"I'm not quite ready for you. I don't have love for you right now, at least not the kind you need. Everything I have, all the love, all the time, right now is for me. It's not because I can't love. I have plenty. It just took me so d*mn long to fall in love with being alone that I can't support another right now. It's selfish because they tell me to love everyone. F*ck that. My time is right now, in this moment. I'm hungry. Maybe we'll meet again. But I won't be the same person. Because it took me losing myself for my life to begin."
-J. Raymond

After a failed 6 year long-distance relationship with someone who became a dear friend instead of soulmate, I found myself standing in a dating realm that I did not recognize, nor have any confidence in. It was like waking up six years later in a different city, surrounded by different people, but still feeling 16 regardless of the fact that my I.D. clearly says 22.

Tinder was a foreign concept to me even though my friends use it recreationally, and I quickly realized that I didn't remember how to effectively flirt anymore. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't entirely helpless, but my insecurities about what to do, what to say or how to interpret new possible partners was overwhelming. After 6 years of dating the same person, I realized I would have to learn new quirks, pet peeves, interests, and aspirations.

What surprised me the most; however, was that while I craved human interaction, I wasn't interested in settling down again just yet.

Hear me out, I am still a hopeless romantic that hopes my prince charming is out there somewhere waiting for me...just as long as he isn't sitting on a white horse or something cheesy like that, but I still have a lot of growing up to do on my own before I want him to come around. I don't feel a need to actively seek out someone new in hopes of them completing me. In fact, I don't want anyone else but me to complete me.

I am a child of divorced parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. I watched marriages fall apart all around me and have heard the advice from all of them saying things like: don't expect them to change, don't change yourself for them, don't settle, etc. And while I admit to having developed a slight skepticism towards marriage, I still aspire to one day find my own happiness in it if possible. But not right now.

I admire my friends who are engaged or married by 22 and while I would never bash their happiness or excitement in love, I'm content with pursuing myself right now. I appreciate casual interactions with possible romances that don't require a title, a time frame or an end result with blatant expectations. I'm just not ready for that yet.

So even though I walked into a dating realm I was not accustomed to with stereotypes of temporary love that usually last for a short amount of time, I'm thankful to be here. To experience other wandering souls that aspire to find themselves first while still having an appreciation for human interaction. To learn the humbling truths of being ghosted, underappreciated or even finally learning how it feels to be stood up for the first time.

Because with that comes the excitement to be admired, the flattery when someone approaches you out of everyone else in a crowd, the opportunity to meet others from other worlds and the chance to find love in unexpected places.

So what if millennials aren't ready to tie the knot with one person, or create a label on where their relationship lies? Many have seen the effects of their parents' promise of forever fall short of its original intent and want more for their own lives and dreams before they too promise forever.

And to be quite honest with you, I don't blame them in the least bit.

So here's to a millennial generation that rejects the social norms of our parents just as our parents did of theirs. To the star-crossed lovers that met at 15, and to the romantics blissfully finding theirs at 45. But most importantly, to those in-between who just aren't ready to settle down before they start their own lives. After all, we have to love ourselves first before we can learn to love each other.