I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not good at being single, especially in college. But, what I’m even worse at is being in a relationship considering I’ve been single for about four years. As you can see, I’m very qualified to write an article on how to be independent. When I think of synonyms for being single I think of being alone. In fact, the definition of single, according to Oxford Dictionary is: not accompanied by others; alone.

Alone. The word itself seems like an unimpassioned idea. We live in a society that teaches us to be dependant on relationships and being in love. This whole first semester of college, I’ve been so focused on finding a guy who I can be dependant on that I’ve forgotten how to be on my own. Being completely honest, I’m really bad at being alone and I always have been; but before college, I could at least be independent. I, much like others, crave attention and when I don’t have it I spend way too much time trying to find it.

This generation, from what I’ve observed over the years, throw ourselves into short-lived flings that have no relevance other than hurting us in the end. When we’re out at bars or house parties, we make small talk with other lonely people in order to temporarily feel less alone. I know for me at least, it starts to wear me down after a while. This cycle is what I’m not good at and the search to find something stable makes the cycle never ending. From what I’ve seen, not many people are truly okay with being alone and they certainly don’t dwell on their loneliness.

So, how do we do that? How do we become truly okay with being alone? I for one think people are designed to be in relationships with one another and that it’s our human nature to be loved. However I also believe in order to love, we have to love ourselves. Being single and dwelling in our loneliness should be used as an opportunity to learn how to build a better relationship with ourselves before building relationships with others.

I’ve realized you don’t have to be good at being single and you don’t have to be content with being lonely, you just have to use the opportunity to build yourself up. For every fling we blindly thrust ourselves into, we lose a little bit of our independence.