In this short video, I explain why the question “why am I single?” deserves a real answer, and how we look for it together by video.
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Online therapy for “why am I single?” helps you understand why a lasting relationship has not taken root in your life, even though you want one. Our sessions are one to one by video, in English, each a 1-hour appointment with 50 minutes of therapy, scheduled around the time zone you live in.
I help you see the pattern in who draws you, who you overlook and the moment you tend to step back. This page is part of my online attachment therapy, inside my broader online psychotherapy. If you are rarely single at all, online therapy for always being in a relationship is closer to your question.
You are welcome to request a free 30-minute call, choose a first appointment, see my client policy or contact me by message.
Online therapy for “why am I single?” is for English-speaking adults, anywhere in the world, who would like a lasting partner and cannot work out why it keeps not happening. Your life may be full of friends, work and interests, and still the romantic part stays strangely empty. You want an honest look at your part in it, without blaming yourself.
Being single can sit beside other questions that need a different emphasis. Where a line below sounds more like your life, follow its link to the page written for that.
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These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“If I look back over the last 5 months of practice, the single people I have seen had one thing in common: they had been given far too much advice and almost no understanding. Lower your standards, raise your confidence, change the photos. None of that touches what is happening. Beneath the question I hear ‘Would anyone stay if they knew the real me?’ Next to it sits something cooler: ‘My life works fine, and I am not sure I want to make room.’ Often the same person says both and adds ‘Find me, but do not come in.’ The answer is rarely out there on the apps. It is in that inner conversation, and it can be heard.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Olivia is 37 and works as a corporate lawyer in Zurich, having grown up in Dublin. She runs on weekends, hosts a book club and speaks 3 languages. Her dates usually go well, and men often ask to see her again. Somewhere around the sixth week, she starts finding reasons it will not work, such as his shoes, his job or how he says her name, and she ends it gently by text. Her mother has stopped asking about her love life.
I would begin with the week before her most recent text, and ask Olivia what her body did each time he reached for her. On our first video call she would probably see that the fault-finding starts on cue, as soon as a man begins to count on her. Her shoes-and-jobs list then turns out to be a signal about her, not about them.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
You have tried every sensible thing to meet someone, and the same quiet outcome keeps repeating.
No moment is too early or too late, and no reason is too small. A persistent feeling that love keeps passing you by is enough to start. You do not need a diagnosis, a dramatic heartbreak or a theory about yourself. In 22 years of practice I have met this question in many forms, and I can usually tell when bad timing is really a pattern that will not change on its own.
I will help you see what happens when you meet someone, what keeps the pattern in place and what needs to shift. Use the 6 questions below to decide whether to get in touch.
If they do, the point itself is worth studying. Perhaps it is the third date, the first weekend away or the moment someone wants to meet your friends. You feel enthusiasm, then a flatness you cannot argue with, and one of you drifts off.
I would look at exactly when things stall and what you feel in the days before. That shows whether you have simply met the wrong people or keep arriving at the same edge. If this rings true, book a session with me and we can trace that edge together.
Both can be true, because each protects something you value. The longing wants company, touch and a shared future. The guarding wants your quiet evenings, your routines and the safety of needing nobody. On a date the two pull in opposite directions, and you leave confused.
I do not rank one wish above the other. In psychosynthesis we think of such wishes as parts of one person, each worth hearing. We look at what the guarding part protects, often an early experience of losing yourself in someone, and what the longing part needs. Then your choices can include both.
Many single people do this, especially after a few disappointments. A slower reply or a shorter message lands as rejection. You reread, draft and redraft, and either chase for reassurance or withdraw first so the loss cannot catch you.
Wanting clarity and warmth is reasonable, and I will not make you feel needy for it. What I help you change is the alarm that fires before there is any evidence. We look at the fear underneath, often of not mattering enough to be chosen, and you practise asking plainly instead of decoding.
This is common and deeply confusing. You long for someone, they respond warmly, and suddenly you feel crowded or bored. You pull back, they leave, and you miss them painfully. The loop can run for years with different people.
In our sessions I slow the loop down and find the exact moment closeness tips into alarm, often when someone expresses a need of their own. I have compassion for this protective reflex, and I will also ask you to own the hurt it causes others and yourself.
Often, yes. When someone gets emotional or hopeful, you become friendly but distant. You change the subject, keep things light or bury yourself in work that week. It feels like keeping your balance, but it also keeps everyone at the door.
I see that distance as protection, not a defect, and I will not shame you for needing space. I help you notice what it spares you, so you can stay a little longer when someone reaches for you. You learn to say “I need a slower pace” rather than quietly disappearing.
