When people find out I've never had a boyfriend, they look at me with pity and fascination, almost as if I was a foreign animal in a zoo.
Being 20 years old and having been single for that entire time is somewhat of an oddity, and I agree. My fourteen-year-old brother had his first girlfriend before I had my first boyfriend. It's still embarrassing to admit sometimes. But why do we put so much emphasis on dating early on in life? I used to cry myself to sleep at night because I felt like someone would never love me for me but now I've learned that the only person who needs to love me is myself.
In fact, I might go so far as to say that I like being single. Yes, you read that right. I LIKE BEING SINGLE. I can do what I want when I want to do it. I don't have to worry about sneaking someone into my dorm room and I can have an entire bottle of wine for myself. I can talk to the guy sitting next to me in class without worrying what my boyfriend would think. I enjoy the sense of freedom I have being single, even if it is a self-imposed freedom.
I'm not saying I'm opposed to dating or getting married at some point, quite the opposite. I would love to have someone to share my life with but at this moment in time, it's not there and I don't foresee it happening anytime in the near future so why am I going to stress myself out about it? If I live my life on my own terms, I'm bound to find someone who's a good fit for me.
I've seen so many of my friends cry over relationship troubles that sometimes I'm even happier to be single. I didn't spend my time in high school worrying what my boyfriend was doing during his lunch period, I spent it with my friends having fun. Of course, I liked guys in high school. I can't pretend that I didn't, but none of those crushes materialized into anything and I honestly can't complain. I'm happy where I am now and I don't know if I would be here if I had had a long-term, high school boyfriend. There's nothing wrong with marrying your high school sweetheart, it just wasn't for me.
Never having had a boyfriend doesn't make you broken, it doesn't make you any less of a person. It says nothing about how good of a person you are, it just means there are other things for you to focus on in life.
I firmly believe in some type of spirituality. I'm a confirmed Catholic but that doesn't mean I'm not open to other things. I thoroughly believe that the Universe brings you things when the time is right and if the time isn't right, it's not going to happen. If you are called to do something else in life, I believe that you can find just as much happiness through that as you could with a relationship. You can find happiness anywhere, you just need to be willing to look for it. Even if you can find happiness, you need to make sure it's on your own terms and no one else's.
Sometimes I do get sad that I'm still single and I don't have that sense of companionship. I wonder if I'm single because I'm too picky. But why would I want to be with someone I don't genuinely like? It's not bad to know what you want. Granted, saying you would only date someone who's 6'5" with an MBA from Harvard Business School is a bit presumptuous but if you focus on finding someone who you share similar values and goals with, you're bound to be satisfied.
Speaking of satisfied, whenever I think of my relationship status, I think of the song "Satisfied" from Hamilton. There's a line in the song that goes "you strike me as a woman who has never been satisfied," and I think that sums up my life in a nutshell and why I'm still single. I've always been ambitious for as long as I can remember, I just never knew what I wanted out of life until the past few years and I think it's important to find someone who has the same mentality that I do. I want to be successful at every level of my life and I need someone who can keep up with that. I didn't find that in my small town high school and I'm starting to find it in college, but more so with my friends than any potential boyfriend. Being single has also taught me to appreciate my friends even more because of this. Having a strong network of people behind you is just as important, if not more important than having someone strong next to you.
Knowing yourself is one of the most important parts of finding happiness in a relationship. If you do not know yourself well, how can you expect someone else to?
It's okay to be single during your first two decades of life and I'm here to tell you that. It doesn't mean that you aren't fulfilled or you aren't happy or you're less mature than your friends. I personally think it shows a sense of strength that you're happy by yourself and it's taken me twenty years to realize that.
If for some reason you find yourself on the cusp of your twenties and having not held a boys hand, rest assured that there's a reason why you just have to find it. Life isn't about boys, life is about you and you're only going to get out of it what you put into it. And when you eventually find the person you're supposed to, you'll appreciate them even more.
