Are you the annoying Single friend?

We all have that friend that never found their special someone. We've partied with them, sent them on blind dates even lent an ear when they meet the "wrong" someone. But at what point in that friendship do you and your bestie start to go down different paths? Or better yet, are you that friend that is always the life of the party / bachelor on the prowl and you're starting to worry that you're becoming a third wheel? How do you know if you're the annoying single in the room?

The answer is in the way you share information and in turn how information is shared with you.

When you're single and live alone space is your champion, everything belongs to you, your pets are your kids and you can eat, drink, sleep anytime you want. Listening to music loudly to fall asleep is your thing and there aint no one around to tell you otherwise. You search advice from friends and family and sometimes advice columns on the internet. You are a strong competent person with solid ideas and opinions that people should hear. You have so much to give someone if only you could find the right person to connect with.

Well...what if you're not? What if your opinions are sorta offensive or your ideas destined to fail? What if you're the person that others unfollow on social media because...well..you're hopelessly clueless and annoyingly single?

First off, lets take a moment to talk about the stigma surrounding single people. In an article written for Phycology today, Bella DePaulo Ph.D. covers the "The largely unacknowledged negative emotions of single life"

Your single friend might be living with one or all of the following:

* Looks of pity for not being married.

* Constant questions of how someone like you can be single

* Being excluded from events

* People only asking you about your romance life, rather than your ambition / goals

* Expectations people have of you when they themselves get connected or hitched (They want you to be over the top happy for them because you can relate)

* Seeing romantic proposals or other romance related questions that are over-the-top and trending on socials actually really hurt to watch.

* The portrayal of perfect couple happiness in main stream media does nothing for a single's self esteem

With all of the above negative emotions involved you can start to understand why your single friends aren't exactly the most self confident individuals and need to rely on other factors to prop themselves up.

Now were getting to the meat of the matter. Self awareness.

When you live alone, it is almost impossible to be aware of how you affect others without either a keen eye or feedback. You dont have the benefit of bouncing your ideas off another person to know if its just the wine talking or if your business idea actually has legs. You dont have that person in your life to tell you your perfume or cologne is terrible, even though you like it and "its for you" it might actually smell terrible and no one has the guts to tell you in public. When you went on vacation with your best friend without her man you seemed to not get along as much, something was different, she even woke you up at 3am to tell you to turn your podcast off your bluetooth speaker! What a b*&#h!

Feedback and self awareness are integral when living alone. Find that confidant that is willing to tell you the hard truths you need to hear to grow.

Not everything in life is roses we all make mistakes or mis-steps and thats absolutely fine and part of the human experience. But be willing to listen and have an open heart to criticism. In some cases the person is only telling you these hard truths because they love you. Its why we fight with family on holidays, we are around the people that know us best and tell us exactly the things we dont want to hear about ourselves....the truth.

I myself didnt realize how annoying some of my actions were until meeting my mate. Sure its hard to hear at first but then you find common ground and move on and laugh about the way things used to be.

When you're single (and looking) you want to put your best foot forward; it seems like the best idea is to self reflect and also get an opinion on which of your feet are best to put forward.

Is it a coincidence that all my single friends post selfies on socials more than any of my other friends? No, they are selling their look to the world, most of my other friends are posting pics of food or pets or vacations.

Do you constantly post quotes about self worth and being a powerful individual? In small spurts that comes across as someone who is well read or head strong and wants to share the wisdom they found. However if you are posting motivational quotes on the regular, day after day I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that most people are rolling their eyes, unfollowing you or assuming you read self help books to deal with low self esteem.

And hey, thats ok too. The purpose of this article isnt to teach you how to meet someone, its to make you aware if you are that person people are rolling their eyes at (if thats something you even want to know and live with).

Be attentive to body language and vocal cues. If scenarios change drastically when you enter a room maybe thats a clue into the way youre perceived by others in public.

Be mindful of other's personal space and volume levels, just because your home is your own private castle when you're at your friends house or in a public space they might like the way things are placed or the current volume of music.

Let people talk - This is a big one, when we live alone we tend to bottle up our excitement or opinions and save them for our next conversation. Sometimes the anticipation of that conversation leads to us exploding all that information out as fast as possible. Then when the other person tries to chime in we dismiss or jump on their sentence in order to get more details out. The connection of dialogue with another person is infinitely more rewarding than speaking at someone.

If you catch yourself saying things like:

"Well this is the first time anyone has ever said that to me"

"Nobody else seems to have a problem with...."

Those are sometimes clues into how you are perceived.

Ultimately we are all on our own path and it takes millions and billions of different people to make the world go round. There is likely someone out there for everyone. You can be yourself and be alone and thats amazing too. But if you are reading this article it means you are in search of answers and tips on how to fit in. Hopefully by being mindful of yourself and your surroundings, having an open heart to criticism and a confidant to bounce ideas off of you can reduce your chances as being labeled the annoying single friend. Now go our there and be your wonderful self!

Side Bar: Dude to COVID and lockdown we have all been confined to our homes and social awkwardness will be at an all time high, so likely everyone is trying to figure out how to fit in again...perfect time to work on your social cues!