I've enjoyed being single for the past 7 years.
At first I found it both difficult and freeing at the same time. Difficult because I had never been on my own before. Freeing because I didn't have to think of another person being in my space and navigating all that brought.
I had to work out the difference between being alone (which I realised I liked) and being lonely (which I didn't like). That took several months. Running helped me work out the difference. I used running to think about stuff.
I was married for 25 years to a man who was not a great conversationalist or very intellectual so I didn't miss conversation with him, but I missed some of the practical things e.g. someone cooking for me, which he sometimes used to do after I returned from the gym. This isn't the same as a ready meal. It was as the fact someone bothered at all to cook that counted. He used to bring me tea in bed sometimes in the morning and if I was ill (rare). I miss being brought tea in bed, and wondered about getting an automated tea-maker gadget like they used to have on the Generation Game years ago, Goblin IIRC. Don't know if they still make them. If not maybe Dyson could do a good one for his next project, not so pretty please.
I don't miss my last coercive and controlling relationship after the divorce and all that brought. He used to tell me how to load dishes in the dishwasher and would stand over me instructing where to put the plates, etc., for the most effective wash. He also used to criticise my driving, even though I had never had an accident and took notice of the highway code, something he rarely did. He used to mount a pavement to go around the person in front if they were too slow to get out of a junction. If I went normal speed for the road he would tell me I was either too slow or too fast. By the time I got home I was a nervous wreck.
I don't miss the way he would pull his jumper over his head, still attached to his shirt, unbuckle his trouser belt and with his pants still attached to his trousers step out off them, with socks attached to the bottom of the trousers leaving all in a towering heap. I used to leave it there for days waiting for him to do something about it. He used to wait for the cleaner to deal with it.
I miss a cleaner, but I don't miss how nosy they can sometimes be.
What I like about being single is:
I can pad around in Winceyette pyjamas wearing a thermal vest and big pants underneath anytime I want and not care at all that I'm not sending out sexy vibes.
Or I can dance naked in my sitting room to Flamenco music, stomping my feet, raising my hands to make castanet gestures at 2am if I feel like it and no one will bat an eyelid.
I can cook whatever I want when I want or not.
I can watch whatever I want whenever I want or not.
I don't have to listen to Saturday sport or Talk Sport radio anywhere
I don't have to go to places I don't want to or compromise on what I want to do.
I can be whatever shape I allow myself to be without any comments from anyone or any commentary (inside the house).
If I want to eat a donut at 3am (I don't but if I did) I could just do it.
If I want to go vegan for a month as an experiment I can, and no one will grumble about not having a roast on Sunday or anything else they might be missing.
If I want to sit up all night reading poetry for the hell of it, I can.
If I want to learn a language and practice Spanish conversation at 10pm I can, without feeling pressured to watch a boxed set or fit in with someone else.
What I have lately thought about is that I do miss sex, and fantasise about being loved and having sex, which isn't the same thing as having sex with someone without love (which looking back I don't think I have ever been, loved that is, which is sad), and I who I suspect I would like is to find someone who will love me the way I am (a rather eccentric cross between Lady in a Van meets the central character off Fleabag, crossed with a smidgeon of psychopath, a whisker of Marquis de Sade and a whole lot of INTJ.
Other things I like about being single:
Earning my own money, spending it as I like.
My extensive library on everything from quantum mechanics to how to do my own plumbing to my latest addition, a book on Slime mould and Fungi.
Having my own bathroom all to myself.
Shopping by myself. My ex husband used to follow me around the isles and as I was putting in items from the toiletry section, he would take stuff out when I wasn't looking. When I got the the checkout, half of it was missing. He was never really a homey-homemaker. Didn't care if there weren't pictures on the wall, or curtains up and I had to badger him for days to do things around the house.
Recently I've been thinking of maybe dating again as I miss sex with another, and I thought I would like someone to be with in my older years and experience love.
I've come only this far in my thinking which is that I think I'd like to find a man or woman (I'm going through a phase of questioning who/if anyone, to be with, and now I've worked out I would like someone who's:
Kind (a rare breed in my own experience)
Intelligent, (including emotional intelligence)
Sense of humour (absolutely essential)
Solvent
Interesting and interested (both very necessary)
Like music (preferably)
Be healthy and want to stay that way as far as they have a say in it.
Generally obey the rules about not harming others but are not obsessive about rules in general and are easy going.
Like sex
Like poetry, like literature, like travel (the poetry and literature are not essential but would be nice)
Like walking
Be interested in science
Are humane to animals and like animals (to weed out the psychopaths as I only have a smidgeon of this and it's never connected to animals, and only surfaces when I think of certain people (usually politicians, does that count?).
What I've learnt from being single is that I'm not prepared to 'settle' for anyone to avoid being alone. I would rather be single.