Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine, Hey fam Today on the bright Side, we're
Speaker 1: kicking off a week of love and romance ahead of
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day, and today's show is a must listen. Throw
Speaker 1: out every piece of advice about love you've ever been given,
Speaker 1: because today we're learning how to be our own best life.
Speaker 1: Partner with writer Megan Cain. Her new book Party of
Speaker 1: One is a fearless approach to self love. She'll dish
Speaker 1: on how to shed the stigma of being alone, build
Speaker 1: a life you love, and the power of building community.
Speaker 1: It's Monday, February tenth. I'm Simone Voice, I'm.
Speaker 2: Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: On my Mind Monday is brought to you by Lareel Paris.
Speaker 3: Okay, Danielle, So what is on your mind? Loven Maris? Okay,
Speaker 3: here's why.
Speaker 2: I read a piece in the Atlantic called America's marriage
Speaker 2: material shortage. Whooh do you think we have one?
Speaker 4: Anecdotally?
Speaker 2: Yes, right, My friends and I talk about this all
Speaker 2: the time because it feels like there's not enough good
Speaker 2: men for all the great women we know.
Speaker 3: So but like you said, it's all anecdotal.
Speaker 2: So this article says that a lot of young people
Speaker 2: are not even dating anymore. There's a significant decline in
Speaker 2: youth romance. There's even a decline in twelfth graders dating.
Speaker 2: It's fallen from about eighty five percent in the nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties to less than fifty percent in the twenty twenties.
Speaker 3: What is this shark decline about.
Speaker 2: It can't just be self love, Like love is such
Speaker 2: a human instinct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what is this about? I mean, the first thing
Speaker 1: that comes to mind for me. I can only think
Speaker 1: about it from a woman's perspective, right, because that's my experience.
Speaker 1: Women are increasingly living bigger and bigger lives and doing
Speaker 1: so outside of the context of a partnership. You know,
Speaker 1: women are postponing child rearing and marriage and all these
Speaker 1: traditional deadlines that society has imposed upon us.
Speaker 3: And I wonder if that's part of it.
Speaker 4: If in that shift.
Speaker 1: Towards these these bigger lives, women are just deprioritizing and
Speaker 1: decentering relationships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think there's an economic factor here too.
Speaker 2: Women don't really need a partner anymore. But what's interesting is,
Speaker 2: like these studies talk about twelfth graders in general, so
Speaker 2: it's not just women. I don't know it feels like
Speaker 2: the world is really renegotiating what love and relationships look like,
Speaker 2: what marriage looks like. And I think it's an interesting
Speaker 2: topic to think more deeply about as Valentine's Day is approaching,
Speaker 2: when people are really thinking and focusing on love.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, our guest today is here to flip the script.
Speaker 1: She's offering a different perspective on the way we value relationships,
Speaker 1: and really she's challenging us to rethink everything we know
Speaker 1: about romance, partnership, and love. She's here to remind us
Speaker 1: that the most important relationship we'll ever have, the one
Speaker 1: that shape every other connection, is the one we have
Speaker 1: with ourselves.
Speaker 2: And our guest today just wants to toss out the
Speaker 2: rule book on love. At a time when everyone is
Speaker 2: obsessing over dinner reservations and the perfect Valentine's Day plans,
Speaker 2: She's inviting us to do something completely opposite, to look
Speaker 2: inward and maybe even redefine what love and relationships mean
Speaker 2: and look like.
Speaker 3: Our guest is Megan Kin.
Speaker 1: She's the writer of a book called Party of One,
Speaker 1: Be your own best life Partner, and she's also the
Speaker 1: founder of NPR's Life Kit podcast, which brings listeners advice
Speaker 1: about personal finance, health, and of course, relationships.
Speaker 2: After a couple of really rocking breakups, Megan decided to
Speaker 2: look at her life and approach love completely different. She says,
Speaker 2: it's really important to spend some time alone.
Speaker 1: Yes, and what's kind of sweet about her story is
Speaker 1: that she now has a partner. So I'm really curious
Speaker 1: to hear how embracing this idea ended up leading her
Speaker 1: to potentially the love of her life. Danielle, I know
Speaker 1: you had a wonderful conversation with her, and I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to hear.
