The Illusion of Happiness;

Why Proving that you’re happy is futile with those who insist You’re not!

An online trend I’ve noticed with divorced women, or single ladies in their late 30s and above, especially when they’re successful or well established, is an inclination to post captions or pictures that show they’re happy.

So, for the ones who can afford it, you’d see pictures of them holidaying with friends, or going on one pricey adventure or the other, and their hashtags always indicate a breezy life, a happy-go-lucky, care-free, could-not-be-bothered kind of existence that actually hopes to address what they think is your judgment and your rebuttal.

Don’t ask me how I know, and don’t tell me they’re just living their lives and it’s the world drawing conclusions. I know what I’m saying!😐

I’ve seen this posting pattern with a lot of divorced wives of celebrities, and it confirms my theory. They never used to post like that while they were still married. But after they left their spouses and stirred a horde of media narratives in their wake, they began posting pictures to prove their transition into a place called peace.

This is especially the case when, as it often happens, their exes move on with another woman very soon after the divorce, and there’s a media flurry around the néw relationship or the néw marriage.

It happens with single women ripe for marriage too. They do alot of posturing to prove to naysayers that that life of pining and quiet frustration projected on single, successful women is not their reality.

But why do you need to?

It’s enough that you’ve come full circle into your healing journey as a divorcee. It’s enough that statistics and anecdotal evidence show that the quality of life of most women post-divorce increases, and that women tend to have a more rounded, wholesome trajectory after a divorce.

It’s enough that we can count so many women whose lives post divorce seemed to experience a dramatic shift. It’s enough that as a single lady, you go to bed happy that you’ve added value to yourself and the world, don’t have to deal with negative relationship issues, aren’t wasting your love, time or body with the wrong person, and are patiently waiting for the right time.

These are enough!

It’s enough that your life is progressing in the areas that matter, because if you were unhappy or grovelling in secret, it would tell on your work, your health, your looks and your relationships with people. But here you are thriving in these areas.

And you care enough to allow people project their realities on you? I feel like the moment women start making those kinds of posts, they descend to the level of their little-minded accusers.

To be fair, these folks who can’t conceive the idea of a woman happily divorced or happily single aren’t totally at fault. We’ve seen tons of videos, and heard tons of confessions of women wincing in pain because they’re single in their 40s and suddenly had an epiphanous moment when they realised they’re going to die looking and feeling like the Evil Queen in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, or the miserable Madam Mim in The Sword in the Stone.

So yeah, I see why it will take an entire century to convince men and traditional women that a woman can go to bed alone and wake up alone, and not have a burning desire to take pills to end her life. It’s what other women have made the entire womenfolk look like.

Desperate women are the culprits here, and I’d be the first to say there are lotssssssss of them! They exist. Women who truly can’t conceive their lives outside of a male presence, even if it sabotages them, threatens their lives and peace, and takes from them rather than pours into them.

Women, throughout history, have bent over backwards to earn the presence of the most low-effort men who would rather be anywhere else but with them.

Women have bought husbands with their money. Women have funded the unproductive and futile passions of their lazy baby boys just for the promise of a ring.

Women have put up with miles of bad treatment just to go by the world famous appellation; Mrs.

And yes, many divorced women have snuck around other peoples husbands in undignifying ways that made you question why they left their exes if they were going to live the same life he lived. I get it.

But that’s not the case for every woman! More and more, the reality is that alot of women are……I hate to use this catchphrase, but for lack of a better term….decentering men.

It was bound to happen. Are women slow? Absolutely. They’re not catching up as fast as I think they should. But are more and more women living their lives purposefully, intentionally and free of the dramas of their predecessors? Yes!

And for these women, I say, you don’t have to prove that you’re happy to anyone. Happiness is a private gift. It’s for your personal consumption primarily, and then it diffuses to the world around you.

Release yourself from the pressure to prove that you’re happy. When you feel an urge to make that post, to post that good time you had and write that caption that makes you breezy and care-free, resist it. Wear it down with the stiffest resistance!

Because if you are still under any form of obligation to the world, there’s still some power the world and their opinion have over you.

Single women in their 40s have bad days, just like happily married women. Not every day is sunshine and roses. Your life isn’t more animated than the life of an average contented person (except it is), so there’s really no point in overly romanticising it just to respond to subliminal shades, whispers and unsaid snide remarks.

If of course, you just feel that way on a certain day, then by all means, go ahead. But never give in to the pressure to deodorise your life, short circuit your healing process, over-share or eliminate the gravitas in your daily life just because you want to prove to people who will never believe, that you’re happy, either because the strongholds in their minds are too strong, or because they’d rather tell themselves you’re not than believe your truth.

It’s enough you’re happy, really.

Another set of women I want to address are single women who try to make cryptic posts insinuating or proving that they actually have a horde of suitors or admirers, and that they aren’t single because no one is coming for them, but for personal reasons.

Many times, they make these posts to intentionally lead their followers on and make them believe that a man did one thing or the other for them, whereas they’re as single as a broomstick and there’s really no one serious in the picture.

But because they want to rebut an overarching belief that they’re going unnoticed like an old furniture on a desk, they drop these kind of posts alluding to a suitor, chyker or romantic partner somewhere.

Well, even when you were sixteen, you weren’t getting asked out every day. There were months you went without any serious admirer.

Except a woman is a low hanging fruit & gives off the vibes of being accessible to every man, there’s no reason why you should be actively engaging a throng of admirers at a time.

Quality people are few in both genders, and as you get older as a woman, especially if you’re putting in the work in yourself and clearly shedding off the naivete of your youth, you would likely not be an attractive prospect for alot of men. Your pool naturally slims, not just because of your age, but because you’re less impressionable, and your standards are likely higher, especially if you are yourself, a woman of value.

Practically speaking, a younger woman with more nebulous, flexible standards and a high dose of naivete is a more attractive bargain for a man.

There’s no point proving you can still rake in the numbers and still have men skittering in your dms. Even my mother at fifty-four, with four children, still has men desperately fawning over her, hoping her husband would die today. So, anyone who thinks you’re unmarried because ain’t no one coming for you, well, jokes on them. Let them remain delusional. Let them believe whatever!

You don’t need to prove otherwise to anyone. A trail of admirers would NEVER be a yardstick for judging your core attractiveness or value as a woman.

Just know this; quality people are few in both genders. Only quality people are willing to put in the work. If you’ve done the work on yourself and you have high standards, very few men will be willing to come correct and meet these standards, especially as there would always be easier, younger women in surplus.

So naturally, they’d go for what may offer more or equal benefits, but requires less effort.

It’s that simple! And it’s a mature thing to admit to yourself without it destroying you, especially if the issue isn’t a negative character you possess.

In any case, you don’t need a pool. You only need one tailored person, something God is able to deliver on, so quit proving to people one way or the other that you have a looooooong list of admirers, and it’s just you rebuffing them, or giving false indicators that one man somewhere is on your matter when you’re singularly single.

You’re leaving a false life just because of people who don’t count.