As with everything in America, no two people quite seem to lead their romantic lives in the same way. We’ve got it all here – from courtship to the emerging and ever-expanding hook-up culture and everything in between. No matter what your “style” is, the overwhelming majority of people in our society are stuck on the idea that there is one person out there who is the personification of the end all, be all of love for them. In fact, in a survey, 90 percent of Americans said that they believe in having one true love. As time goes on, the pressure to find this love increases more and more at earlier and earlier ages.
On the surface, that sounds ridiculous to me. Where are we supposed to meet this Prince (or Princess) Charming? Surely, I’m not going to right-swipe my way into fairy tale romance on Tinder. What happens if I swipe left? Did I blow my chance at living what the Disney movies and wedding magazine covers depict as the complete life? Or do I get another shot? How many soulmates are at my disposal, between math class and running into others at Publix and everything in between, until I’ve maxed out? After all, Bret Michaels had three seasons on "Rock of Love." That wasn’t utterly ridiculous, of course not. That was just perseverance.
I guess the idea of having a “one” wouldn’t bother me if it didn’t seem so earth-shatteringly wrong to not believe in it in the first place. The first thing most people do when they learn how I feel about this topic is gasp. Like I’ve personally offended them. Which, let me get something straight before I go any further. I believe that you can truly love someone, but that’s not the same as having one true love. If you’re reading this article between rolls of your eyes because you’re truly in love with your significant other, that’s fantastic. Relationships are amazing, and everyone should take them as far as they’d like for as long as they like. I’m not here to hate on what you’ve got. However, I don’t think that it’s fair that people, women especially, should be expected to have finding the one as one of their top priorities, if at all.
From our inception, girls are taught to be obsessed with romance and relationships. Disney movies where the plot isn’t wrapped up until there’s a wedding, bridal Barbies, and pop songs about fate and romance marketed at preteens all work to convince us that there’s something wrong if we’re not in a steady relationship. I was rifling through some old things the other day and ran across my fourth grade diary, where I had lamented about not having a boyfriend. I was nine years old. Reading it back, now, it seems absurd -- what would I have done if I had boyfriend in the fourth grade? Shared a Lunchable with him? Studied together for spelling tests? It was a genuine worry of mine, though, and after talking to my friends about it, I realized that I hadn’t been the only one. The behavior doesn’t stop as we grow older, either. Rom coms, celebrity weddings, and too much time spent watching "The Bachelor" make us antsy to get our act together. As if seeking out someone to potentially spend the rest of your life with is something with a deadline that needs to be ticked off from a to-do list. Why?
It’s high time that we give this behavior up. It’s not going to be easy -- we’ve been seeing the same Cinderella story told in different versions since we were too small to even speak, a story of love, destiny, and complete monogamy -- but it’s necessary. We’re worth more as people than to waste our time constantly stressing over our relationships within the context of the futures we may or may not have with the ones we love. We’re in college, and we’re only a few weeks out from a new semester starting. It’s time to meet new people, learn new things, and grow. This is just one stage of our lives. Maybe you have a “one” for now, and maybe you’ll have a new “one” in another five years. And you know what? That’s perfectly okay. As we enter and move through our twenties, we’re going to be changing as people more now than we ever have before. It’s unrealistic to expect to love the same person in the same way during the entirety and beyond of this great transition.
As my personal inspiration and lifeblood, Carrie Bradshaw, once said, “you get two great loves in your life.” There’s no reason why those loves have to be other people. Make one of your great loves yourself and make the other great love what you do. Everything and everyone else will pan out in the end.
