I'm single, and I hate dating.

In the spare confession of Keshia Knight Pulliam—“I’m single, and I hate dating”—we hear not cynicism but a boundary drawn with a steady hand. The words are small stones set to redirect a river. In an age that treats coupling as credential, this utterance refuses the ceremony of constant pursuit. It is a psalm for those whose peace has been bartered too often for small talk and performance; a banner for souls who would rather be honest than endlessly agreeable.

The ancients would understand. They knew that a person could be whole without a counterpart, that solitude can be a citadel and not a prison. To say “I’m single” is not a dirge; it is a description of state, like “I am at harbor” before the next voyage. To add “I hate dating” is to reject the rituals that exhaust the spirit—the rehearsed questions, the curated masks, the auctions of attention. It is the cry of one who values the home-fire more than the fairground, the substance of self more than the spectacle of selection.

Consider Hypatia of Alexandria, philosopher and teacher, who chose the discipline of truth over the commerce of courtship. She walked the streets veiled not in shame but in sovereignty, keeping her mind clear for mathematics and the stars. Suitors came; she declined, not because love was unworthy, but because her vocation was fierce and full. She lived as if to say, “I will not rent out my soul to the tedious parade.” Her life—though ended by violence—remains a lantern: wholeness can stand without a partner, and one may refuse the games without refusing love itself.

Yet Pulliam’s sentence is not an oath against love; it is a protest against the dating machine. The machine demands constant novelty, reduces persons to inventories, measures wonder by algorithms and timing. When someone says, “I hate dating,” they may be protecting the sacredness of discovery from the cheapness of format. They may be choosing deeper connection over repeated auditions, choosing to meet life in its natural seasons rather than on a stage of endless tryouts.

There is a quieter story, too: a woman I will call Mara, who after a string of brittle dinners decided to throw a “Sabbath of Self.” One evening a week she turned off the glowing marketplace, cooked something slow, wrote letters, and invited one friend—not a prospect—to share unhurried conversation. Months later, love found her at a community garden, mud on both their hands, no script between them. She had not sworn off union; she had sworn off depletion. Her “no” to empty dating had cleared a space where something honest could enter.

What, then, is the lesson? Let your boundaries become beacons, not barricades. Say “I’m single” with gratitude for the room it gives you to grow. Say “I hate dating” without apology when the method is a poor match for your spirit. Then craft a life that is richly companioned—by friends, by craft, by service, by awe—so that any future love arrives to a table already laden, not to a famine demanding rescue.

Practice these actions: (1) Replace volume with depth—fewer encounters, fuller presence. (2) Build a weekly ritual that nourishes identity: study, prayer, long walks, or making things with your hands. (3) Cultivate philia—friendship—as a primary love; host dinners, join a guild, learn names in your neighborhood. (4) If you choose to meet someone, prefer contexts of shared labor and joy—volunteering, learning, creating—where masks grow heavy and fall. (5) Keep a short, humane list of non-negotiables rooted in values, not vanities; let the rest be discovered slowly.

At last, carry this wisdom forward: a life does not begin at the handshake nor end at the parting. A soul at peace is already a hearth. Should love come, let it warm what already burns; should it delay, let your fire still give light. In speaking, “I’m single, and I hate dating,” Pulliam blesses the courageous “no” that makes room for a better “yes.” May your own refusals be as clear, and your acceptances as holy.