This New Year's I was angry. I was mad that once again I was spending another holiday alone. 2016 was a roller coaster of a year. There were incredible highs and lows. So many of my best friends got engaged and are cruising into their happily ever afters and I am thrilled to be on the marriage journey with them. I fell in love and had to push those feelings aside to save a friendship. I thought I met "the one." This year was full of adventures and new beginnings, yet I can't seem to get past the fact that once again I enter a new year alone.
My outward attitude will tell you that I am not interested in dating. I rarely verbally complain about my singleness, but deep down things are different. I long to be loved by someone and to have someone to love. The dating world is not in my favor. I have seen the darkest side of online dating and have been on one too many coffee dates that "just didn't feel right." I have taken romantic interest in friends only to be turned down to spare the friendship from harm. I have spent hours waiting for phone calls that never came. To be frank, I'm sick of dating.
This new year I've decided to come to a resolution that will not only benefit myself but trickle down into my other relationships. This year I'm dating myself. Now I am not swearing off to dating at all, but instead I am giving up the active search of relationships. If love comes knocking at my door, I will know that this is not my doing, but a divine intervention into my year of purposeful singleness. I need a new year to find myself. Treat myself to dinner and a movie or a night to "Netflix and chill." You see I have come to realize that I will never be able to fully learn to love another person if I don't first learn to love myself.
We often treat being single as a bad thing, but the reality is your time as a single person is a time to get to know yourself better. You have time to pursue your passions and travel to places you've dreamed of going. No inhibitions, no one waiting back at home for your return, just yourself and world full of opportunity.
I am saying goodbye to blind dates, casual hangouts, wedding dates and an attitude of loneliness. With this resolution, I am inviting all those around me to hold me accountable. I am ecstatic to see where this new relationship will take me and how it will affect my life and all those who are in it. I am not certain what 2017 will bring for me, but I know that this year I am going to date myself.
Sheetal Tadiparty
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