Speaker 2: Absolutely my conversation with Megan Kin right after the break
Speaker 2: Thanks to our partners at Lorel Paris, because you're worth it.
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Speaker 1: Paris delivers expert backed beauty that empowers confidence. Discover your
Speaker 1: perfect routine at Lorel Paris USA dot com.
Speaker 3: Megan, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to talk to you today, not just
Speaker 2: because I'm single, but also because you were on a
Speaker 2: mission to challenge popular conventions about love and relationships, and
Speaker 2: I think that this message is so needed in our culture.
Speaker 2: Inciting makes us feel that we have to be in
Speaker 2: a relationship to feel complete, and you're saying it's okay
Speaker 2: to be single. What made you want to challenge the
Speaker 2: conventional ideology around relationships and love?
Speaker 3: Why take this on?
Speaker 5: Well, in my mid to late twenties, I was thinking
Speaker 5: a lot about how I didn't have a boyfriend, how
Speaker 5: I had been in a serious relationship. And now, of
Speaker 5: course I've had plenty of different types of relationships. I
Speaker 5: had friendships, I had relationships with mentors and coaches and
Speaker 5: all these other people in my life, but of course
Speaker 5: what culture puts on a pedestal is the romantic relationship.
Speaker 5: So I was really in my head about what that meant.
Speaker 5: And even though I knew that being on your own
Speaker 5: was very valid, there was nothing to be ashamed of it.
Speaker 5: I had a hard time bridging my head in my heart.
Speaker 5: I wanted to kind of slow things down and understand
Speaker 5: where exactly this pressure was coming from, even though I
Speaker 5: knew about it, How do I actually start to feel
Speaker 5: in my body that I could take down the pressure
Speaker 5: and have a calm no matter what my relationship status
Speaker 5: would be.
Speaker 2: I actually think that your late twenties are often the
Speaker 2: time where you start thinking about that because you've had
Speaker 2: maybe some good relationships, some bad relationships, some people none
Speaker 2: at all, and you start really taking stock. I'm curious
Speaker 2: how things like movies and books and romance novels sort
Speaker 2: of impacted your view on these relationships. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely so. I'm an elder millennial.
Speaker 5: So I came up in the Disney you know, renaissance
Speaker 5: of you know, the Little Mermaid beating the Beast, and
Speaker 5: you know, of course there's so much good social criticism
Speaker 5: about why those are flowed. Right, I'm not making anything
Speaker 5: new here, of course, it's like your princess that needs
Speaker 5: to be saved, and then the rest of your life
Speaker 5: starts at this like adult coronation of a wedding, right,
Speaker 5: and then again after that, good luck.
Speaker 4: We don't know really what happens to you after that.
Speaker 5: And you know, but I think by the time I
Speaker 5: got to middle school, high school, I knew I didn't
Speaker 5: want to be a princess.
Speaker 4: I was like, that's not me. I'm independent.
Speaker 5: But then like even movies like the kind of like
Speaker 5: team rom coms of the early two thousands that were
Speaker 5: so based on like you're a loser if you're you know,
Speaker 5: pursuing art, like Rachel Lee Cook and you know, shoes
Speaker 5: all that and have like glasses in a ponytail that
Speaker 5: if you are somehow not conforming to the absolute norm,
Speaker 5: you're seen as an outcast.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the moment you realize no one was
Speaker 2: coming to save you.
Speaker 4: I think pretty early in my twenties, I.
Speaker 5: Would say I had like needed someone that was like
Speaker 5: my friend's realm me, you know how it is in
Speaker 5: your early twenties. And we went on like a handful
Speaker 5: of dates, if you could even call them that.
Speaker 4: Like, it was all very like unclear, and I could.
Speaker 5: Tell he was starting to really distance himself and maybe
Speaker 5: not really fully goes me because we had mutual friends,
Speaker 5: but be like, this is not happening anymore. And I
Speaker 5: remember sitting on the floor of my kitchen like just crying,
Speaker 5: and I was like, I know, breakup suck.
Speaker 4: Is this even a breakup?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: There was no labels, but I was like.
Speaker 5: Oh, I can't depend on other people to make me
Speaker 5: feel a certain way, because if anyone's ever done a
Speaker 5: group project, working with other people or depending on other
Speaker 5: people to achieve a goal can be very hard. So
Speaker 5: I think that was the beginning seeds of like I
Speaker 5: need to figure out how this works in my life,
Speaker 5: in my body, in my psyche, so I can feel
Speaker 5: at least stable, not even just good, I would say,
Speaker 5: like stable.
