Mark: The best dating advice you'll ever get might be to quit dating entirely. Not for a week, not for a month, but on purpose. To find yourself first. Sounds like a paradox, right? Today, we explore why building a life you don't need to escape from is the secret. Michelle: Okay, my interest is officially piqued. Quitting dating to get better at… relationships? That feels like saying the best way to learn to swim is to stay on dry land. It’s counter-intuitive, but I have a feeling there’s a powerful truth hiding in there. Mark: There absolutely is. And it’s the core idea behind the book we’re diving into today: Single on Purpose by John Kim. Michelle: John Kim. I think I’ve heard that name. Mark: You probably have, but maybe not in the way you’d expect. He's famously known as 'The Angry Therapist,' a name he earned after his own life completely imploded. He went through a painful divorce and, instead of hiding it, he started a blog to document the raw, unfiltered, and often angry journey of putting himself back together. Michelle: Wow, so this isn't some academic in an ivory tower. This comes from the trenches of a real-life crisis. That changes everything. It’s not theory; it’s a survival guide. Mark: Exactly. That vulnerability is what makes this book hit so differently. It’s less of a lecture and more of a conversation with someone who’s been through it. And his central message is that radical reframe we started with. Michelle: Okay, 'Angry Therapist'—I love that. It sounds honest. So what does he mean by being single 'on purpose'? Is it just a rebrand for being alone and trying to feel better about it?

Mark: That’s the perfect question, because it gets right to the heart of it. He argues it's the opposite of a passive state. It’s not something that happens to you; it’s a conscious, active choice to build a relationship with yourself first. He has this fantastic line: "The Richest Soil for Growth Is Cultivated When You’re Single." Michelle: I like the poetry of that, but let's be real. For a lot of people, that soil feels more like a barren desert, especially at first. The book mentions the severe depression many singles face. How does he square that empowering 'choice' narrative with the very real, very painful reality of loneliness? Mark: He doesn't shy away from it at all. In fact, he leans right into it with his own story. After his divorce, he was in his thirties and realized he’d been in relationships constantly since he was twenty-two. He’d never truly been alone. He describes the initial feeling as panic-inducing, a deep, gnawing loneliness. He didn't know who he was outside of being someone's partner. Michelle: Oh, I know that feeling. It’s like half your identity just walks out the door. You look in the mirror and you’re not sure who is looking back. Mark: Precisely. And he says that’s the exact moment the work begins. Instead of immediately trying to fill that void with another person—which is what most of us are conditioned to do—he made the deliberate choice to sit in that discomfort. To use that time to figure himself out. He started with small things, reconnecting with his body through exercise, his spirit through getting a motorcycle. Things that were just for him. Michelle: Doughnuts, barbells, and a motorcycle, I think I read. It sounds like the title of a great country song. Mark: It really does! But it illustrates his point perfectly. It’s about finding what makes you feel alive, independent of anyone else. He tells a great story from his therapy practice that makes this crystal clear. He was coaching a client, we'll call her Christy. Michelle: Okay, give me the details. I love a good therapy story. Mark: Christy is in her early thirties and she’s in a total bind. She just broke up with her boyfriend because, while he was a nice, stable guy, she just wasn't attracted to him. But now, she finds herself intensely drawn to another guy, Dion, who she openly admits is toxic and bad for her. She comes to John Kim with this dilemma: "Do I go back to the boring-but-safe guy, or do I pursue the exciting-but-toxic one?" Michelle: A classic dilemma. The head versus the heart, or maybe the healthy choice versus the chemical attraction. It’s a trap so many people fall into. Mark: It is. And she’s presenting it as if those are her only two options. But Kim looks at her and says something she never expected. He tells her, "There's a third door. Choose yourself. Be single on purpose." Michelle: Whoa. That’s a pattern interrupt right there. He’s not solving her problem; he’s changing the entire equation. He’s telling her the game is rigged and she needs to walk away from the table. Mark: Exactly. He’s pointing out that her choices are limited to unhealthy patterns. The solution isn't to pick the 'lesser of two evils' in a relationship, but to step away from relationships entirely to figure out why those are her only perceived options. That’s being single on purpose. It’s an intentional period of self-excavation. Michelle: That’s a powerful moment. But it also feels like a huge leap of faith. It’s easy to say in a coffee shop with a therapist, but going home to an empty apartment and actually living that choice day after day… that’s the hard part. Mark: It's the hardest part. And that’s why he argues it’s a practice, not a destination. It’s about building a life that is so fulfilling on its own that a partner becomes a wonderful addition, not a desperate necessity. He has this other quote that I think is so crucial: "What’s not okay is losing ourselves because we don’t have someone to love. Or losing ourselves in the person we’ve chosen to love." Michelle: That hits hard. It reframes the goal entirely. The goal isn't to find a person. The goal is to not lose yourself. Mark: And you can't find what you've never properly built. You can't build something new on a cracked or corrupted foundation. Which brings us to his second major idea: you have to deal with what he calls 'relationship residue.'

