“Be alone. Eat alone, take yourself on dates, sleep alone. In the midst of this you will learn. You will grow, you will figure out what inspires you, you will discover your own dreams, and when you do meet the person who makes your cells dance, you will be sure of it, because you are sure of yourself.”
Maybe it’s the 70/30 ratio finally getting to me, or maybe in the 4 months I’ve been in college I’ve magically matured, but I’m learning there’s better things I can be doing with my time than complaining about my single status. In the process of academically mapping out my next couple years, I began thinking about the future, and for the first time I feel like my life has a clear direction, where I can be happy on my own.
When I think of high school, and even middle school, I remember each time period by a guy I was interested in. There’s no denying it– I was boy crazy. I used to get depressed during the “in-between” times when I wasn’t chasing after a new guy, spamming every conversation with complaints of “how boring being single is” because “there’s no purpose to life when you’re alone”.
Somehow it’s taken me this long to realize that years from now, you aren’t going to remember the flirtationships that fizzled, the cute guy at that party who spent all night talking to you and the time you let the guy down the hall make you his rebound– I never thought I’d say it, but I’m tired of my life being about boys. I’m tired of the chase and the self-doubt and my life revolving around a stupid text message. I’m tired of timing when I work out in the hopes that I’ll catch the hottie from the rec center, and the amount of fun I’ve had in one night being determined by how much attention from certain guys I received.
It’s not that I’m a relationship shamer– in fact, I’m quite the opposite. For the last 18 years, I’ve been the kind of girl who eat, sleeps, and breathes romance. It only takes a quick browse through the archives of saved hopeless romantic poetry I have, as well as the abundance of Taylor Swift songs forever taking up all of my iPhone storage, to see I’m a sucker for relationships. But for once, I’m going to trust the timing of my life, and let love come to me. And in the mean time, I’m going to figure out how to love myself. Being single means something I dread the most– alone time. But I’ve decided to embrace it, and in doing so, learn more about myself. I want to focus more on my academics, future, friendships and how to find happiness on my own, without a big spoon at night or a sweet text message to wake up to. It’s time to gain confidence in ourselves without having it distributed by the opposite gender– because your happiness shouldn’t be broken by one unanswered text message.
So you can officially consider me out of the running in the competition to tie down a special fella from TCU’s 30% male population. And while that may be a small victory for some of you ladies still on the prowl, I encourage you to reevaluate your life as I have. Join me in learning the art of self-dating.
Because we are bad ass collegiate ladies, and we don’t need no man.