Sure it's gender related, but men are absolutely conditioned to value being in a relationship. It's different, of course, but try being a lifelong bachelor and not having people treat you skeptically. Most generally, mine comes from doing. Not randomly doing something but having a goal (even a goal not consciously formed) and trying to do it. In my late 20s and early 30s, I went to a lot of live music. A lot as in "have seen the same band a hundred and twenty times in 20+ states and five countries." It became a goal of trying to do the next crazy thing and finding I was able to do it. It did devolve into a dick measuring contest at times, and that wasn't good, but the challenge and success made me feel good. That evolved to hiking and running. I'm doing a peakbagging list (hike all the mountain peaks in an area), and that's oddly similar to "if I see this concert in Ypsilanti I'll have seen them play in cities starting with 23 different letters." But it's less of a dick measuring contest because thousands of people have hiked these summits. Ditto for running. Running a half marathon or, this fall, my first full marathon is about trying to do something and succeeding at my goal. Goals in life are as diverse as the number of people. People expecting me to get married in my 20s and buy a house and have kids in my 30s is as ridiculous as me expecting them to run down the sleepy rural roads of the Ice Age Trail on the weekends. I'm less bothered by (but not oblivious to) their expectations by remembering we all live different lives. Having similar goals or courses in life is no more a feature in others than a flaw in me. And, on the individual level, the similarities start to vanish. So, my individual self worth comes from living my own life and taking satisfaction in the hobbies I enjoy.Do you think self-worth and being single is a gender-related issue: men can have self-worth just by being men but women are conditioned to base self-worth on their relationships.
Where does your sense of self-worth come from?