Michelle: 'Relationship residue.' I love that term. It’s so visceral. It's like the sticky film left on a label you tried to peel off. Or, a better analogy, it's like digital junk files left on your computer from old software. You think you uninstalled the program, but it's still got all these hidden files slowing everything down in the background. Mark: That is a perfect analogy. Kim says our past relationships, starting from our childhood, lay the tracks. They print the blueprints we follow, often unconsciously. A healthy relationship encourages you to connect with yourself. An unhealthy one, he says, prevents you from connecting with yourself. Michelle: So if you’ve had a string of unhealthy relationships, you’re not just starting from zero. You’re starting from a negative balance. You’re disconnected from your own operating system. Mark: You’re disconnected, and you might not even know it. You might think your distorted definitions of love, communication, or worth are just… normal. He shares this wild, almost unbelievable story from his practice that shows how deep this can go. Michelle: Okay, I’m ready. Hit me with it. Mark: He was coaching a couple. The man, let's call him 'Boots,' defined love almost exclusively through sex. That was his primary language, his proof of connection. The woman, 'Boners' in this story—and yes, the chapter title is 'Boots and Boners'—had a history of sexual abuse. Michelle: Oh, wow. That is a collision course right there. Their blueprints aren't just different; they're fundamentally incompatible and rooted in trauma. Mark: A complete collision. For him, sex meant "you love me." For her, that same act was tangled up with pain, obligation, and a lack of safety. They were speaking two different languages but using the same words, and it was destroying their connection. They were living out their 'relationship residue' in real-time. Michelle: So what was the advice? How do you even begin to untangle that? Mark: His advice wasn't just to talk about it. He told them they had to give themselves new love experiences to create new definitions of love. They had to consciously and intentionally lay new tracks. For them, that meant finding non-sexual ways to build intimacy, safety, and connection, to literally overwrite the old, corrupted files. Michelle: That makes so much sense. You can’t just think your way out of a pattern you behaved your way into. You have to create new, lived experiences to build a new reality. And this is where some of the reader criticism comes in, isn't it? Mark: It is. Tell me what you've heard. Michelle: Well, the book is highly rated, but the reception is a bit divided. Some readers feel that for a book called Single on Purpose, it focuses so much on fixing these past blueprints that it still feels like it's all just prep work for the next relationship, rather than a true celebration of being single for its own sake. Is that a fair critique? Mark: I think it's a valid point to raise, and it depends on what a reader is looking for. Kim is definitely writing for an audience that, for the most part, does desire a healthy partnership eventually. His argument is that you can't have a healthy 'we' until you have a healthy 'me.' Michelle: So the work is for you, first and foremost, and a healthy relationship might be a byproduct of that work, not the goal of it. Mark: Exactly. He has a quote that addresses this directly: "Singlehood is about being a whole person. Even when you’re in a relationship. In fact, especially when you’re in a relationship." The work of self-connection, of cleaning up that residue, doesn't stop when you find someone. It becomes even more critical. Michelle: I can see that. It’s not about getting 'ready' for someone else. It’s about becoming a person you yourself want to be around, a person who is whole and grounded, whether you're alone on a Tuesday night or on a date on a Friday. Mark: That's the entire philosophy in a nutshell. It's about building a life you love, and then deciding if and how you want to share it with someone else, from a place of strength, not from a place of need.

Michelle: So when you put it all together—the radical reframe of being single on purpose and the messy work of excavating our relationship residue—what's the one thing we should really take away from this? Mark: I think it’s the profound understanding that your relationship with yourself is the primary, foundational relationship that will define the entire quality of your life. It is not a consolation prize for not having a partner. It is the main event. Michelle: The main event. I like that. It’s not the opening act. Mark: Not at all. And Kim’s work shows that building that relationship is an active, daily practice. It’s not a one-time fix. Near the end of the book, he shares this powerful mantra that he says should be lived by "Every. Single. Day." It includes things like "Know that you are valuable," "Embrace your story," "Sweat daily," and "Resist nothing." It’s a commitment to showing up for yourself. Michelle: It sounds like a discipline, in the best sense of the word. A practice of self-creation. Mark: It is. And he makes it feel achievable. He even includes a "Single On Purpose Mixtape" in the book—a playlist of songs that got him through his darkest moments and his biggest breakthroughs. Songs that became the soundtrack to his healing. Michelle: That’s such a cool, tangible idea. It’s not just abstract advice; it’s a tool. Mark: It’s a great tool. And maybe that's the first practical step for anyone listening. If you were to start this journey today, what's the first song you would put on your own 'Single on Purpose' mixtape? A song that makes you feel strong, or seen, or ready to build something new for yourself. Michelle: I love that. What a great question for our listeners. It’s a small act, but it’s a creative one, and it’s just for you. Let us know what song you'd pick. We'd genuinely love to hear it and see what a collective Aibrary mixtape would sound like. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.