Every so often I have a unique thought. I become proud of this thought and desperate to share it with someone—anyone—so they can bear witness to what I perceive as my own distinct genius. But it reads as a little desperate to text a friend something that I know will feel ridiculous in about eighteen minutes just to score a validating Haha or a heart emoji.
This was what Twitter was for! (RIP; Threads—though we all hoped for the best—is no replacement).
There are other moments when I’m suddenly in the in the ideal version of my life, everything around me, no matter how mundane, inexplicably gorgeous, oddly in its place and I need someone—anyone—to see that this is, in fact, my actual life (at least for a fleeting second), because I’m not always capable of trusting that my experience was good and valid if someone else has not seen it and deemed it as such.
This is what Instagram is for!
(I’m too old to know what TikTok is for.)
The desire to be witnessed is natural and human and addicting, and social media companies know this and exploit this fabulously. It feels good to be seen without having to put that burden on any one recipient, but of course then you’re flung into the anxious and compulsive spin of being seen by all.
My very first taste of this was the AOL Instant Messenger “Away Message.” God, I loved the Away Message, the poetry of it all. Was the Away Message my gateway to creative writing? Possibly. From an early age it was my love language—communicating via cryptic song lyrics to my crush-of-the-moment, who was surely not looking at my Away Message. But the glorious thing about the Away Message was that if your intended viewer didn’t look, you never knew!
The Away Message was passive. It didn’t push, and this was its beauty, its grace. It was like a sign on one’s door. The whole form was devastatingly authentic because the concept of “likes” hadn’t yet emerged. You weren’t desperate for volume, you just wanted that one person who got it to respond.
Alls to say the need to be witnessed is potent and enduring and I have long been plugging my little needy validation hole with whatever digitized solution lay available.
What I had not realized, until very recently, is how much being in a committed relationship plugs this particular need as well. That, in many ways, the most underrated benefit of being in partnership is the built-in ability to be witnessed. Although, like any stop-gap for self-worth, this, too, has its downfalls.
My current relationship—now 3 years in— is the most committed relationship of my adult life. It still feels strange after spending most of my 20s and 30s single, like I’m inhabiting another planet where I am simply a guest.
My boyfriend, Ben, and I live together and love each other and all that, but the real thrill of commitment, to me, is not worrying about how you’re perceived at an interaction level. You can say dumb shit—not funny dumb, but actually totally useless, run-on, idiotic statements—and the other person doesn’t care, because you are no longer judging each other on that level. In the decade I spent online dating, the judgement was microscopic and constant (What does “sure” imply? Why didn’t they laugh? Do they really not know who Angel Olsen is?) With commitment there’s cushy, breathable leeway, like riding in a massive bike lane after navigating narrow city streets.
Being in this relationship, I’ve found, to my great delight and deep embarrassment, that I am far less likely to engage with social media. Because I have this person beside me to hear and see all my minor (major, to me) observations. Though I’m loath to admit it since I’d rather not need this validation in any form, it’s astoundingly helpful to have a default observer, someone to make life feel a little more real, to say something as simple as “that’s great,” when I’m tired of affirming myself.
For those who have been in relationships forever and may take it for granted: having someone witnessing you day to day, who is there for your idiotic thoughts, cheesy pictures, and mindless comments is HUGE.
Friends can do this, too. Of course friends can do this. But it’s sometimes harder to put this trivial cognitive ephemera on a friend because you care about your friends. It’s a bit more embarrassing to waste their time, distract them from whatever they’re doing with this one-sided exchange. Whereas it’s like a reward in a relationship, this little treat you get—the ability to unleash thoughts recklessly—in exchange for having someone in your space all the time.
I have always maintained that single people are, in many ways, stronger in the context of our culture — a society structured around partnership and consistently reinforcing its goodness. This was self-aggrandizing for a long time, given that I spent most of my adult life single, but I maintain it still. There are obvious reasons: financially it’s generally harder. If you want kids, it’s usually harder. It is less socially acceptable, especially after a certain age. But the biggest difference, for me, is that in a relationship there is someone to bear witness, to make me feel like a human in the world in those dark periods where nothing seems to matter.
