[ljm]

You really have to know how to look after yourself, and be happy with yourself, before you can really bring another person into the mix in the form of a committed relationship (using the example of people not having partners or not thinking about children).

There's been an expectation for a long time that your self-worth as a person is connected to being with someone else, and therefore your path to increase self-worth is through a relationship, and then through creating a family by getting married and having kids.

It's not true though, it just forces you to get stuck in unhappy, abusive, or co-dependent relationships with other people because throughout all of your childhood and your formative years, you've been told that happiness is in the other person. That other person has to be responsible for making you feel complete, and you have to be responsible for making them feel complete. I think it's pretty bizarre that we've been taught to give up control over our own sense of self in that way.

Nobody is making excuses, and the internet and Netflix aren't the problem, and it's not as simple as getting out and meeting people. A partner and a baby won't suddenly make you less lonely or more happy, more likely you'll just have two unhappy people who have to work even harder to make a living, and a child that requires therapy.

The one way to not be lonely is to be happy being alone. If you're happy being alone, happy being with yourself, then you have a conscious and mature choice to make about whether or not you'll be happy being with someone else too.

But if you think the only way to not be lonely is a relationship, then sure, maybe you won't be lonely... but will you be content? And if you can't get the relationship, will you just grow bitter and hateful towards the people who won't give you that happiness you so desire?

[helpfulmandrill]

> You really have to know how to look after yourself, and be happy with yourself, before you can really bring another person into the mix.

That's not really true though. We're born social animals, we die social animals. Being solitary isn't a means of "finding oneself" so that one is ready to "bring other people into the mix". It's just a way of slowly going crazy. There's a reason why solitary confinement is a form of punishment, or even torture.

[kordlessagain]

Solitary confinement could drive someone to think differently, but the point was that solitary activity, not confined, is totally tolerable by some and not necessarily a bad thing.

[mchanson]

You don't need to know how to look after yourself. This is perfect is the enemy of the good type situation.

Not being a fully realized person doesn't stop you from making connections. Even deep great friendships. You and your friends can grow together over time. You can cut out friends that are not a good fit over time if they are bad for you (abusive, etc.).

[tsol]

In fact, I find more and more the people who are most successful around me are those who just go for it rather than being contentious and trying to perfect themselves. I think the best place to be is, at always, in the middle. Too much alone time and you may be very independent but you don't want to spend time with others as they're worse company than your own self. Too little alone time, and you become codependent and don't learn to be independent.

[ljm]

Of course, but this isn't the same thing as the parent poster's surprise about people not finding partners or having kids.

I'm talking specifically about that kind of relationship. As everyone has pointed out, it would not be great to take this approach while making friends and doing the things friends do.

[anotherman554]

"A partner and a baby won't suddenly make you less lonely or more happy, more likely you'll just have two unhappy people who have to work even harder to make a living, and a child that requires therapy."

There's nothing wrong with being single, but as a statistical matter, I'm going to go out on a limb and say there are many people, even flawed people who haven't found themselves, for whom a partner and a baby will make them feel less lonely and more happy, otherwise wouldn't our species be extinct? The fact that humans continue to be born suggest nature predisposes us to certain behavior which we see as being in our best interest.

[ljm]

I'm likely projecting a lot of my own life experience because I'm afraid of what might come out if I got involved with someone. Because I've had a history of not so great mental health and I basically have a hard trusting myself that I could be mature. So for me, I have to deal with my own shit first, but maybe as another commenter suggested, perfect is the enemy of good.

I feel like if someone goes into this with the expectation that a romantic relationship, or a family and kids, will solve their problems, then they might find out that they're wrong. Like, they're hedging all of their bets on those things and when you look at, say, the incel community, then you can see it's almost an all-or-nothing proposition because so much is riding on sexual or romantic validation at the expense of almost everything else.

And there are the people who have children to try and rescue a marriage, and then they find out it doesn't work like that. Sunk-cost fallacy, maybe you're not happy with someone and you're also not happy alone, but there is someone else out there who connect with you in the way you need.

If I were to rephrase my original post, I'd say that you should listen to your needs but you shouldn't dismiss that some of those needs, maybe, are fulfilled by you, and not someone else. So make sure that you keep yourself happy and don't put the entirety of that responsibility on another person.

Personally, my priority has been to make close friends and to do my best to keep them, while not being afraid of losing them over time.

Or to put it all another way, I'm the only constant in my life and everything and everyone else is a variable.

[blindmute]

This is a pervasive cope. Relationships, romantic and otherwise, are necessary for most people to be happy. "You're not ready for relationships until you're happy alone," is something people say that doesn't make any real sense. It doesn't indicate a personality deficit, either. It's completely normal and healthy to require relationships for happiness; pretending that this is some sign of mental disorder is a disturbing modern coping mechanism.

What's stranger is that it's rarely a cope for the person saying it. Instead, they are explaining away others' desires as unhealthy, while they often have those desires already fulfilled themselves. It's as though the speaker is uncomfortable with others being lonely and seeks to demonize it as a personal failing.

[jbrun]

The comments below echo what I think. We are social animals, deal with it.