Quote:
Originally posted by sugar and spice
I don't think you HAVE to be single to learn/mature, but I think it happens much faster that way (at least in terms of the learning processes in question), and much more often that way than not. When you're single you tend to be much more self-focused than when you're in a relationship. (Actually, I do think relationships lead to growth processes as well, but they are different ones . . . )
If you're going from one relationship straight into another, there's far less time to reflect on "what you're doing wrong" before you start getting involved with someone else.
Of course, that doesn't mean that single people necessarily put too much thought into what went wrong, either, so being single doesn't guarantee that someone will become grow up.
This would be longer but I'm off to work.
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I remember a very good article from Seventeen that said pretty much the same thing. The author said she had gone with the same guy from age 13-18 and after they broke up, she had no clue what she was doing or how to relate to other guys. Everyone wrings their hands about young kids nowadays being in too "casual" of relationships, but I'm not sure this kind of thing (i.e. dating someone forever) wasn't equally hazardous, at least emotionally and mentally.
Some of the people I know are like this - they've NEVER not had a boyfriend for more than 5 minutes - and to be blunt, they're not as interesting as the people who have gone through periods of being single.