{"id":390729,"date":"2026-04-21T17:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/390729\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T17:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T17:00:19","slug":"3-signs-that-youre-better-off-single","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/390729\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Signs That You’re Better Off Single"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psychologist Bella DePaulo\u2019s 2023 research<\/a> from the Journal of Family Theory and Review distinguishes between people who are single by circumstance and those who genuinely flourish alone. She argues that the happiness<\/a> gap between single and coupled people is far narrower than popular culture suggests, and often disappears entirely when personal choice is factored in.<\/p>\n

None of what follows is an argument against relationships. It\u2019s an argument for the kind of self-knowledge that makes a relationship worth having. Sometimes, the most psychologically sophisticated thing a person can do is resist a cultural script long enough to ask themselves, \u201cDo I actually want this right now, or have I just been told that I should?\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are three signs that being single right now might be the more honest and, ultimately, healthier choice.<\/p>\n

1. You\u2019re Drawn to Partners (Not Partnerships) When You\u2019re Single<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a particular kind of person who feels most alive at the beginning of something. The texts that arrive a little too fast; the electric uncertainty of whether someone likes you back; the way a new connection can make an ordinary Tuesday feel charged with meaning. It feels like love.<\/p>\n

But psychologist Dorothy Tennov, who has spent years studying romantic obsession<\/a>, has a different name for it: limerence. Limerence is the intense, involuntary pull toward another person that characterizes early-stage romantic pursuit. It\u2019s not fraudulent because the feelings are real, but it is neurologically closer to anxiety<\/a> relief than to genuine intimacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Classic brain-imaging research<\/a> from Psychological Medicine notes that people in the early stages of romantic pursuit show activation patterns strikingly similar to those seen in obsessive-compulsive<\/a> disorder. The brain isn\u2019t falling in love so much as it\u2019s fixating, seeking resolution to an open loop. The sign to pay attention<\/a> to is what happens after the loop closes: After someone likes you back, the uncertainty settles, and things become stable. For people who are genuinely drawn to partnership, that\u2019s when a relationship deepens. But for people who are drawn to the pursuit, that\u2019s often when restlessness begins.<\/p>\n

If you find yourself repeatedly energized by new connections and inexplicably flat once they become secure, the honest question isn\u2019t, \u201cWhy can\u2019t I find the right person?\u201d Rather, it is, \u201cWhat am I actually looking for when I look for someone?\u201d That question is worth considering deeply and, if required, repeatedly, before asking anyone else to be the answer.<\/p>\n

2. Your Sense of Self Is Tied to Your Relationship Status (And Flatlines When You\u2019re Single)<\/p>\n

Consider how it feels to walk into a social situation where you know people will ask whether you\u2019re seeing someone. For some, it\u2019s a neutral question. For others, it functions less like small talk and more like a performance review. Some people register an inquiry like that as a moment where some invisible score is updated based on their answer. This is known as contingent self-esteem<\/a>: a sense of personal value that is tied to external validation rather than internal stability, a fragile foundation for anyone\u2019s self-worth. And when relationship status becomes a primary source of that validation, being single doesn\u2019t merely feel lonely<\/a>; it feels like evidence of something wrong.<\/p>\n

The problem isn\u2019t necessarily with wanting a relationship. The problem is when the desire for a relationship becomes inseparable from the need to feel acceptable.<\/p>\n

Research on relationship-contingent self-esteem has consistently found that people who rely on romantic partnerships for their sense of worth are more likely to suppress their own needs within relationships and stay in unsatisfying ones. They\u2019re also ultimately less satisfied, even when things appear to be going well.<\/p>\n

The hard pill to swallow in this story is the work of building a more stable self-concept<\/a> that doesn\u2019t depend on being chosen, which can only be done while single. Every relationship entered from a place of \u201cI need this to feel okay\u201d delays that work because it fails to replace it. If you notice that your baseline sense of yourself shifts meaningfully depending on whether you\u2019re with someone, that\u2019s not a reason to find someone faster. It\u2019s a sign that the more valuable project is waiting for your undivided attention.<\/p>\n

Relationships Essential Reads<\/p>\n

3. You Have a Pattern You Haven\u2019t Been Single Long Enough to Examine<\/p>\n

Most people who\u2019ve been through a few relationships have, at some point, noticed a theme. Not always the dramatic kind: \u201cI always date someone cruel.\u201d \u201cIt always ends the same way.\u201d Often, it\u2019s more:<\/p>\n

Feeling as though your partners never truly see you
\nBeing the one who cares a little more
\nFeeling like the unspoken manager for the emotional temperature of your relationships
\nFeeling compelled to shrink yourself to make your partners more comfortable<\/p>\n

Attachment theory<\/a> offers one explanation for why these patterns persist. The relational dynamics we experienced earliest become deeply grooved defaults that shape who we\u2019re drawn to, how we behave when we feel threatened, and what \u201cnormal\u201d feels like inside a relationship. Familiarity, even painful familiarity, can register with the nervous system<\/a> as safety.<\/p>\n

The difficulty is that these patterns are almost impossible to examine clearly from inside a relationship. There\u2019s too much happening: too much to manage, too much to feel, too many opportunities to locate the problem in the other person rather than in the dynamic you keep recreating together. It\u2019s not a failure of intelligence<\/a> or self-awareness. It\u2019s simply how proximity works. We can\u2019t see the shape of something we\u2019re standing inside.<\/p>\n

Research<\/a> shows that self-concept clarity often declines right after a romantic breakup; however, it tends to recover as individuals spend time reflecting on themselves and re-constructing their self-identity, rather than immediately entering another relationship. Higher self-concept clarity after a period of reflection has been linked with better psychological adjustment post-breakup.<\/p>\n

Recognizing a pattern isn\u2019t the same as being broken. It doesn\u2019t mean your history has condemned you to repeat itself. But you can only examine a pattern from outside of it, and singlehood<\/a>, for all of its discomforts, offers exactly that vantage point.<\/p>\n

A version of this post also appears on Forbes.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Psychologist Bella DePaulo\u2019s 2023 research from the Journal of Family Theory and Review distinguishes between people who are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-390729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}