Brutally Honest Reasons Why You're Still Single

Virgin or not, your perpetually single status still hurts (and your body hair isn't the reason why)

There's the guy who's happily settled down. There's the guy who's hooking up with someone new every weekend. There's the guy who swings from one partner to another like a desperate relationship spider monkey. And then there's you.

Plenty of men are single and satisfied (there are even scientific reasons why), but you don't count yourself amongst their ranks. In fact, you're downright miserable about it. And with the holidays coming up, you're preparing yourself for an entire season of excruciating reminders about your solitude.

Let's cut to the chase. You want to know why you're still single when you don't want to be, so settle into your sweatpants, grab a box of tissues and a pint of ice cream, and let's get brutally honest about how you're f*cking up your life.

You're Fixated On An Old Flame

They smashed your heart into a million pieces and left you to pick up the shards. Yet for some inexplicable reason, you're still carrying a torch for them and it's incinerating your chances for future love. Perhaps you've even convinced yourself that your hand-grenade-in-human-form ex was the perfect partner.

Or maybe you're fully aware of what a fiasco your former relationship was, and it's left you so scarred that all you can think about is what could go wrong in the next one. You're willing to do anything to avoid those feelings again, including dooming yourself to permanent bachelorhood.

Either way, remember your next date is not your ex. Leave your old doubts, fears, obsessions, and partners in the past where they belong.

You're Not Even Trying

Maybe you consider yourself a romantic. You're so obsessed with an idealised version of love that you believe it's all down to fate (or a fat baby with arrows). You don't find love, love finds you. One day, when you least expect it, it will come knocking at your door and…

Forget it. Unless your Tinder game is supernatural, love isn't coming your way if you refuse to work for it. Who's more likely to score a date - the guy who spends every night drooling over dragons and royals on Game of Thrones, or the guy who actually gets out there and meets people?

It's a mistake not to be proactive with your love life, and hopeless romantics aren't the only ones who fall into the trap. This is also you if you're obsessed with superficial dealbreakers or a 'type', if you're paralysed by fear of rejection, if you shun social situations, and if you've convinced yourself that 'all the good ones are taken.'