The Art of Being Single

By Jackie McGriff

I’ve never been in a relationship. (Now before you start to pity me, DON’T.) I, Jackie McGriff, a 30-year-old woman have never been in a relationship. Or on a date. For a huge portion of my life, I was made to feel like being single meant that you were insignificant somehow.

It started when I was a teen. I’d see my friends getting into relationships and when that didn’t happen for me, I figured there was something wrong with me – that I wasn’t pretty enough or that I was too weird. Other kids would tease me about this constantly and it just made me sick. My family and I would go visit relatives out-of-state and they’d always ask me if I was seeing anyone and I’d give my usual answer, “Pft, no.” and just laugh it off. I figured that shrugging it off would make me accept that it wasn’t going to happen. After a while, they stopped asking. I remember a girl in my Sunday school class saying to my face that “you’re ugly and no one will ever want you.” I’d hear younger relatives say that they didn’t want to end up like me, which is another way of saying “I don’t want to be alone at her age.” I remembered a close relative saying right before my freshman year in college: “Don’t worry; there will be plenty of guys in college.” Four years came and went; it never happened. A little after college, I didn’t realize how much I was affected by it until yet another rejection from a guy.

I internalized everything that I was told; I believed it all. Then, there came the thoughts:

What’s wrong with me?

Am I too weird?

Am I not as pretty as I thought?

Am I too fat?

Do I come off too strong?

Are my standards too high?

I’m a woman of faith, so I believe that it was God that brought me out of that funk. At the end of it all, it took me learning to love myself that being in a relationship stopped mattering to me. I thought I had to be a certain way to be in a relationship. I had made being in a relationship the ultimate goal.

Our society puts WAY too much pressure on being in a relationship. I have huge ambitions for my life and those are the things that I’m focused on. Being in a relationship is not the ultimate goal; it’s just something else that may come along on my path to success.

Or it may not.

The difference between who I was a few years ago and who I am today is going beyond being OK with being single. It’s mastering it, it’s making it an art. It’s making being single my superpower, achieving my dreams and helping others do the same.

I’m so excited to be a part of a community that empowers women in their singleness and I cannot wait to share more with you about the art of being single!

Jackie McGriff is the founder and owner of Jackie Photography and a portrait photographer whose mission is to help women and girls recognize their potential, their beauty, and their worth. She's currently pursuing her Master's Degree in Business Administration at Simon Business School. She also works full-time for the Office of Alumni Relations at the University of Rochester, mentors teens at her church, and occasionally talks about movies on The Little Theatre's Movies and a Microphone podcast.