On the Struggle to Find a Partner

Some of my friends, in school and not, are in the unfortunate position of being pressured from all sides to be finding the right partner and settle down. At the same time, the support network says thing like “You don’t need a man to define yourself”, “You are a talented young woman, you don’t need to be married”, and so on. This is a topic to which I am most sensitive, as we get so many contrasting signals as women it’s not even funny. In our 20s, we are successful if we’re independent, if we have a career, if we’re fighting for not being tied down to a role, and if we’re single. In our 30s, something changes, and our success is measured in whether we’re married or not, whether we have children or not, and- god forbid- whether we can “balance” a career and a family. It drives me nuts.

I am a big supporter of not being in a long relationship till you’re 30, and then find a partner and settle down. However, I am seeing my friends who chose this route struggling constantly with what is expected of them. I feel for them, because if I were single now, I would be miserable no matter what kind of career and what kind of financial success I could claim for myself.

Being married- or I should say, in a relationship- ends up defining me more than the things I could achieve on my own. I am the kind of person I am today because of the constant rebalancing and renegotiating that happens every day in my relationship. I am a better person because I get to always define myself in a pair, and I get to think about my role and my actions and how they affect my husband every moment. I am a friend, a partner, a woman, and then I am an MBA, a talented individual and a successful person. Who I ma is more about what I ma after the workday than during it.

I don’t think this is specific to women- it works for men too, although they are under a lot less pressure from society to do so, and they also are a little bit more numb to this kind of feeling.

I feel for my friends and for their struggle. Although the temptation to try to console others by saying things we know for a fact are not true for ourselves is strong, I try to avoid the entire “you don’t need a man”. It would be pretty hypocritical on my side, don’t you think? This does NOT mean they should settle for the first comer, but it for sure means I am trying a bit harder to introduce them to the fantastic talented single men in my network!