After years of asking the question, it can start to sound like an accusation. You wonder whether you are too much, not enough or somehow unlovable. Years of fitting into a family’s hopes or a foreign culture’s dating rules can blur what you actually want. That reflects how much you have been carrying, not a flaw in you.
I help you separate the beliefs you absorbed, sometimes from generations before you, from what is truly yours. I will challenge you when you sell yourself short, but I will not prescribe what kind of partner or life you should want. The aim is clarity about who you are and what fits.
If you saw yourself in these questions, talk it over on a free call first, or book a session if you are ready to start.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
You do not need to explain your whole story in your first message.
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Knowing your pattern is useful, but the work has to change what you do on the next date and the one after.
This work will help you see what happens in you when someone becomes interested, recognise the fears that keep you single and change how you meet, choose and stay. Most people already have theories about why they are single. A theory without different behaviour leaves the outcome exactly where it was.
In 22 years of practice I have found that this question opens up when I am active and frank. I will guide you, say what I notice and challenge the stories that keep you stuck, such as “all the good ones are taken”. The 6 questions below set out what we work towards.
Related reading: Why do I end up with the same kind of person every time? and Why do I back away when someone starts to love me?.
I help you separate the core of the matter from the noise around it. Bad luck, busy jobs and limited apps are real, but rarely the whole story. Underneath often sit a few quiet convictions: that being known leads to being left, that wanting too much is dangerous, that you are safer alone.
I tell you what I think is going on, what deserves attention first and which explanations hold you back. We work with what you see in yourself and what you have not yet noticed, including how your body reacts when someone is keen. When you want to begin, book a session with me.
You can learn its early signs. There is often a sequence: a warm moment, a flicker of unease, a critical thought about the other person, then a sudden lack of interest. Once you notice the first link, you have a chance to stay instead of leaving.
In sessions I help you slow that sequence down and see what triggers it and what it protects you from. Seeing it is not enough. We practise a different response, first with me and then on real dates, until staying curious feels possible.
Staying calm does not mean feeling nothing or playing it cool. It means remaining present enough to notice what is happening in you and choose what you do next. Dating can wake old feelings with surprising force, and a single message can colour a whole weekend.
I help you recognise that rush sooner and understand what your nervous system is reacting to, often old experiences of being let down. This takes a little practice every day between our sessions, and I will check in on it.
Showing yourself starts with knowing what you feel and what you want. If needing someone feels risky, you hide behind charm, play it safe or say nothing and later decide they were not right for you. The unspoken wishes never get a chance to be met.
Together we find language that is honest and proportionate, such as “I like you, and I would like to see where this goes”. I will challenge you when you hide, and also when you expect someone to guess your feelings before you risk sharing them.
Clearer decisions come once you separate fear, habit and other people’s opinions from what you actually feel and value. Some people end things too fast to avoid hurt. Others stay too long with someone unavailable because the uncertainty feels familiar.
I help you look honestly at what you feel for someone and what a choice would ask of you. You get my view, and I will tell you when fear seems to be answering, but the decision is always yours. If you end good things deliberately, online self-sabotage therapy explores that pattern further.
The change has to reach your real life, not only our conversations. You may need to free up evenings, meet people in new places, let friends see you hoping or slow down instead of deciding everything by the second date.
I help you decide what needs to change and what is already right. Your independence and your standards are part of you, and we are not trying to remove them. The aim is a life where your choices about love follow your values, not an old fear.
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You do not need a diagnosis or a theory about yourself. We start with your most recent dating story.
In the first session I listen closely, help you name the central pattern and give the work a clear direction. We start with recent, concrete moments rather than your whole romantic history.
The work is individual and sits inside my online psychotherapy, as a strand of my online attachment therapy. If you later meet someone and want to work on the relationship together, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. If you expect a longer stretch, a therapy bundle gives real savings and the safety of an agreed plan.
I ask why the question feels pressing now, what your recent relationships and dates have looked like, what you have tried and what you hope will change. We may look closely at one recent ending. There is no need to cover your whole history.
By the end I share my first understanding and propose a focus. Then you decide whether my way of working helps you. If you would rather talk before booking, arrange a free 30-minute call.
Individual work is the natural choice when you are single, because the pattern lives in you: in your history, your beliefs about love and the way you respond when someone gets close. We can look at past and future partners in depth without anyone else on the call.
Each week I give you direction, continuity and honest challenge. If you are unsure whether to focus on this question or on your life more broadly, online psychotherapy describes my structured individual work as a whole.
Couples therapy becomes the better choice once you are in a relationship that itself needs sustained attention. If a new partner and you keep hitting the same wall, if trust has been strained or if one of you pursues while the other pulls away, working together usually helps more.
In couples work I help both partners see the cycle between them, own their share and build safer ways of being close. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing, and many people do individual work first and come back to it later together.
