The pressure is all around us: friends are getting married, having kids and starting to figure out their life in a whole new way. Seeing everyone around you become all loved up when you feel like you're on the track to owning 85 cats can make you question if you spent your youth in the right way when it comes to dating and love. As someone who already has one of those "if we're not married by 35 we'll just live together" pacts with their older sister, I've been spending time thinking back to what I wish I had known when I was 17 and just starting to date. With that being said, it would have been a whole lot easier if I had known then what I know now.
You are allowed to date however many people you want and no one should make you feel inferior because of it.
Whether you've been in a relationship with 0 or 15 people, it is no one else's business but your own. You're young, you can try new things and new people and there's absolutely no shame in dating someone for a mere three weeks and then deciding that they're not what you're looking for. Nobody buys the first car they see on the lot, so why are we expected to commit to one person right away? If you are a romantic or a polyamorist, that is your own life experience and you shouldn't let anyone tell you that the way you are doing life is wrong. Your dating life is just that - yours - and letting someone make you feel insecure because you're not ready to settle down is not worth your time.
What you do before you meet someone is none of their business.
I don't care if you're male, female, transgender, gay, straight, whatever: it is not your place to interrogate someone about their sex or dating life. I kid you not, the amount of times I have been asked what my "number" is would blow your mind. I don't know who said that was an appropriate dinnertime conversation, but let's go ahead and put that in the category of "what not to talk about on a first date," along with politics and religion.
There are some people you will get over in a week and that's okay. There are also some people you will never get over and that's okay too.
There are people who make it easy to forget about what you were within a week of the breakup or when you just stopped during the "talking" phase. Either this person just pissed you off to no end and made you want to forget them before the dust even settled, or it just wasn't anything serious. Casual dating and random hookups are usually the ones that are gonna have you feeling a little "blah" for like three days and then you'll move on to the next one. Then, of course, you know the cliche, "you never forget your first love." I think when we first hear this at a young age, we don't understand how true it can be. The first real love you have is someone who used to make all the clouds and rain disappear just by smiling, and when they're gone you can become depressed by how comforting the sound of thunder is. There are days, months later when you see pictures of how they're doing, and the world seems to stop spinning because while they seem to have gotten happier without you, something that simple can make all the pain come back. This is normal and unfortunately it's just a part of life. Someday you will be okay with the thought of moving on and that's okay. You are not a bad person for still having feelings about someone you gave so much of yourself to. Odds are, you had been through way too much together to even know the definition of closure, especially if it didn't end badly.
Don't be afraid to jump.
This is something I figured out a little more recently, and it took someone saying it to me about eight times to really get it. You don't have to overanalyze every situation when it comes to something you want. Pros and cons lists are great, don't get me wrong, but if you spend too much time debating all the ways someone could hurt you, you are going to miss out on so much of life. This is true when it comes to dating and even more so in your everyday experiences. No one ever got anywhere by staying in their comfort zone. Break the bubble, jump off the cliff and enjoy where it takes you.
When I was 17, I would have laughed if someone said that my "love" life would be the way that it is now. I was the most insecure person when it came to the way people saw me, but I refuse to let anyone make me feel like I am not doing this the way I should. Everyone is on their own love journey with different maps and means of transportation, but we all have the same end goal of being happy, whether or not you end up with someone forever. After all, who says your happy ending has to include someone else?
