Sometimes you meet the person who feels like your missing piece. Other times, the missing piece is the part of yourself you missed before.
I’ve long believed that each of us should be our own fiercest priority — the one heart we never abandon, the one voice in which we always trust. Still, my life is woven tightly with my master’s. Romantic comedies tell us everyone wants that kind of merging. Maybe they do. I’m not so sure.
Some of us, perhaps, are built to braid a life with no one’s but their own.
If you live this way and still desire love, you may be walking the path of solopoly — a way of loving that keeps the self intact. It trusts that many loves can bloom at once, that desire is not a leash, that intimacy does not require possession.
Its shape is subtle. A home kept for one. A schedule that answers only to your pulse. A life arranged like a room with sunlight falling exactly where you want it.
You may not have children — not because you lack the ability to love, but because you refuse to place your own life on hold for someone else’s needs. You might have a pet, a creature you adore as your child, but even then, the decisions are yours alone. You, and you alone, know best. That is the way of it.
You know what you want. You trust yourself to give it. And while you welcome lovers who nourish you, you do not crown anyone as your primary but you.
Do you travel with lovers? Sometimes — when the winds align. Do you share weekends? Perhaps — when your paths cross like tides. Do you drive them to the airport, sit with them in waiting rooms? Maybe — as a kindness, never a contract.
There is a loneliness in this life, yes. Nights when the bed feels too wide, when you wish someone could cross the distance and they simply cannot. But those who choose this path will tell you: the sovereignty is worth the silence.
I lived solopoly through most of my twenties. Until someone arrived who made me want a different shape of life. I don’t regret the years before that. They were the years I learned myself — the years that sharpened my boundaries, softened my expectations, and taught me not to settle for anything less than what makes me whole and happy.
I think everyone could benefit from a season of solopoly — not solitude, but self‑anchored living. Not singleness, but self determination.
If you don’t yet know what you want, try living this way for a while. A little while is all life ever is — a little while, and then a little while more — and somehow, that is enough to change everything.