From the time I was 14-years-old, until I was 18, I had a boyfriend. Not the same one, And no I’m not a cheater. What I mean is that I had one boyfriend, then we would break up, then I’d rebound, then we’d break up, and it cycled around.

My first relationship was kind of serious. I was with the guy for almost a year and a half. Of course, being 14, I thought I was going to be with him forever *gag*. Yeah, that would’ve sucked looking back on it.

My second boyfriend came immediately after me and my first boyfriend broke up, I was sixteen at that point and the “relationship” was a three week rebound, honestly I don’t count it, but for the record he was there. I also didn’t know he was my boyfriend until he took me on our first date to a fair and introduced me to his friends as his girlfriend (yikes).

My third boyfriend was a nice guy that I dated for five months after I took a small break from boys, and by small break I mean like a month, maybe two. I was in a weird point of my life then, and after the “honeymoon phase” I saw him as a good friend and not really a boyfriend, no hard feelings there.

My last one was a serious, almost two-year-long, on and off relationship. This guy was special to me, different from the other guys. I met him at the end of my junior year of high school, and we completely parted ways after my freshman year of college. Things ended pretty badly and I was messed up for a while.

But honestly, I’m okay with being single…

I really only had one bad relationship, looking back, and it wasn’t even bad until the end. I didn’t let it taint my views on relationships or anything, I just decided it’s better to be single for a while after being tied down for the majority of 4 years.

Yeah I get lonely sometimes, but who doesn’t. I’m sure people in relationships do too, it’s a part of life. Just because I like being single doesn’t mean I ignore guys completely, I still talk to the occasional cute guy that comes my way. But I am figuring out who I am without a guy because for my high school years, a key developmental time, I was always with a guy.

Being single isn’t so bad. I can talk to whoever I want, do whatever I want without a guy asking who I’m with or what I’m doing, and I can just be myself. I spent so long, even before boyfriends came into the mix, trying to impress these guys out there by not being who I really am. I’m not going to do that anymore. I am who I am, and yes being with those guys shaped part of me, but not all of me.

It’s okay to be single because single doesn’t mean lonely. I have plenty of friends to hang out with and do the typical “Fall activities” with. Who says that I need to bring a boyfriend to the fair? Why can’t I go with a group of my best friends? Oh wait, I can. I also have a family that loves me more than a guy ever will. They know who the real me is and they accept me, one day a guy will come along and accept me too, but for now that’s why I have my family… and my pets, can't forget them.

This article has two points to it: one being that I encourage you to be single, if you aren’t currently in a relationship. It is a big time to find who you are, and I’m still doing that. Sure, if I meet a nice guy that I’m really into, I’m not going to turn him down if he asks me out, But I’m done forcing that onto myself because it’s what’s familiar to me. The second point of this article was that I needed to write this mainly for myself. I needed to see it on paper that I don’t need a guy to complete myself. I don’t plan on being single for the rest of my life, I’m 19-years-old, I have time. I’m finally starting to find myself, and I like that.

If you take anything from my article let it be this: being single doesn’t mean being lonely, you is a strong, independent person who don’t need no man in their life, and fries before guys.