You know the proverb (African, I think): "All alone we go faster but together we go further". Well, I wondered if it was true for happiness? Can we be happy even if we live alone, even if we are single, in a society where for adults, the norm displayed is the couple.
What is good about celibacy is that there is plenty of clichés, everyone has their opinion on the subject. But overall, social judgment about singles is often critical. And greatly influences the inner feelings of these same singles.
For example, when they go out alone: to go alone to the cinema, to an exhibition, or even worse to the restaurant, it is often for them a delicate moment. Humans leaving alone wonder what others, as a couple or group, think of them.
This is the dark side of celibacy: single people in public places fear to look suspicious, disturbing, saddening. As in the Dictionary of the Devil, the American writer Ambrose Bierce, who gave this definition: "Alone: in bad company"! Always the very old cliché on celibacy, between sterility and frivolity, concealing or favoring some hidden vice ...
But loneliness also has a heroic side, with other clichés, more favorable: we chose to stay alone because we cherish his freedom, we want to live without concessions, without revolving. Because we prefer to walk alone rather than dragging ourselves together ...
In our view of ourselves, doctors, who do not judge, live alone, it is simply a risk factor for health. Like sedentary lifestyle, overweight, junk food or smoking. And not only because of the suffering and shame sometimes associated with loneliness and social pressures on celibacy.
There is also the fact that a spouse, it monitors us, it shakes us, it goes back to us when we do anything with our lives and our health.
And then, a spouse, it socializes us, too, to two, we often have twice as many friends, opportunities to go out (this is also what is painful in divorces and separations, there is loses a lot of things including a part of our social network).
But, no worries anyway for singles! Because it is the social bond in general, and not just the conjugal bond, which is very beneficial for well-being and health. All studies show that friends are wonderful too!
For example, when we are asked to estimate the height of a mountain, we suppose it to be less high if we experience it with a close friend who is standing right next to us, even if he does not tell us anything . Its mere physical presence gives us the feeling that we can climb the mountain more easily!
Celibacy is not necessarily loneliness. Solitude and happiness is complicated; but celibacy and happiness, it can work! As long as you have lots of friends. And to see them for real, not just on social networks. And to do real things with them, outings, hikes, holidays, trips ... Virtual friends, real loneliness. Real friends, loneliness more beautiful ...
And by the way, does that make you feel uncomfortable, for example, going to the restaurant by yourself?