Speaker 2: As horrible as breakups are, you know, I don't wish
Speaker 2: them on my worst enemy. You are broken open in
Speaker 2: a way that I think there's so much room for
Speaker 2: incredible growth and self reflection. Would you categorize your relationships
Speaker 2: as having been good or bad?
Speaker 3: Or where do you see them?
Speaker 5: When I look back up my relationships in my twenties
Speaker 5: that I write about in the book, I would not
Speaker 5: call them bad.
Speaker 4: I was not showing up authentically in them. I thought
Speaker 4: I was because I was.
Speaker 5: Feeling like myself in those relationships and that I had chemistry,
Speaker 5: because there is such an emphasis when you're dating on
Speaker 5: your chemistry in chemistry's important, right, Like you want to
Speaker 5: feel that you know that sparkin that flow with someone.
Speaker 5: But I think I thought chemistry alone would take me far.
Speaker 5: And what I didn't realize was I had to I
Speaker 5: was silencing myself in a lot of ways where I
Speaker 5: was not saying, actually, I don't like it when we
Speaker 5: interact in this way, or why did we have this fight,
Speaker 5: like that's it's weird to me, or do you even
Speaker 5: want kids?
Speaker 4: Like even but like I'm trying to figure it out
Speaker 4: myself too.
Speaker 5: We need to figure that out if we're getting past
Speaker 5: a certain point, because I need to know one way
Speaker 5: or the other.
Speaker 4: And so I don't think they were bad and necessarily in.
Speaker 5: Terms of relationship, I wasn't my full authentic self in
Speaker 5: them because I was so conditioned like some many of
Speaker 5: us are, to just see, hey, you check the box.
Speaker 4: Great, Now shut up. You're in a relationship. And that's so.
Speaker 5: Unfortunate because in the best case scenario it was, you know,
Speaker 5: for me that like nothing really necessarily bad, cap But
Speaker 5: in the worst case is that you say, with that
Speaker 5: person for a very long time or something much darker happens. Right,
Speaker 5: So it's not to say this is anyone's fault necessarily,
Speaker 5: But looking back on those relationships, I'm glad that they happen.
Speaker 4: I'm glad they're in the rearview mirror.
Speaker 2: You mentioned in your book that you feel like you
Speaker 2: were part of this rare club in your twenties.
Speaker 3: What does that mean.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it really feels like between singles and those relationships,
Speaker 5: there's like this like kind of like divide right where
Speaker 5: you're like, if you're single, like you're in a waiting
Speaker 5: room almost, and then like through this door, this magical
Speaker 5: door is the club of couple people, right. And once
Speaker 5: I crossed that threshold, I had this ugly confidence about
Speaker 5: what it meant to be in a relationship. I felt
Speaker 5: very proud and kind of like, look at us for
Speaker 5: holding each other's hands in public. I'm in a relationship,
Speaker 5: like kind of very performative and like not really focusing
Speaker 5: on again, things that are actually important in a relationship,
Speaker 5: just kind of showing off the sense of a relationship
Speaker 5: for folks. And the club felt like, you know, it's
Speaker 5: exactly that, it's an exclusion you know, it's an exclusionary right.
Speaker 5: Clubs are inherently closed off. And what I begin to
Speaker 5: see is like we don't service anybody when we think
Speaker 5: about singles versus married people. Right, So when we turn
Speaker 5: down the pressure on what it means to be single,
Speaker 5: when we destigmatize what it means to be single, I
Speaker 5: think what it does is it has an interesting impact
Speaker 5: on couples, because what it does is it shows couples, hey,
Speaker 5: I can think about my own personhood within a relationship.
Speaker 5: I can think about how single people are part of
Speaker 5: my community who would have thought right, and then those
Speaker 5: single people feel like treated better by people who are
Speaker 5: coupled off in their life.
Speaker 4: So there's less of this like versus each.
Speaker 5: Other kind of dynamic, and I think a more colistic
Speaker 5: community can come into play.
