Do the people you know usually do this, take reflective time to just be alone, and single, working on themselves and deciding what they want and and don't want in a partner? fukk no, in my experience. My friend's and extended social circles are vast majority as dysfunctional as the characters depicted here. I doubt people in general do, most aren't very "smart" or self aware in that sense. I see a lot of women and men get out, and get right back in another within 90 days or less. Oh, they spend the first week proclaiming how happy they are to be "free", but it doesn't take long to be right back to it.
Usually takes a person time to learn how to do that and they dont understand the importance of it long term for themselves. With this show, we really dont know Lawrence (or Issa for that matter) prior to episode 1, so we dont know if they have learned how to do that yet.
Im assuming thats part of the reason why both of them are lost in a sense.