My singledom is not a problem that needs to be solved.

I’ll tell you one thing, this season of Married At First Sight has got me thinking. Annoying, I know. The whole purpose of a show like MAFS is to lose yourself in the goddamn outrage of it all. It should be the perfect antidote to pondering life’s big existential questions, but what can you do? Turns out I am the Nietzsche of reality TV.

There’s a lot to critique about the show of course, from the shameless mocking of the institution of marriage, to the questionable ethics of the so- called experts, but this season I’m less concerned with that, and more with how we, as a culture, are so terrified of being alone that we’re prepared to white-knuckle it through seriously unhealthy relationships because we believe the gold standard of adulthood is coupledom.

As I watched the early episodes of the show - with many of the ‘singles' pouring their hearts out to the experts, tears streaming down their faces, claiming to desperately want to meet someone to love - my heart broke.

I get it. Oi vey, I. GET. IT. I’m a single person.

I’ve been single for most of my life, and have endless empathy for people who are having a tough time going solo. It can be hard. It can be lonely, more expensive, and at times embarrassing to have to answer a thousand questions about why you are single (subtext: what’s wrong with you), or if you are getting “out there” enough. And on that subject, can we just acknowledge that these days, “out-there” actually just means sitting alone in your pyjamas swiping right on someone who, chances are you’ll never meet?

Thanks to MAFS, I have started questioning why we think being single is so terrible. Why does marrying a complete stranger, cherry-picked for you by someone who is also a complete stranger, and doesn’t know your quirks, values or dreams, seem like a viable option?

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Growing up, I was never offered an alternate ‘happy ending’ other than getting married, or at the very least ‘life-partnered’. No one ever said to me, "who cares if you meet someone? Being on your own is equally as great! Imagine how excellent it will be not sharing the remote!” In fact, being single, particularly as a mature woman, was discussed as the worst case scenario. (Poor, lonely Jennifer Aniston!) The message was clear from a very young age. You grow up. You get married. It’s how we roll.

But what if it’s not how you roll? What does it mean for those of us who take a different route, or heaven forbid, just take our time? Does it mean we have to hitch our wagons to reality TV ‘experts’ in the hope that someone will eventually choose us, even if that someone is cruel, or gulp … was once a stripper!?

For a long time I viewed being single as a failure. This wasn’t a conscious thing. It was buried so deep I’m only just starting to realise it.

We all (because this is true for both genders, although I suspect more so for women, cheers Disney!) grow up with the subtle yet insidious messaging that you haven’t really made it until you shack up with someone. So if you haven’t met someone you want to shack up with, well, you’re a bit of a dud.

People, well-meaning though they may be, are always offering me advice on what to do, or not do, to find a relationship. If I had a penny for every time someone told me, "he’ll turn up when you least expect it", I’d take us all on a holiday to the Caribbean.

I know this advice is meant with kindness, but it’s also laced with a hurtful subtext: there is something wrong with me, and my life, as it is. It’s a subtle message that I won’t be quite right until Prince Charming rears his (hopefully not ugly) head. I’m guilty of this myself. I’ve said those very words to other, single friends before. We think these words are soothing, but they belie a confounding truth: we simply don’t see being single as a desirable option.

Why not? As I get older, and settle into my extremely happy, deliciously independent single life, I can’t help but question this notion that being in a relationship is the holy grail of adulthood.

US Social Scientist Dr DePaulo agrees with me. DePaulo has made a career studying us single folk and argues in her TED Talk that our fear of being alone just doesn’t stack up against the evidence.

“We have this whole mythology about marriage… and what it says is that if only you find ‘the one’ and get married then all of your life falls into place… You’ll be happier, healthier, live longer and be morally superior.” Dr DePaulo said.

This, she argues, falls short of the reality. According to DePaulo, “the most recent studies are showing that when people get married they don’t get any healthier at all… and they are just as happy or as unhappy as they were when they were single.”

Admittedly, this is not great news for the cast of everyone's favourite fake wedding show, but I suspect they knew that already. It is however, great news for single people everywhere. Maybe this means our ideas about single life will eventually change.

We have a long way to go though. There are very few inspiring examples of single people in popular culture, (unless of course you’re a bloke and then Leonardo got yo’ back).

We’re still a long way off seeing a reality TV show about happy, single people, just doing their thing. And I get it. No one wants to watch me wake up when I want, eat pancakes for dinner and spend all my money on fancy skincare (or do you? Call me, Channel 9).

Regardless, we need to stop making single something to fix. What if we start re-imagining what the gold standard for happiness is?

I suspect that if we begin to measure our success by how much joy we experience in a day, and not by whether we have a plus-one, life for both singles and couples alike will be a lot sweeter.