Speaker 2: I'm really interested and something that you write about in
Speaker 2: your book called the haze, and you say that it
Speaker 2: contributes to the way that we see relationships. What is
Speaker 2: the haze and how does it play out in the
Speaker 2: way that we think about what we should want?
Speaker 5: So the Hayes is my metaphor for all the societal
Speaker 5: messages that we receive that can really engulf us and
Speaker 5: make us think that that's our whole reality. Right, Like,
Speaker 5: think about driving like a car through fog. It feels like, ah,
Speaker 5: you can't even see two feet in front of you,
Speaker 5: and it feels suffocating.
Speaker 4: But when reality on the other side of that fog,
Speaker 4: when you drive out.
Speaker 5: Of the haze and the clouds, you see so much
Speaker 5: around you, like the world gets bigger again, right, And
Speaker 5: I was trying to think of something that really felt like,
Speaker 5: something that doesn't necessarily feel that invasive or harmful but
Speaker 5: it kind of does envelop you and sneak up on
Speaker 5: you and literally clouds your judgment about.
Speaker 4: What you want.
Speaker 5: I think what I chose the metaphor of the Hayes
Speaker 5: is because you can always kind of like poke your
Speaker 5: head out if you want, right, all you have to
Speaker 5: do is be aware of it, like the kind of
Speaker 5: classic therapy talk of name entertainment.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: And so for me, the Hayes is it's just exactly
Speaker 5: how I felt, was like I feel consumed by all
Speaker 5: these messages that are telling me you need to have
Speaker 5: a relationship, you need to have a romantic relationship, you
Speaker 5: need to get married, without me thinking for myself, well
Speaker 5: what do I actually want?
Speaker 4: Even if I do want.
Speaker 5: To have a partner and get married, what does that
Speaker 5: actually look like to me? Not what everyone else is
Speaker 5: telling me? And the whole process of the book was
Speaker 5: kind of just picking off that haze and like stepping
Speaker 5: through and out of it so I could think, Okay,
Speaker 5: what do I actually want?
Speaker 4: Not just what is right in front of me?
Speaker 2: How did you step out of it? Was it therapy?
Speaker 2: Did you ask yourself questions? Definitely a lot of therapy.
Speaker 5: I think what it was the mission for me in
Speaker 5: this book too, Again was really how do I internalize
Speaker 5: these messages of living day to day of it's okay
Speaker 5: to be single, because again I knew intellectually that was
Speaker 5: the case, but sometimes you just feel sad, right because
Speaker 5: you feel sad? And I had to think about what
Speaker 5: was making me over the top upset, and what I
Speaker 5: kept coming back to was shame.
Speaker 4: Was the shame that was.
Speaker 5: Being layered onto feeling frustration or upset or that date
Speaker 5: didn't go well, or man, I thought this was promising.
Speaker 5: We had five dates, it's not great, and then damn,
Speaker 5: like everything just.
Speaker 4: Bought himed out from me.
Speaker 5: And when in fact, you can just focus on I
Speaker 5: feel sad because I feel sad, you can really boil
Speaker 5: it down because the layer of shame that gets kind
Speaker 5: of vacillined over all of the rest of that is
Speaker 5: the thing that actually is creating the upset. I was
Speaker 5: thinking a lot about how I also like live in
Speaker 5: my head right, how we all do, and the kind
Speaker 5: of story I was telling myself, and how I could
Speaker 5: you know, rain those back in to get down to reality.
Speaker 2: My best friend from college just said something so similar.
Speaker 2: We were at dinner the other night and she's thirty three.
Speaker 2: I'm thirty four, and she was like, can you believe
Speaker 2: this is our life? Like I never thought we would
Speaker 2: both all three of us were sitting there, single, and
Speaker 2: she was like, the weird part is that I'm having
Speaker 2: this dissonance that I'm actually the happiest I've ever been.
Speaker 2: I wake up really happy, really self assured. I have
Speaker 2: a career, I like, I have friends, I love. I
Speaker 2: don't necessarily feel like I need this thing, and yet
Speaker 2: I feel like I need this thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, because the conditioning is very, very strong.
Speaker 4: I think it is.
