I always thought that I’m fine with being alone, that I am happy. I always thought that I can survive all alone, but as I sit here thinking to myself, maybe I am not okay. Maybe I just somehow adapted and made peace with the idea that I’m not good enough for someone to love.

Over half of 25-44 year olds are now single, thus making it the norm. However, single-shame is highly prevalent, with many worrying that they are the 'last ones left on the shelf' or 'all the good ones are gone." The Unexpected Joy of Being Single is a refreshing book that explores this single stigma. While doing so, Catherine Gray redefines a person who is single as someone who is complete on their own, and not lacking in any way. Her book helps to make a long overdue cultural shift in the way single people are perceived (and most importantly: how they perceive themselves). She is here to help us locate and luxuriate in some single joy.

I think when I look back at my life, I have always been single. During my teen years, I befriended guys so I could figure them out so that I wouldn't be "played." I was obsessed with outsmarting boys; a relationship wouldn't have worked. Considering the traumatic events that occurred in my childhood, I could never let another person in. I chose solitude because it was safer. I didn't have to explain my scars to anyone else. Hell, I didn't even acknowledge those very scars to myself.

Stay single until you learn to be complete on your own. Until you realize and accept the fact that no amount of time having a significant other will "fill" you. Be complete enough, as one individual, to light a whole night sky. And then love someone who, when the two of you are combined, make up the Northern Lights.

For the first time in a long, long while I have a crush, a legitimate, racing pulse, walking-on-air crush.

There’s a problem that some of us have to go through in our lifetime, and that’s the fact of having to live with this simply complex contradiction: simultaneously loving freedom, and loving love.

Not only am I a love avoidant called Paula, but I'm also am a badass female to boot.

As I wrote in my best selling book, Hello Love, Where's Cupid? 2nd Ed and I wrote in the previous post, there are many reasons why you could still be single. Most likely you are sabotaging your chances at finding someone, based on your own behavior. Sometimes it's as easy as to NOT do the following when out on a date and when out looking for love. Here are 5 more reasons as to why you are still single:

Eight years of being single.

Relationships are hard to get through, and to make sure you're giving what is needed for it to thrive. Sometimes it works, and other times it doesn’t. I’ve talked in other pieces of mine about how to make it work, what is needed of each other, and packing up your lessons and moving on if it isn’t working.

“I hate being single!” or “Why am I so unlucky in love?” Do these sound familiar? If so, then welcome to Singlehood. I will admit, some people are really unlucky when it comes to love. I have seen it firsthand, but there are those who are still single due to those who are left in the “pool” while others are single due to being their own worst enemy. Then, of course, you have those people who call you “desperate.” Let's get one stereotype cleared up, though: I am not desperate because I am single. I am single because I am not desperate. There's a difference. If you are running from relationship to relationship, then okay, you are desperate, but if you struggling to find someone and you have your standards, you are NOT desperate, you are smart.