Why I Stopped Waiting for Someone to Come With Me

Most women wait for company before they do anything. Shannon Kate Murray stopped waiting, and found that going alone was the most reliable way to find the right people.

There's a group chat on my phone about a Dubai trip that never happened.

We talked about it for months. Everyone was in, links got sent, and then life got in the way for everyone except me. I waited. I nudged. It stayed in the chat.

So I booked it myself.

The confidence to do it, though, came from somewhere else entirely. It started in Tenerife.

A few weeks before Dubai, I'd booked a last-minute trip with my aunt, a reset after my engagement ended, when I didn't know what I wanted for my life anymore and thought sunshine might help me figure it out. My aunt had to leave early. Which meant I spent the second half of the trip alone, which was not the plan.

And it was fine. More than fine, actually. Nobody bothered me. Surrounding me weren't scary men trying to kidnap me, just ordinary people going about their days, completely unbothered by the woman enjoying a fresh smoothie by the window and, later, a fancy ice cream at the beach. Solo.

The fear had just been in my head. I'd invented a version of the world that didn't exist (I blame Taken).

So when I got home and Dubai still hadn't left the group chat, I decided to go anyway. I chose Dubai because it felt like a sensible first real solo trip: English-speaking, full of Brits, and I already knew that Muslim countries are genuinely very safe for women, whatever the reputation might suggest. I felt comfortable before I'd even landed.

Shannon Kate Murray, in-flight (LHR → DXB), April 2022.

Less comfortable in the back of the airport cab, though. The nerves arrived the moment we pulled away. What was I thinking? Was this reckless? What if something goes wrong?

Nothing went wrong. I made friends with a couple on the coach tour. I had slow mornings around the pool and afternoons at the beach, rose iced latte in hand. I explored the Palm, wandered the old town (less comfortable as a solo woman, and I think it's worth saying that rather than pretending every moment was perfect), and did exactly as much or as little as I felt like each day. I'd taken my laptop thinking I might work. I didn't open it once. Just used it in the evenings to wind down, which felt like a luxury in itself.

By the end of that trip, I felt more like myself than I had in months. Not because of the skyline or the desert. Just because I'd spent a week making small decisions alone and discovered, each time, that I was fine. In 2024 I did it again. New York City this time. Same nerves on the way in. Same feeling on the other side.

Those trips confirmed something I'd always known: I was fine in my own company. Always had been, really.

Growing up, most of my friends were focused on boys in the way that felt like a full-time job. Who liked who, who was going to ask whom out, whether someone was going to text back. I was never really like that. I liked my own company. My parents were different but similar in their own way. Neither of them stayed single long after their divorce, the gap between relationships barely long enough to breathe.

I just always assumed I'd catch up eventually.

But I've come to think that instinct I had was right all along. You need to know yourself before you can properly know someone else. A relationship should add to a life you've already built, not be the life itself. When my engagement ended in my mid-20s, I chose, instinctively, not to immediately fill the space. There was too much I hadn't figured out yet about what I actually wanted, what I was building, who I was becoming.

That was three years ago now. I'll be honest about what that's actually been like, because the version of this story that gets told tends to be too tidy. So yes, sometimes I wish I had a boyfriend. Specifically, every single time a large black spider appears in the bedroom and needs removing, which is not a situation I enjoy navigating alone.

But I don't want something surface-level just to avoid being alone. I want depth. Someone who feels like a best friend, who makes me laugh, who has values that match mine, who adds to the life I'm building rather than asking me to build a different one. Someone who feels safe.

Until that person turns up, I get to be my own best friend. Building the career. Making every day feel good. Three years in, I can tell you: the world is kinder than fear suggested.

Sure, I've had odd moments too, people approaching me in ways that made me uncomfortable, and speaking up to whoever's around always works. But the picture of the world as dangerous, particularly for women alone, isn't accurate. It's what you absorb from consuming nothing but news, which selects for the exception and calls it the rule. Most places are safe. Most people are kind.

Doing things alone doesn't keep you from people. It leads you to them.

A few years ago I started going to ice skating lessons in a town where I didn't know anyone. I turned up alone, which felt a little awkward for about ten minutes and then didn't. I kept going. Over time, I built an entire community around that rink, friends I wouldn't have met any other way, people who showed up every week for the same reason I did. It became my Friday routine. Eventually it became part of why I moved there.

I didn't find belonging despite going alone. I found it because of it.

The Dubai trip was the same thing, really. The couple on the coach. The easy conversation with strangers who had no history with me, no preconceptions. And some of those people become important to you in ways you never see coming.

You don't need a flight to start finding this out. Show up somewhere alone this week. A class, a rink, a café you've been meaning to try. And then one day a trip doesn't leave the group chat, and instead of waiting, you just go.

There's still a stigma attached to women doing things alone that doesn't exist for men. A woman at a solo dinner is brave, sad, or waiting for someone. None of those readings are neutral, and all of them are wrong.

Being alone isn't a gap to fill. It's a chance to meet yourself properly.

And when you do, the right people don't show up to complete your story. They show up to enrich a life that's already whole.