Speaker 5: Great to see that there is such a wave of
Speaker 5: support for platonic love and you know, really appreciating all
Speaker 5: the different types of love in one's life. There's this
Speaker 5: Harvard study that I write about. It's like one of
Speaker 5: the longest studies on human development. And they tracked like
Speaker 5: something like seven hundred men over like decades and decades,
Speaker 5: and they watched their relationships, their work, their health, all
Speaker 5: these their hobbies, all these different factors.
Speaker 4: And one of the biggest things that came out.
Speaker 5: Of the study was the key to live happier and
Speaker 5: healthier is to have good relationships of all kinds. They
Speaker 5: didn't single out romance or marriage as the magic bullet, right,
Speaker 5: it was all kinds.
Speaker 4: Of all different levels.
Speaker 2: Well, as we think about happiness and look to find
Speaker 2: our own happiness or live within the happiness we have
Speaker 2: right now, you stress that the validation we're looking for.
Speaker 3: Comes from us, not from another person.
Speaker 2: What do you think is one thing that we can
Speaker 2: do for ourselves to start practicing that mindset.
Speaker 4: I'm a really big fan of values. I know I've
Speaker 4: mentioned a few times here.
Speaker 5: I think what helps turn down the pressure for yourself
Speaker 5: about needing a relationship or like you feel like your
Speaker 5: life can't start until you have a relationship, is to
Speaker 5: get really clear about what values you have to certain goals.
Speaker 5: Because the thing about a goal is that it's automatically
Speaker 5: past fail right. Yes, if you are trying to be
Speaker 5: married and that's a goal, well that you're either a
Speaker 5: failure right up until you get married, and then you're
Speaker 5: technically a success, and then even that feels like a
Speaker 5: little backwards.
Speaker 2: Right right, And then is divorce a failure or is
Speaker 2: it a success of however many years in the life you.
Speaker 5: Built exactly it's so fraught and like I think, not
Speaker 5: very helpful, so totally what you could do is think
Speaker 5: about what values you have underneath that. Well, maybe it's
Speaker 5: you really value community, right, you want to you want
Speaker 5: you like family. Once you see those values, you can
Speaker 5: be a lot more flexible about how those things are expressed.
Speaker 5: And I think when you give yourself flexibility about how
Speaker 5: you show up for yourself and what you want out
Speaker 5: of life, the world is going to open up so
Speaker 5: much more than if you think I only need this
Speaker 5: type of relationship I need to have, you know it.
Speaker 4: Also when it comes to career, I need this exact
Speaker 4: type of.
Speaker 5: Job, right, Like, so many things are out of your
Speaker 5: control about those things.
Speaker 4: Whereas if you can think, okay, well I.
Speaker 5: Really value creativity, right, Like, you don't necessarily have to
Speaker 5: wait to get into a certain MFA program and then
Speaker 5: pay a lot of money out of pocket to like
Speaker 5: get an expensive degree. You could start an accountability group,
Speaker 5: or you write together with friends, right, or you get
Speaker 5: together to draw. Like there's I think just like kind
Speaker 5: of shrinking down to a smaller scale what your values
Speaker 5: are can show you all these different paths about creating
Speaker 5: a ridge.
Speaker 3: Life that makes absolute sense.
Speaker 2: So you debunk some really compelling myths about marriage and
Speaker 2: love and there's a few that I love.
Speaker 3: One is that marriage has always been for love.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's something I think we all know intellectually when
Speaker 5: we watch like I don't know, like thrones or anything
Speaker 5: that takes place in like the distant past. We know
Speaker 5: that marriages are often a tool for politics and power
Speaker 5: and money, right, and have been for a long time.
Speaker 4: But we think we're very evolved and that it's you know, marriage.
Speaker 5: Is only for love, But we forget that it was
Speaker 5: a kind of recent ish invention to marry for love.
Speaker 5: This idea that love is the only reason we marry
Speaker 5: is relatively new, and so you know, especially in American
Speaker 5: and Western life, romantic love and moderate or in love
Speaker 5: marriages as they're called, didn't really come about until like
Speaker 5: the Victorian era. This interesting thing happens in the Victorian ERAa,
Speaker 5: where the Industrial Revolution meant that you could leave your
Speaker 5: families farm right and create get a living wage outside
Speaker 5: of your family. You didn't have to worry about marrying
Speaker 5: into another family as the main way to combine and
Speaker 5: gain resources. You could actually be a little bit more independent.
