Being Single Taught Me More About Love Than Dating Did

I, like many others, spent my formative years assuming that if I wanted to learn the meaning of love, I needed to be in a relationship. The challenging part was that I grew up in a traditional, conservative Muslim African family, so much of that exploration had to wait until I was out from under the watchful gaze of my mother. Eventually, when freedom was finally awarded to me, I did what any pent-up and chronically Wattpad young person does: I found Tinder and the hellscape of modern online dating.

Each swipe, I thought, would bring me closer to love. Love, after all, was something that happened to people, and it would surely happen to me. It would be found somewhere between an awkward first date and the eventual “what are we?” conversation. I got damn good at dating—so good that friends would joke that I had a Rolodex of options (the quality of those options was an entirely different subject matter altogether). Dating was my hobby.

Dating taught me how to meet people and build connections. It taught me how to flirt, communicate my needs, and, often, recover from eventual disappointment. Dating didn’t teach me love. It taught me a routine. It taught me how to curate myself to meet the needs of the person in front of me. And just like dating, I got good at that. So good that I lost myself.

Losing yourself is easy. Like water on rock, you don't even notice that you're changing until one day it hits you: Your partner is telling you that you're a disappointment, and suddenly you realize you aren't you anymore. You aren't the strong, vivacious, and witty woman you had pinned to your self-image. Instead, you're like his mother—tired and apologetic.

Just like that, my relationship ended, but so did my ideas about love. It was that decision that would become my first step toward finding love—but this time with myself.

Between the trauma of my relationship and the anxiety of finding someone new, I spent the coming months learning how to sleep in the center of the bed, not text someone to ask what they wanted for dinner, and not be disappointed that another birthday would come and I would get a shitty present. It was the first time in years that I wasn't performing or shrinking myself to fit. I laughed louder, bought ridiculously expensive shit, and did not battle the gnawing question, "Is this really what you want?"

While I have joked online that breaking up with my ex felt like seeing the sun after 100 years of rain, it was really finding out that I was the sun all along. It was discovering that love did not come from being desirable, but from the moments when I listened to and trusted myself. I made more room for all the parts of me that are worthy of love.

Love wasn't something I found when someone chose me. It was something I found when I stopped abandoning myself.

As seen in Late Night Projections Issue 01: Petite Fugue, June 2026