I have been single all my life, so much so that I feel like it is part of my identity at this point. The hardest part of it was in high school and freshman year of college where everyone around me seemed to find someone. I started going down a depressive path where I hated myself, my very personality. I thought I was too annoying, too loud, or just not pretty enough. No matter how much the people around me told the opposite, it just seemed placating or insincere. I had friends prioritize their boyfriends over me, reminding me that I’m no one’s number one priority. I also felt like I could never talk to my friends because all they ever seemed to talk about was their boyfriend. It was a lot at times, listening to my friends say how much they miss certain aspects of their boyfriends so I would say I wanted a boyfriend or at least they have one. To my friends, I sounded whining and as I grew and stopped this behavior, they told me what a relief it was that I had stopped whining. It led to me feeling worse and worse about myself, making me doubt my self-worth even more. I translated it to no one liked me because I whined too much about insignificant things since others have it worse than me. The whining plus the desire to make me happy caused my friends to start to look for guys to set me up with. I was just desperate enough to start talking to these guys but not desperate enough to be totally ok with them. I have standards that some might not understand but are important to me which has always been a problem when searching for a boyfriend. But even with these slightly lowered standards I still got ghosted or ignored by these guys. It caused me to feel even worse about myself and caused me to spiral more, as I pretended I was ok. I didn’t want to admit to how much a failure I felt I was. It all started to change when I talked to a friend who has also been single all her life. Through talking with her I realized I wasn’t the problem in these situations but that I know what I want as others are still trying to figure it out which is why they date. I don’t want a fling or something that won’t last long, I want forever and am ok waiting for it. This self-discovery helped me to become ok with being single, being the only one in the room without that special someone to run to and share the small funny thing that happened that day. In this time I also went to a retreat where I learned a lot about myself, one of which was I thought I was ready for a boyfriend but actually wasn’t, not until I left the retreat house loving myself for who I am. During this realization, I felt like my time was coming for a boyfriend because I was ready. I spoke of this to my single friend and she said something that has stuck with me. “You may be ready for him, but he may not be ready for you yet.” I may have gone on this journey to make myself ready, but it does not mean that my future boyfriend has gone on his journey yet.
But why am I not ok with it? Because there are good days and bad days. The bad days can be hard, especially with big holidays like Valentine’s Day, or times when you feel the hope that someone is into you but you just don’t know. Valentine’s Day, or in all actuality the days following Valentine’s Day were especially hard for me. I went on a women’s retreat with my single friend that ended Valentine’s Day and we then spent the evening together. I had an amazing time but was faced with a lot the next day. My friends came back from seeing their boyfriends and wanted to share their special days. I have no problem listening and sharing in their joy but with everyone sharing and doing it repeatedly it felt like it was being shoved in my face. As Callie Torres from Grey’s Anatomy once said, “alone people don’t like to hear about the together people … even if the alone people are alone by choice, it’s sort of mean.” But as the hype went away and things turned back to normal the days became easier and I was feeling great about myself. More recently though it became hard again. I was walking and an acquaintance said hi to me in such a way that my friend swore he was into me. I didn’t believe her and still don’t since it’s just the type of person he is, but it planted a seed of hope. I have tried to destroy that seed of hope because I have been burned too many times, but it is resilient and can’t seem to go away. So I tell everyone I am not interested in him right now even though I fantasize what it would be like to actually make a move. And that is the hardest part, not telling the people closest to me how I really feel. They always want to support me and be happy, so they encourage me to make that step. Yet every time I get burned, hurt, and depressed. As much as I want to make that move, I don’t think I can emotionally take it right now if it ended badly.
So I struggle on the day-to-day, oscillating between being ok and not ok with being single. I stay strong though, knowing that while it feels like I have lived for a long time and that if I haven’t found someone by now then I never will, that I’m only 19. I have my whole life ahead of me with no deadlines on when I have to find someone.