Speaker 5: And so I think that plus kind of pop culture
Speaker 5: sensibilities kind of made it so that love marriages kind
Speaker 5: of became the new thing. And then there's this also
Speaker 5: this fascinating idea about how this.
Speaker 4: Idea of traditional marriage.
Speaker 5: Traditional two of course, you know, is how it was
Speaker 5: always meant to be that kind of leave it to
Speaker 5: Beaver style type of marriage, where we have the nineteen
Speaker 5: fifties housewife at home with the two kids in the
Speaker 5: white pig defense husband goes off. But what was so
Speaker 5: helpful to learn from this historian symphony Coots is that
Speaker 5: was actually a complete blip in the timeline of marriage,
Speaker 5: especially in America. It was right after World War Two,
Speaker 5: when wages were actually pretty.
Speaker 4: High and men were coming home for war and there
Speaker 4: could be one breadwinner at the home.
Speaker 5: And actually women were getting married at a slightly younger
Speaker 5: age around the nineteen fifties than they were even sixty
Speaker 5: years prior. And I think it's really telling that from
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty on in America the age of a first
Speaker 5: marriage has steadily gone up. It has not gone down
Speaker 5: since that time in the fifties. So it's a good
Speaker 5: remind that what we think of as quote unquote traditional
Speaker 5: is never that, it is always evolving. In fact, that
Speaker 5: very specific view of marriage was such a small timeline
Speaker 5: in the history of marriage, and I think knowing that
Speaker 5: is really powerful because it is marriage and how we
Speaker 5: love and decide a partner is always evolving and changing
Speaker 5: and bumping up against structures.
Speaker 4: It is not a vacuum.
Speaker 2: We have to take another short break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: back in just a minute.
Speaker 3: Don't go anywhere, and we're back.
Speaker 2: So you really advocate for taking yourself out on dates,
Speaker 2: and I have to tell you, the want to do
Speaker 2: that run the gamut.
Speaker 3: Some people love it.
Speaker 2: And they're so good at going to a restaurant by themselves.
Speaker 2: Some people are like, hell, no, I would never do that.
Speaker 2: I'm okay going to a restaurant by myself. I don't
Speaker 2: know if I don't go to a movie by myself.
Speaker 4: Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 5: I feel like the thing about dining alone is that's
Speaker 5: almost like the quote unquote most vulnerable. I don't necessarily
Speaker 5: agree with that, but I find most people like have that.
Speaker 5: For me, I loved going to the movies by myself
Speaker 5: because you don't have to talk with anybody.
Speaker 2: You just sell us staring at a screen. You know
Speaker 2: that's true. Yeah, And you get the snacks you want.
Speaker 2: There's no compromise. Well.
Speaker 5: One thing to always remember too, is like I've never
Speaker 5: been out in the world and saw someone just on
Speaker 5: their own and thought, oh my god, they're so sad.
Speaker 5: It doesn't even cross my mind.
Speaker 3: I kind of look at them and think, oh, they're
Speaker 3: so awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, So like you could be that awesome person too.
Speaker 4: So I love taking.
Speaker 5: Myself to the movies, I love reading in public. I'm
Speaker 5: going to go out because I'm a creative person.
Speaker 4: I need more input.
Speaker 5: This is the idea of the artist state, is like
Speaker 5: giving yourself more input for your creativity. So that could
Speaker 5: be going to a arts and supply store just seeing
Speaker 5: what they have new they're browsing, doing that, go into
Speaker 5: a bookstore by yourself, going to a museum exhibit by yourself.
Speaker 2: Oh I like a museum alone. There's this really interesting
Speaker 2: statistic that I want to ask you about. According to
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty three US Surgeon General's Advisory, half of
Speaker 2: US adults reported some measurable loneliness. Yeah, but you say,
Speaker 2: there's a big difference between loneliness and being alone. This
Speaker 2: is a topic that is close to my heart. First
Speaker 2: of all, what is the difference between loneliness and being alone.
Speaker 5: Well, you know it's interesting too because in that same
Speaker 5: Surgeon General's advisory about loneliness, they even point to the
Speaker 5: idea of alone versus lonely that like chronic loneliness poses
Speaker 5: serious health threats, there is no getting around that that
Speaker 5: is an epidemic, but adoptive loneliness and like basically being
Speaker 5: I don't know a human that said, sometimes feel alone
Speaker 5: can be either helpful and be even.
