There's something oddly unsettling about seeing your friends getting into relationships while you remain hopelessly single. You start to second guess yourself and wonder when you'll ever be good enough for someone to love you the way that you are. You start reading those dumb click-bait articles about how if you change this one thing about yourself, people will be lining up to go out with you. Or even worse, you start reading the articles that tell you you're perfect and that it's everyone else that's got a screw or two loose. (Hint, everyone has issues and nobody is perfect. Anybody who says that is a liar and has severely lacks self-love. Own your imperfections! They're what makes you, you). You get into this depressive, never-ending cycle where all you do is look at people in relationships and think about how you're not in one and how that automatically means you have to be miserable.

This isn't going to be one of those articles. I'm not going to tell you what you're doing wrong or that everyone should drop to your feet because you're a god (or goddess). What I will tell you, is that after a long two years of not having to deal with relationship drama, it feels pretty great being hopelessly single. I'm telling you to own your single status.

I'm not kidding. The single life is the best life.

I used to be one of those girls who would get upset that she wasn't in a relationship and she didn't have guys constantly blowing up her phone, (read the second paragraph from the top and there you have the first 4 years of my teenage life). I used to think that being in a relationship was what made the world go 'round (pro-tip: it's not). Admittedly, I am also a hopeless romantic, so life was a bit rough until I changed my perspective.

I am still very much a hopeless romantic. I love the idea of love and I love when I see two people genuinely in love. I think it's beautiful and wonderful, but maybe not for me...yet.

I enjoy going out with my friends, doing whatever I want, with whoever I want. I like shamelessly flirting with the cute guy in line behind me, without someone getting pissed that I'm acknowledging another male. I like the idea of options. I like not being attached to someone. I like not having the worries people in relationships constantly think about. I don't have to check my phone every five minutes to see if he left me on read. I don't have to have a twenty minute debate on if we eat Chik-Fil-A or Chipotle for dinner. I like making decisions without having to talk it over with someone else to make sure it's OK to do. I like having the freedom to talk to who I want. My parents raised me to be an independent, self-reliant woman and for so long I used to look at that as a bad thing. But it's actually the best thing about me. I like being independent because I know that no matter how many times I fall down, it will always be me who picks myself back up and tries again.

I like being single.

And until someone comes along that makes me enjoy being in a relationship as much as I enjoy being single, you can catch me being the independent, kick-ass woman I was raised to be.