What Do I Do When Things Get Bleak?
For anyone having a really hard time.
Welcome to Hey Shani, an advice column by Shani Silver. I am accepting new questions! Email yours to heyshanisubstack@gmail.com.
#172, July 14th, 2026
Hey Shani,
I’ve mostly been single for my adult life but I have had a handful of short, extremely powerful yet tumultuous, 6-month long relationships scattered in there. Most recently, I dated a very close friend who turned out to be extremely avoidant and hurt me deeply. I am sure I have some blame to share, but mostly it makes no sense what happened and I have to chalk it up to unprocessed trauma and a refusal to communicate with me.
He started dating someone new within mere weeks and she lives in my neighborhood so I keep running into him (he ignores me, which hurts like hell). At the same time, many of my friends are having babies — childhood friends that I admittedly never expected to have kids before me. I didn’t realize I was avoiding visiting these friends because I didn’t want to engage with the sadness I might feel. When I finally realized, it sent me into a dark place.
I have created a life I love and have really internalized that being single just means I haven’t met my partner yet. However, I have also begun to sink into a depression that scares me. I’m scared I’m never going to have what I want. I feel like an unlovable loser who is somehow rich in friendship yet destitute in romantic love. How do I process the sadness and not let it consume me? I have a therapist, I’m considering taking FMLA from work so I can heal my heart, but it all feels so dramatic. It’s not a big deal that I am single and childless, but I can’t see the point of my existence anymore and I’m scared I won’t find it again. I’m afraid of spending my days wandering the earth like a zombie, trying to remember why I’m alive despite my circumstances. It’s bleak.
How do we rediscover our reason(s) to live when we forget?
Hey You,
I’m going to try to be gentle, because I think you deserve gentleness, and I apologize if anything I’m about to say to you feels confronting. That is not my intention. There is no way that your existence is pointless. Your existence is the point. Even if you were partnered, even if you were in love, that relationship would not be the point of your life. Being alive is itself proof of purpose, but we live in a world that has contorted women’s beliefs to drastically limit our understanding of what constitutes a valid, whole life.
If there is one thing I find unforgivable it’s the promoted narrative that women’s lives are pointless without partners and children. Wives and mothers are the only people we celebrate, elevate, and praise, so that leads to a lot of us feeling extremely empty and purposeless sometimes. Hear me clearly: That narrative is instilled in girls and women so that we will serve systems that do not serve us. The idea that a woman without a partner and children is pointless is a fucking lie. They lied to you so that you’d do what they wanted you to do. This is an extremely narrow, limited version of living. Please do not let other people’s manipulative intent rob you of your desire to live fully, freely, and happily.
I will admit to being very emotionally impacted by your email, because I can identify with a lot of what you said, and I certainly empathize with everything else. I’m asking you very sincerely to see that the choices of men, for whatever (probably superficial) reasons they made those choices, do not deserve to impact your life. Your life belongs to you, and you can do anything you want with it. When what you want is a partner and a family, singlehood can certainly sting. When what you need to feel valid as a human being is a partner and a family, that is a different story entirely.