Speaker 4: Restorative at times.
Speaker 5: I know that sounds a little counterintuitive, but here's what
Speaker 5: I mean by that. The difference between alone and lonely
Speaker 5: is alone is just the state of being alone. I'm
Speaker 5: alone in my apartment, safe for my tiny barkie, but
Speaker 5: I don't feel lonely because I'm connecting with you. Because
Speaker 5: loneliness is when you're dissatisfied with the state of being alone.
Speaker 5: And so I think that distinction is helpful because there's
Speaker 5: plenty of times I feel alone but not lonely.
Speaker 4: But there's also times where I'm around other.
Speaker 5: People and I feel lonely, right like people who I
Speaker 5: don't really connect with, or I feel like maybe an
Speaker 5: outsider in some way, And so I think it helps
Speaker 5: give us more.
Speaker 4: Language about what we actually need in those moments.
Speaker 5: But the problem with loneliness is that we get stuck
Speaker 5: in a spiral and sometimes it is hard to get
Speaker 5: out of that. We see other things as threats, Like
Speaker 5: when you do feel lonely and you see that couple
Speaker 5: holding hands walking down the stair, you're like cursing up
Speaker 5: a storm in your head, like there's always all these
Speaker 5: couples for in another day that might not cost your
Speaker 5: mind at all. Right, So I think that helps just
Speaker 5: destigmatize what it means to be lonely. If this is
Speaker 5: such an epidemic, I think it gives us the tools
Speaker 5: to say, oh, I noticed something is changing.
Speaker 4: I'm feeling lonely. I should make plans for this weekend
Speaker 4: and I look forward to I should text her friend.
Speaker 5: I should just call this friend. I should check on
Speaker 5: in my mom. You know, I've friend who's going through
Speaker 5: a hard time. Maybe I can like make them cookies
Speaker 5: or something. And then, you know, all these things that
Speaker 5: how can even happen in a state of being alone
Speaker 5: can help feed that sense of connection. So you can
Speaker 5: nurture that sense of connection even if you're on your
Speaker 5: own that.
Speaker 2: Day, I'm going to share a story my whole job
Speaker 2: in Ethos is really around connection. A few months ago,
Speaker 2: I started with a new therapist because my therapist who
Speaker 2: I love retired. We were just a few sessions in,
Speaker 2: so she's starting to get to know me. And I
Speaker 2: was dating this guy and I was like, do I
Speaker 2: break up with him?
Speaker 3: Do I not? And she said, well, what's the fear.
Speaker 2: I closed my eyes and I like put my hand
Speaker 2: on my heart, and I said, it's loneliness. I think
Speaker 2: I have a core fear of loneliness because when I
Speaker 2: think about the saddest moments of my life, they are
Speaker 2: when I was lonely. And she goes, well, that's so
Speaker 2: interesting because you've built a whole career around connection. And
Speaker 2: I realized that we're all sort of like chasing whatever.
Speaker 2: That core wound is mine was loneliness, and I've really
Speaker 2: worked on it, and I think there are ways that
Speaker 2: you can be alone and not feel lonely. But it's
Speaker 2: about meeting your emotional needs, yes, and no one else
Speaker 2: is going to meet them for you. If you're in
Speaker 2: a relationship, it's a band aid to that exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, as I was writing this book, I mentioned I
Speaker 5: got into a serious relationship and it was really interesting
Speaker 5: too in the process of writing the book, having that
Speaker 5: happened because I was like, oh, yeah, I'm still anxious.
Speaker 5: I'm just anxious about different things now. Like you know,
Speaker 5: as supportive and as wonderful as my partner is, he
Speaker 5: can't process my emotions for me, and I can't process
Speaker 5: his emotions.
Speaker 4: And I think understanding the.
Speaker 5: Tools that we have to regulate not to necessarily be
Speaker 5: happy all the time, because that's not the goal and
Speaker 5: not really possis the belever to understand how to ride
Speaker 5: the waves this real emotional maturity and safety. Then that
Speaker 5: helps you make better decisions about should I stay with
Speaker 5: this person, should I, should I continue dating.
Speaker 4: Them, or should we part ways?
