The joy of being single

I took part in a speech contest at Promuda Toastmasters Club last night. There were two contests running - table topics and international speech. I contested in the latter, and won second runner-up.

My speech was titled "The Joy of Being Single", taking inspiration from Allia Zobel who wrote a book on the same title. Here's an excerpt from my speech:

In her book, "The Joy of Being Single", Allia Zobel wrote: "Forget rumors about married people living longer. Or that single people are miserable. Or that two can live as cheaply as one. Married people started these rumors out of pure jealousy!"

I agree with Zobel, because if that isn't so, then tell me why one in three marriages ends in divorce. Au contraire, the benefits of being single are myriad.

Being single gives you many levels of freedom, where being married is many many layers of co-dependency. As a singleton, you have the freedom to be yourself, because you're not answerable to anyone.

You can be yourself. When you're with someone, there's always give and take and you lose yourself to a degree, sometimes, completely.

You don't have to look your best like 24 hours a day, because there is someone else living with you. Like when you're pissed you can throw up and fall asleep on the bathroom floor or have a row with your own reflection – and win – and not worry that someone might look at you and think, "Eeeugh! I'm married to her," and, "She's gross."!

The in-laws and the out-laws. If you don't have a mother-in-law, you don’t have to be nice to anybody’s mother but your own. You don't have to deal with questions like “Are you going to wear that to my parents’ house?” from the hubby.

You make all the choices. It’s easier scheduling holidays, parties and gatherings without the pressures of accommodating another person’s agenda. If you are free of commitments, you can completely reinvent yourself, change careers, go back to school, set up a business or sell up and go traveling. You can choose where and how you live and you can be as self-indulgent or batty as you like in your own four walls.

Not having to explain yourself. You can splurge on yourself – and answer to no one. You can just take yourself off and do things on your own, like walk by the river or go to the cinema or read in the park, without having to explain that you're not in a mood or having to convince the other half that you're not sneaking off for an illicit love tryst.

You have your time alone anytime you want it. You don’t have your time alone - it's near impossible to get when you're in a relationship. Relationships eat time and not having one gives you the opportunity to do. The nicest thing about being single is that you don’t have to factor someone else into your time.

You can be spontaneous without feeling guilty. You can go out with my friends at short notice and I don't have to tell or discuss it with anyone. There's no guilt, it's great. You don't have to consider phoning home when you're out late or justify long, legless girls' nights out, which you can have as often as you like. You can change all your plans for no reason. You can go to the country for a night and decide to stay four days and the only person you'd miss would be your cat.

You can flirt with anyone and everyone you fancy. You are perfectly free to reciprocate all male attention, which is marvelous - and you don't have to stop at flirting.

after marriage 


No interruptions. The bliss of being single is not having to interrupt shopping, sunbathing, reading, or adventuring because your bloke is whinging, again, about being hungry. You can stay up and watch movies all night if you want to.

On a more romantic note, you can also cherish the notion of the perfect man. Being single means that your hopes and dreams of finding that knight in shining armor are still vivid. Once you're married, those dreams are shattered. Love is blind, marriage is an eye opener!

In concluding, "I'm not saying being single is not better than being attached, but just as good. Being single is fun, but being in a relationship is rewarding. Both have positive attributes.Since a mate should complement your life and not be your life, we should be happy with ourselves before being able to be happy with anyone else. So much in relationships is about sacrifice and compromise. I'll be prepared to do that again for the right person, but until then I'm enjoying myself."