Right, so I have to pretense this with the following:

I am not currently a participant in the single games.

I think my post on couple’s cohabitation made it clear that I am in a relationship that teeters in favor of being very functional and successful 90% of the time (save a few chewing habits).

But this is all new to me. Two years ago I thought the ideal long-term relationship would involve separately owning two different houses on the same block, and participating in adult sleepovers three times a week. In short, I was horribly commitment phobic and REALLY liked my space.

Now I live in a condo the size of most people’s living rooms and only have internal freak outs about it once every 3 months or so. That folks, is what we call PROGRESS. This boy of mine I tell ya; he really Mr. Miyagi’d me.

This is not to say that I was previously unlucky in love. Prior to my current live-in life partner, I participated in some all around fairly fantastic past relationships. And although not right for either party in the long run, I shared these relationships with some really fantastic dudes. I don’t think breaking up and moving on necessarily requires slamming the exes; failing to obtain that elusive happily ever after doesn’t negate the high caliber of these individuals or the journey we took with one another. I only am who I am in a relationship because of everything I learned from them, and for that I will always be thankful.

Yet between those five great humans I would ever think to title with the word “boyfriend,” I too spent many a year treading the field of landmines that is being a single in Toronto.

And, to condense these years into one summary sentence: I LOVED IT.

Cue all my single friends shaking their fists at yelling obscenities at me.

I had a lot of fun when I was single. And I’m not talking the, “Stumble out of a stranger’s bed” kind of fun. I hold no judgment against those who enjoy a little roll in the proverbial hay with someone whose name they don’t know, but being a born and raised Torontonian my world in this city is so obscenely small that one-night stands were never in the cards for me. The way my world works, said stranger would have turned out to be my ex-boyfriend’s cousin’s best friend, they all would have shared a detailed account of my naked bod over a toast at a Jewish wedding, and I would have had to move to Uzbekistan to escape it all.

No, I reveled in singlehood not for the naked dance parties, but because I believed inherently in the importance of becoming a fully developed person with a keen sense of self before I attempted to coexist with another human.

Selfishness is so often given a bad reputation. Yet for most of us, our 20s is the last time in our lives we will get to choose exactly what we want to do and when without having to take the considerations of another person into account; sometimes it’s ok to be a little selfish.

When you’re single any experiences are uniquely yours. All the mistakes are yours to make, the serendipitous discoveries are yours to enjoy and the insights are only yours to savor. I think it’s pivotal to get fully behind the “I” before you attempt to develop the “We.”

Plus, as a girl who just recently got hugely excited to quit her job with no plans of what to do afterward, it’s clear I like not knowing where each day is going to take me. There’s something thrilling about that little corner of your brain that gets to wake up every day thinking, “Who knows, maybe today lighting will strike.”

But then again, this keen sense of optimism comes from someone who hasn’t actually had to navigate the single world in two years. It also comes from someone whose bulk of singlehood was in their early to mid-twenties; a time when you’re either too drunk or too distracted to realize someone is attempting to play games, or to care if you do notice. These are the years that you’re so new and full of unjaded enthusiasm, still operating under the misguided belief that world is full of good men and women and that respect and chivalry is alive and well.

Navigating the single world in your 20s is a breeze. Very few people are seriously contemplating their future at that point, we are all the best looking and most carefree version ourselves that we’ll ever be, and why hunt for a soulmate when there is an overflow of good-for-right-now’s?

Dating within the large and diverse dating pool of your 20s is akin to a game of Candyland where everyone is skipping merrily along Rainbow Trail on the way to Gumdrop Pass; it’s an age and a time in life where relationships are easily won and lost, careers are giant question marks and everyone you meet offers new experiences and lessons learned.

Then people hit 30 and Shit.Gets.Real.

The common consensus from my adult friends navigating those same singlehood landmines in their 30s is a resounding, ”You have GOT to be freakin’ kidding me!”

The game of Candyland has been swapped for Battleship, with everyone exhausted from learning and relearning the same tired lessons. Those first dates and first texts that were once enjoyed and laughed at are now forensically combed through for any trace of douchebag or evidence of a girlfriend/boyfriend/family/recent divorce.

My idea of singlehood being “fun” is now met with eye rolls or death threats, and the common consensus – both male and female – is that my friends would rather slowly impale themselves on a tree branch than subject themselves to another first date.

Much like a slow death by unstripped wood, other metaphors for adult dating I’ve heard in recent months include:

1. “Trying to date in Toronto is like searching for a steak at an all-you-can-eat salad buffet.”
2. “You know that feeling you get when you sit too close to a bonfire and smoke and ash gets in your eye and for a second you are in such excruciating pain that you forget anything good in the world exists and all of you can think is that this pain will never ever subside?… Ya, dating is a lot like that.”
3. “First dates are comparable to 3 hours of repeatedly stubbing your toe. Dating is the raised floor board in the big toe that is my life.”
4. “Dating is lot like that movie Jurassic Park. You think you’re going to an amusement park but instead you get eaten alive by a bloodthirsty prehistoric animal with a small… arms.”
5. “I feel like I am stuck inside an endless loop of job interviews for a job I don’t actually want, but at least it looks good on a resume, you know?”
6. “Is this a SICK JOKE?!”

I feel like my friends are continuously drowning in a pool of low expectations. One of my best girlfriends used to have such incredibly high standards for men. There was a time she said she would only marry a doctor that looked like 2001’s Paul Walker and who would gladly agree to sell his car to buy her a completely unaffordable rock of an engagement ring.

Last week this same friend went on a first date, and when I text messaged her to ask how it was going, she said:

“Dude, he helped me put on my jacket. I think I’m in love.”

Screw a medical degree and a personality. As long as he doesn’t have a secret other family and seems to fulfill the basic human function of replying to a text message within 3 days you best LOCK THAT DOWN.

The bar has been set so low for the male population I think to be declared husband worthy you just have to follow these steps:

1. Walk in a straight line;
2. Have the ability to walk and talk at the same time;
3. Do not introduce yourself to a girl by sending her a picture of your penis over any form of social media;
4. Remember her name;
5. Open a door. Literally any door. Just once. Extra points if you hold it while she walks through it. Or, I don’t know, crack a fucking window and she’ll probably be impressed.

Similarly, for girls,

1. Don’t be batshit crazy;
2. Repeat step 1 for at least 3 months.

Listen, I am not negating the struggle of being single, or valuing the difficult experience of one gender over the other. Just because I happen to be in a relationship now doesn’t mean I don’t empathize with how sadistic the world can seem and how difficult it can be to find someone you genuinely connect with. Male or female or somewhere in between, times are tough out there.

But I also happen to think all of my friends and most of my non-crazy acquaintances are huge bloody rockstars who should never again settle for one of the good-for-right-now’s. The road of relationships is a long one, and those people who seem ahead of the love curve now may be miles behind in two years. Life has a way of blindsiding you at the precise moments that you think you have it all figured out.

By that I mean, to all those single people surrounded by smug friends with fiancées, husbands, wives and live-in-partners: Statistically speaking, for every two weddings you go to this year that someone patronizingly says, “Why are you still single?” one will end in a fiery pit of hate and despair.

There…feel better?

E.