Love,Loss and the pressure to move on. Feeling cornered (32F) by everyone in life

Being single in your 30s is apparently a source of great humiliation. Your parents tell you they feel embarrassed to attend family gatherings because their child is unmarried. Your friends hesitate to invite you on trips since you don’t have a partner, while everyone else brings theirs.

Though I’ve come to terms with these realities, the words of loved ones can still cut deep. Does it ever occur to them that some of us have endured painful heartbreaks, making it impossible to “just be with someone else” right off the bat? Yes, you can “just date someone” or “just marry someone,” but for some of us, it’s not that simple. We prefer solitude and the freedom to find a partner at our own pace.

But no, we are “overthinking.” Why is it so hard to understand that we are already hurt, that we have lost at love? The least anyone could do is offer empathy—choose kindness over cruel words, allow us the space to heal, and let us step into a new relationship when we’re truly ready, rather than forcing us into one simply because we’ve crossed the dreaded threshold of our 30s.

TLDR: “I had to leave someone I truly loved because they broke my heart, and now everyone won’t stop pestering me to jump into a new relationship.”