricably entwined with my value of living the life fully. As most of clinical psychology studies depict that deep connection is one of the fundamental aspects that’s required to have a long, prosperous, and happy life. To some extends, it’s not always in the case for coupledom, the rich and qualified connection also can be counted in the form of familial relationship, friendship, and community relation. As I ponder throughout the years of my single life compounded by failures to engage in intimate companionship, this notion always gets my chest heavy. It inevitably cast me down to the hidden and detrimental thought in which I begin to see myself as a monster who is unfit to romantic love. How do we survive if we’re not intimately connected with anyone?

But, I never identify this act of rumination as the way I look down the singlehood I inhabit. The state of spouseless is an optional matter, something you consciously decide to be. Besides, the destiny of love is actually a mystery that’s impossible to be solved neither by me nor anyone. If you think a person who has ventured in single life for so many years is so obsessed with coupling out, why doesn’t she or he date everyone intensively until they’re drenched in the cascade of love, suffocated by the relationship, and become loveless? In spite, that scientific findings can astutely debunk the myth of a single person’s life that’s well-known projected to be pitiful, insufficient, and miserable. In order to get yourself a happy life, you don’t have to compromise in the coupledom or institution like marriage as long as you have mutual friendship, supportive neighbors, or loyal family members who will accompany you until the end of your life.

However, I’m a little bit cautious with the idea of celebrating my single life because the majority of people deem this confession as something strange and uncooperative to the normal convention. In the modern world, for a woman who’s reaching her late 20’s, reclaiming her singlehood may not as taboo as what the queer community tries to fight for and it is indeed an endearing attitude that needs to express more prevalent in the age of Me Too movement. Whereas it is too often predestined to pull and flee people away from you, or could be specifically viewed as a turnoff trait by your potential partner. At the time you convey yourself as a proud single if people manage not to seem bewildered by that, however they will slightly protrude discomfort and feel sorry for you along with prejudice that belittles you as a despicable cynic. However you proclaim how this choice benefits you in the most rational way, they just can’t help to pity you.

In the end, people will receive it unpleasantly alongside the society have drawn mild exclusion that actually supplies enough validation to the initial insecurity I mentioned previously. Apparently to be a single person is a kind of failure because there’s always a crucial piece missing to make you as a complete human being.

There’s a quick way to make amends with vulnerability in the aloneness by unfavorably comparing the abundance of freedom in your single life with your friend’s married life, especially with some who have kids, or the loss of enthusiasm inside your friends’ long-term relationship. But, I always question the fairness of this comparison as I find it’s never fair for people to ask “why am I still single?” if they don’t also ask in the same sentiment why other people get married as well. On the other hand, I don’t want to manipulate someone else’s plights and experiences in order to console my loneliness. Whether the person is in a relationship or not, in the journey to cultivate a genuine connection with another human being we have distinct and personal quandaries that can’t be overlooked as precisely identical.

Also, it would be a lie if I don’t yearn for profound companionship while the stressors in this pandemic time are piling up over time, reaching the fever pitch. If there’s another bad news closing the abysmal year of 2020, I would likely get a stroke attack. But what has been prominent to concede with times of crisis is the way we respond to it, what’s kind of relationship we want to engage so we can generate resilience as the core of our survival instinct.

The fear of dying alone can be experienced whether you’re a depressed single person or a happily married person. Even someone who’s lucky enough to have a long-term reciprocal and reliable relationship with the compatible partner still has the probability to counter death in companionless, subsequently shattered by loneliness bullet. Like before, the concept of equanimity can serve as an antidote for me to sit with inadequacies. Not all the form of loneliness in singlehood need a fixed cure, it may only looking for space so it can be gently embraced as I candidly express in this writing. Soon some frictions will confront this composed state weakening, and I will set myself to prevent it collapses by continuously let my heart open for love and believe in miraculous hope.