How my feelings about being single ebb and flow
Or lessons from recording my audiobook...
Last week I began recording the audiobook for my book, Single. It was the first time in ages, I have read every single word in my book. There was also something about reading the words aloud in front of a microphone and with producers in the other room that made it more real. For that reason, I felt quite emotional during some of the audio recording. Today I am off to record the next chunk and will have to go back to the studio one more time. It’s definitely made it feel more real that the book is actually coming out and you’ll all be able to read what I’ve chosen to include.
One thing that stuck out to me was how much my feelings around being single have ebbed and flowed. I have been through a full spectrum of feelings about it over the course of the years and I realised, as I read my book out loud, that in the moment I always thought I would never feel another way about my relationship status. Sometimes I hated it. Sometimes I loved it. Sometimes I was indifferent. Sometimes I was confused. I thought in the moment I would always feel that way. But my feelings always shifted and changed and developed. I thought I’d share my reflections on this today in case any of you are currently struggling with being single. You probably won’t always feel this way.
The book begins with a conversation I had in 2018 when I was feeling embarrassed and ashamed about being single and was starting to really worry about how it would affect my chances of becoming a mother. I then write about how I was feeling much more confident and content with being single just a year later. I’d begun to examine why I felt so ashamed of being single and realised it was a lot to do with external forces – how society views single people and how it felt being the only single one among my friends – and let some of those feelings go. The motherhood question hung over me but I was really enjoying the freedom that comes with being single. It felt liberating to embrace being single rather than fight against it. It was actually later that year that I launched The Single Supplement.
The next chapter is all about heartbreak and becoming newly single. I recount my worst ever heartbreak. At that time I was devastated to be single because I just wanted to be with my ex-boyfriend. Later in the chapter, I write about feeling depressed and deciding that getting a boyfriend would fix me – which in hindsight realised would never have worked. There are plenty of people in relationships who are depressed or anxious or who struggle with other mental health problems. Finding a boy or girlfriend won’t protect you from that.
Sometimes it can be easy to slip into black and white thinking. ‘I hate being single and all my problems would be solved if I could find a partner’ or ‘I absolutely love being single, I don’t understand why anyone wants a relationship’ are two schools of thought I often see on the Facebook group I run. But when I’ve embraced the nuance, when I’ve gone with the flow of my feelings a rather than putting a fixed label on what I think about it, I’ve always felt more at peace.
Anyway I just thought that little bit of food for thought may help if you are not in a good place right now. I know a lot of people find this time of the year tricky to be alone. There are so many family gatherings and picture-perfect families doing festive activities and posting about them all over social media. It can feel like a stark contrast to your own life. Nothing is permanent though. You won’t feel this way forever.
On the note of coping with the holidays when single, I was interviewed for this CNBC article about how to handle the festive season when newly single. It begins with the immortal line: “A few Christmas Eves ago, Nicola Slawson got very, very drunk." I’m not going to lie, I was quite mortified they decided to lead with that, especially as the article “got picked up” (journo talk for being republished) by other publications so now if you search ‘Nicola Slawson Christmas’ it takes up a lot of the google search results. Cringe! But… nevermind it mentions both The Single Supplement and Single in the second paragraph. All publicity is good publicity, right? RIGHT? On that note, welcome if you just signed up after reading that article!
If you are new here, here are the covers of my book, which is out in February and is available to pre-order now:
The Single Supplement paid option returns
I also wanted to share today that I am relaunching the paid option for this newsletter. I’m a freelance journalist and writer and am passionate about creatives being paid for their labour. Running The Single Supplement takes a lot of my time – time I could that could be spent earning money – and I simply can’t afford to keep The Single Supplement totally free.
Having said that I will ensure there is at least one newsletter a month that is free to all (there will be occasional extras too). The rest will be going behind the paywall.
I am feeling really energised and confident about what I am going to offer (please see below) and hope you will consider joining the paid subscriber community if you enjoy this newsletter. If you sign up before the end of the year, please enjoy 15% off using this link:
Have a good week
Nicola
P.S here’s a video I made of going to record the audiobook (click to watch!)
Priced out of fertility treatment
This week the first article I wrote since going on Maternity Leave was published. It’s for Stylist and is all about the astronomical cost of fertility treatment when you’re single and how, in the UK, most single people are shut out of receiving fertility treatment on the NHS. Some NHS trusts actually stipulate you have to have been in a stable relationship for two years to qualify. I wrote about my own experiences of realising I wouldn’t be able to afford to have a baby on my own (and how I found an alternative route) and spoke to two others – one who says the cost of treatment means she will never be a mum and one who got into debt to be able to afford it. You can read it here.
Does this issue affect you? I’ve been speaking to a few people who are thinking of launching a big campaign around this. If you are interested in joining the fight for fairer access to fertility treatment for single women, please reply to this newsletter so I can add you to a list I’m compiling. If you have any particular skills such as graphic design, website building or copywriting, do make sure you mention that. Also if you are willing to share your story in the media, let me know!
Why should I sign up as a paying subscriber?
Becoming a member of this community will help you get the most out of the The Single Supplement newsletter.
Sign up and you’ll get:
All of the subscriber only posts – which includes essays, guest pieces, interviews and more – straight into your inbox. Going forward only one newsletter a month or thereabouts will be going out to the full list.
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Access to more than 200 posts from the archive including all the Dear Nicola agony aunt columns and all the bonus Q&As I’ve done with interviewees and guest writers.
Special events such as seasonal journaling workshops on Zoom and an invite to one of my book launch parties to celebrate the publication of Single!
About Nicola
Nicola Slawson is passionate about telling human stories – either other people's or her own – and is a freelance journalist, writer and public speaker based in Shropshire in the UK. The Single Supplement is an award-winning newsletter on Substack, especially for single people. Her debut book Single is out in February and available to pre-order now. Follow Nicola on Instagram.
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I wonder how many of your followers have lived their lives carrying out their family’s dreams of marriage and “idealized” family, rather than living the life they knew would better suit them, being single ?
Love this