I'm 90 percent happy single

Wednesday | March 4, 2026

Love Letters Dating

I’m 90 percent happy single

Is there something on your mind about a relationship in your life? Or a relationship you wish you had in your life? Send your own question. Help others wondering the same thing. Use the form – or email [email protected].

I am a perpetually single female, 31 years old. As in, the longest relationship I’ve been in lasted two months. (Lovely guy, but I did not like the thought of being more serious with him.) It’s like I just don’t have the drive other people seem to have to find a romantic partner.

The current dating landscape makes it even less appealing. I have a successful career, friends, close family, hobbies, and everything else except a romantic relationship. I actually feel 90 percent comfortable with being single for the rest of my life, but the remaining 10 percent sometimes gets to me. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on much, but what if I am?

It makes me wonder: Is there still hope for to find true love? Or the real question is: how can I shake off that last 10 percent, get over it, and live out my happy single life?

– Almost Comfortable

You’re happy now. That’s fantastic.

Why must you decide, at 31, that you have to be single for the rest of your life? You could fall in love at 39 and want to be single again at 42. You could find love next week and choose to be on your own after 50.

The point is: you don’t know and you’re not supposed to. It’s just … life. Let it be beautifully unpredictable.

I need to say: I believe you when you say your world is excellent right now. I do not think people need romantic relationships to be complete.

That said, it’s great you’re 10 percent open to change. I love that a sliver of you thinks, “What if?

Maybe it’s the 10 percent that would notice if you met someone wonderful.

That noisy 10 percent might also be the inner voice that tells you, “We should move to a new city. We should try beef tartare. Let’s do more volunteer work. We could see more live music. Maybe we should buy a bike.”

You may see that 10 percent of you as something that holds you back, that’s unwilling to accept reality. I see it as the piece of you that says, about every part of your life, “We’re open to all possibilities.”

– Meredith

Readers? Must we decide now how we’ll be forever? Thoughts on whether true love exists (and what that means)?

Dating Dating fatigue

Featured Comment

Being happy with your life as it is, is wonderful. And being open to something different is too. But when you talk about having “hope to find true love” — well, that just means you’re no different from a lot of us. You hope for love, but haven’t found it yet. What you’re really asking is whether you should give up. And I would answer: Why close that door if you don’t have to?

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