Look. If you are anything like me, complaining about being single is such a hard thing to because you are genuinely happy for your friends, but as they continue to be happy in their relationships, the ever crushing weight of being the single friends can become overwhelming. For context, my primary friend group consists of four people. We are all roommates and it is a great time here. All three of my roommates have boyfriends/girlfriends, which makes our friend group of four quickly jump to seven, and it is wonderful! I love my roommates so much and I love their S.O's, but no matter how much I love them I always get extremely jealous and sad. The sad thing is that the only part that ever truly ends up bugging me is that since I am single, they are my go-to top priorities and it has been really hard to watch myself slip from the top of their go-to's to not being their go to when they feel the weight of the world. What makes it harder is that expressing that I feel alone and unwanted makes me sound jealous and like I don't want my friends to hangout with their people. I get it. I do. But there are just days I want to be someone's first pick and I'm not.

All in all, I am extremely over the moon for my friends. It has truly been a joy watching them fall in love and find their people. And if you are in, or have been in my spot, you would get it. We single friends find great joy in watching our friends find their great joy. At the end of the day though, it doesn't stop the overwhelming feeling of loneliness. With that loneliness, how do you talk about it without feeling like your friends now think of you as bitter or unhappy for them. Granted, my friends are the best and they understand where I am coming from but when they all go off and call their people, or go see their people, or tell me they can't hang out because they want to be with their person, I am left alone. And being alone is the hardest thing to be.

I think this would all be so much easier too if I had other friends but I really don't. I have a few of course but I don't see them all that often. Plus living in a college town during the summer means most of them aren't in town. So I throw myself into my work. I work three jobs to keep myself busy so I don't have the chance to get sad but no matter how much I do, it isn't enough.

I am also at that stage where people all around us are getting engaged and married and that is where they are talking about. It is so hard to hear it and not crave that feeling. As I continue into my season of singleness while watching people be happy in relationships, it draws me to that questions of, Am I not good enough for a man? or What makes me so unloveable? These simple questions are ones that often run through my mind. They follow me around like a storm cloud that takes my joy. My singleness often crosses the line of a feeling into my identity. Which is not a good thing but at the same time, the constant questions of "Are you talking to someone new" and comments like "You won't end up alone. You will find someone" make it hard to prevent it from becoming so. The hard part is that maybe I don't find my forever. Maybe I am cursed to be single forever. And right now, that is my greatest fear. To die one day alone. To not be loved.

I know that there is a lot of irrational thought in this but this is a confession of a single friend. It is the way I feel. I feel like I will never be worthy enough of someone. I feel like I will never find someone who checks all the boxes. I feel like my preferences in men are out of my league. That I am unlovable. That a man never wants more than just a snapchat relationship. The pressure of wondering when I will get ghosted. That I don't have to have a man check off every box because the perfect prince doesn't exist.

The problem with this mindset though is that it prevents me from opening up and getting to know people. I look at love pessimistically now because I have convinced myself that I am not good enough.