Speaker 5: Because when you're acting out of fear, you're not acting
Speaker 5: from a place always that is from a place of reality,
Speaker 5: not always.
Speaker 3: I think that you're acting out of need instead of want.
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think this idea is so interesting that you can
Speaker 2: be in a relationship and still not be attending to
Speaker 2: some of your core needs. For anyone who is in
Speaker 2: a relationship, how can they embrace some of the principles
Speaker 2: of the party of one in their life?
Speaker 4: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I would say making sure that you it's
Speaker 5: not even just alone time. I do advocate for that.
Speaker 5: I think making sure you have hobbies that you like
Speaker 5: that are just for you. You don't have to do
Speaker 5: every single free activity with your partner, and kind of
Speaker 5: romantic those things that feel good that are just for you.
Speaker 4: I love those walks because.
Speaker 5: It's very a time where I can be really internal,
Speaker 5: connect with nature.
Speaker 4: I get to walk as faster as slow as I want.
Speaker 5: Right, So I would say, find the activities that feel
Speaker 5: really special to you and make you feel like yourself
Speaker 5: and hold on to those.
Speaker 4: Also, just like.
Speaker 5: Learning to tolerate your own emotions, thinking about how you
Speaker 5: can self soothe, and then also come to a partner
Speaker 5: and be like, hey, I went through this hard time,
Speaker 5: thinking through this through like here's how what I need
Speaker 5: your support. And then I would say the thing that
Speaker 5: will be additive, and it's definitely been additive in my
Speaker 5: relationship is to practice what I preach is bring in
Speaker 5: my single friends into my life where I'm making sure
Speaker 5: I'm making time for just them, that my partner isn't
Speaker 5: always tagging along. Having different types of events. Also, we
Speaker 5: love hosting, so I hosted a book swap the other
Speaker 5: week where that was the whole point where just everyone
Speaker 5: brought books and we just had we made dinner and
Speaker 5: different groups got to meet each other. And so we
Speaker 5: really like being a center of commune for a lot
Speaker 5: of people in our life. And then yeah, like making
Speaker 5: sure we watch your friend's dog when they go to town.
Speaker 5: So we're making sure that there's a lot of community
Speaker 5: care in our.
Speaker 4: Life as well.
Speaker 2: So my final question is what advice do you have
Speaker 2: for someone listening who's still holding out for a partner.
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally that was me.
Speaker 5: You know, I would say pursue that part of your
Speaker 5: life in what is known as harmonious passion. I was
Speaker 5: stuck in what's called obsessive passion, where you are living
Speaker 5: or dying by the outcome of something and it's almost
Speaker 5: a compulsion to participate in it, so to swipe all
Speaker 5: the time, to go on as many days as you
Speaker 5: can to think about what's the new way I should
Speaker 5: write my profile. And harmonious passion is really thinking about
Speaker 5: not letting the outcome control your own happiness, to kind
Speaker 5: of be less attached to the results of it.
Speaker 4: But if you were attached.
Speaker 5: To the outcome of every single date, it is miserable
Speaker 5: because I've loved it. So if you can approach your
Speaker 5: life with a harmonious passion. So it's a lot of
Speaker 5: things in my book, which is making sure you have
Speaker 5: a full life and you have hobbies you like, that
Speaker 5: you're excited about the space you live in, that you
Speaker 5: do things that you don't wait for them for a partner,
Speaker 5: and then that makes going on dates or maybe just
Speaker 5: waiting for someone not waiting, but like you know, maybe
Speaker 5: meeting someone out in the wild, feel less like everything
Speaker 5: depends on this one person. Because I think for me,
Speaker 5: what was super helpful was thinking, Okay, my life could
Speaker 5: go two main directions, right, I could be mostly single
Speaker 5: for the rest of my life, or I could meet
Speaker 5: a partner. I just don't know when, and I have
Speaker 5: to make sure both outcomes are great.
Speaker 2: I think that is beautiful and spot on. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much for joining us, Megan.
Speaker 4: Oh, thanks for having me appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Megan Kane is the author of Party of One, Be
Speaker 2: your Own Best Life Partner. She's the supervising editor and
Speaker 2: founder of NPR's life Kit.
Speaker 1: That's It. For Today's Show Tomorrow, relationship guru Jillian Tareki
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