The pace depends on how much the question weighs on you, how much room your life has and how much continuity the work needs. Insight about dating fades fast if weeks pass between sessions.
I usually suggest weekly or fortnightly sessions at first. I will tell you honestly if the gaps are too long, if we should meet more often during an intense stretch, or when we can safely meet less. Back-to-back sessions over a few days also suit people who travel a lot.
A bundle makes sense when you expect several sessions and want continuity, rather than deciding after each one whether to carry on. Patterns in love show themselves over time, often between one date and the next, so steady work pays off.
A bundle lowers what you pay per session and gives you the security of an agreed structure. The details are on therapy discounts and bundles, with the same options in the cards below.
Therapy has done its job when you understand your pattern, can make freer choices and no longer need the same support to act on them. That does not depend on having a partner by a set date. It depends on you being able to stay open when someone good appears.
I review progress with you openly and do not encourage therapy without end. We can meet less often, pause or stop when the work has done its part. Returning later, perhaps when a relationship begins, is a sign of good sense, not failure.
Wondering whether this is where to begin? Here is how this page compares with the options people asking “why am I single?” tend to consider.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online therapy for “why am I single?” (this page) | You want a lasting relationship and need to understand why it has not happened. | Weekly or fortnightly 1-hour video sessions |
| Online attachment therapy | You want to explore closeness across all your relationships. | 1-hour video sessions over several months |
| Online therapy for always being in a relationship | You are rarely single and move fast from one partner to the next. | A focused course of video sessions |
| Online loneliness therapy | The deeper pain is isolation and a lack of close people of any kind. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
It is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for adults who want a lasting relationship and keep finding themselves single. It helps you understand your pattern in attraction, choice and closeness, and change how you act when someone real appears.
I work in depth with your feelings, your history, the different parts of you and what you learned about love in your family. It is part of my online attachment therapy within my online psychotherapy.
Come when the question has started to weigh on your mood, your confidence or your plans, or when you notice the same story repeating. You do not need to wait for a particular birthday or a painful break-up. If you sense the same ending keeps arriving, that sense is reason enough.
I look at how long the pattern has lasted, how it shows up and what happens when you try to change it. If years of trying have brought the same result, it deserves real attention.
Therapy will not hand you a partner, and I cannot promise when or whether you will meet someone. What it can do is change the parts of the pattern that belong to you, so that when someone suitable appears, you are more able to let them in.
In my clinical experience, many people who ask this question discover that they have met suitable partners before, and something in them stepped back. I would focus with you on what happens at that point.
No. Being single is not a defect, and many people are single for reasons that have nothing to do with any flaw. The fact that you are asking shows you want to understand, not that you are broken.
I do not look for what is wrong with you. I look at what keeps repeating and what you would like to be different. By the end of our first session you will know what I see and where I suggest we begin.
Because their interest stirs two things at once: the wish to be wanted and the fear of what being wanted asks of you. When the fear wins, attraction can vanish almost overnight. It is how you learned to handle closeness, not a fault in your character.
I help you see which way you move when someone gets close, what that move protects and what it costs you. Then we build steadier options: staying curious a little longer and asking for space without closing the door.
We start with your present. I ask about recent dates and relationships, what draws you to people and what tends to end things. By the end you will have my first impression and a suggested direction.
You do not need to prepare or tell your story well. If it feels awkward to talk about love with a stranger, we can begin with that. Reserve a first session or start with a free call.
Think in terms of a few months of regular sessions, not one or two talks. That is often enough to see the pattern clearly and begin acting differently. If it goes back to early experiences of loss or neglect, expect it to take longer.
From 22 years of practice, I recommend agreeing a clear first stretch and reviewing it honestly. At each review we decide together whether to continue, slow the pace or stop.
For most people, yes. Video lets you talk about something tender from your own space, keep going if you move country and work with someone outside your friendship circle. For many, it is easier to be honest about love from their own sofa.
All you need is headphones, a decent connection, a laptop or tablet and a room where you will not be overheard. The calendar shows each available slot in your local time. Most people who are single simply start alone, and we can discuss any doubts on a free call.
This is individual psychotherapy in 1-hour online sessions, with 50 minutes of therapy in each. You will find my current fees, set in US dollars, on the prices page.
For a planned course, a therapy bundle reduces each session by 10 per cent and gives the work a firm structure. Each bundle is described on therapy discounts and bundles for you to compare.
Go to the booking page and choose a time, or request a free 30-minute call if talking first would help. Every time is shown in your own time zone.
If none of the times work, or a recent loss has left you shaken, write to me. I keep some room for acute cases, usually a time within days, and acute online psychotherapy covers that help. Choose your first session, and let the question finally get a real answer.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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P.S. I’ll call you in a bit!