It’s embarrassing to admit such a basic need sits behind such a significant commitment. Obviously, not needing to be witnessed is the superior mindset. But there’s real intimacy in being seen as you are, without performance. When I was perpetually plugging my validation hole with technology, intimacy slipped.
Back then it felt impossible for me to be seen as I was because most of my actions were an attempt to prove myself to others. Even when I was alone, I’d obsess over diet, exercise compulsively, read something a guy I liked had recommended. I remember once, waiting for a guy I was dating to get out of the shower, I found the book on his shelf that I thought he’d be most impressed by and essentially staged myself on his couch, pretending to read, my clothes draped just right. He broke up with me a few weeks later, said he didn’t feel a connection, and though I was devastated at the time, I can’t really blame him.
Shortly after that breakup, I stopped dating for almost five years, knowing, on some level, that my actual self—whoever that was—was getting lost in who I thought people wanted me to be. I spent long periods of time alone, discovered my own tastes, allowed myself to try writing. As I describe in an essay, The Art of Being Completely Alone, I finally had the space to understand who I was when no one was watching. In a sense, I bore witness to myself, which sounds supremely cheesy, but kind of changed my life.
Connection—the holy grail—is a combination of being both really seen and also understood. We chase this in relationships but it can present itself anywhere—reading a book, talking with a friend, witnessing nature, creating art, meeting a stranger. Ben will never really understand why I curl up all weekend in bed like a mole-person, hovering over my laptop, hair wild and matted while the sun shines in our window, but he sees and accepts it with love and brings me Ginger-Ale when I don’t want to move.
The dark side to being witnessed, beyond the inherent vulnerability of it all, is the complacency that can follow. When Ben lazily nods as I recount my dream, or “Haha”s my silly photo, it satisfies something, but I’d be delusional to call that connection. Moments of connection exist between us, of course, but the day-to-day of being seen is more like the equivalent of scratching my back. It’s comfort, commitment—something I didn’t think I needed and don’t particularly want to need but feels undeniably good to receive.
When I get too comfortable with these back scratches, a kind of ache emerges, the desire for something more, a stretching of the self, which was easier to pinpoint and pursue when I was single, completely alone. I’ve learned by now that this ache doesn’t mean I need to explode my relationship. More likely, it means I need to take a weekend away to write, go out to dinner with a girlfriend, find a good book.
To be witnessed is a relief, it is an exhale. It can be easy to take for granted if you’re used to the small, mundane affirmations of partnership in some form, but it can feel monumental if you’re not. Like anything, there’s always the issue of balance—forging intimacy without growing dependent on it. When validation masquerades as connection, we can forget to search for it on our own, in our selves, which might leave us lonelier than if no one were watching.
Related Recs
I’ll write way more about this soon, but I’m SO excited to read
’s new book, I’M MOSTLY HERE TO ENJOY MYSELF. In the meantime, I listened to her ep of Everything Is Fine and, among other things, absolutely loved an analogy she made about how being single vs. being in a relationship is similar to freelancing vs. having a full-time job. Listen to the full episode here.I have somehow never seen Six Feet Under. To be clear, I love TV. I know it’s almost impossible to say that I love TV and also that I have never watched this show in the same breath, but it’s true. I didn’t have HBO when it came out and the last time I tried to watch it was Covid, which, just, no. So I started a few weeks ago and it has since become my world. I’m in love.
I’m actually going to self-promote an essay I wrote for Catapult a few years ago about how weird it felt getting into a relationship after being single forever. I don’t love the title they chose, it was originally called “Stuck in a Single Identity,” but I’m proud of the piece.
Yes! This is so true. I’ve thought about it but not made the distinction between connection and validation. And I also thought about that connection also means listening and having an exchange, while validation is all about me. Right?
I was never on AOL as I grew up in Sweden and I didn’t really get the Away Message but it sounds like a great thing.
Emily, get out of my head! I've been thinking about the idea of "witness" nonstop lately, but from the other side: a lifetime in long-term relationships and now my first real bout of singleness. A quick perusal of your page showed me that we have been untangling many other same ideas too (not to mention: I'm a fellow "tech by day, writing by night" soldier myself). So happy to have found your newsletter!