“Do you have a boyfriend? No? Good. You don’t need one anyway.”
This question has pretty much summed up my life for the past two years, and the only way I’ve figured out how to respond to it is with a mostly-forced laugh, a nod, and a quick change of subject; “Yup, you’re right, so…”
However, there are some major perks to being single for so long, and despite the awkwardness in this question (because, really, how can you respond to that?) I’m content with single life. I can do what I want when I want, and I don’t have to check in with anyone. Pretty sweet gig, I’d say.
Luckily, I’m not in a sorority where I have to bring dates to events, so no pressure there, and when wedding invites start coming my way with a plus one box to check off, it sure will come in handy that I’ve spent most of my life having mostly guy friends.
Eventually, when someone asks that question, I’ll grin and laugh and tell them yes, I do have a boyfriend, and I’ll tell them his name and roll my eyes as I tell them stupid stories about him when they ask. But until then, I’m going to enjoy the perks of singledom.
You learn to be handy.
I could only bug my guy friends to come over with their drills and help me hang curtains so many times before I decided I’d just figure out how to hang the stupid things by myself.
My dad helped me pick out a drill on one of my weekends home, and that Sunday afternoon, when I got back, I successfully hung up two sets of curtains in our living room right by myself. It took me a little while and quite a bit of chair moving to be able to reach that high, and some caulk to patch up the holes I drilled unnecessarily, but the result was two sets of levelly-hanging curtains. Bam.
You learn how to make a really comfy bed.
I’ve moved approximately six times throughout my college career, and each time, I’ve changed my bed slightly, making it more comfy each time.
My formula for doing so? Really fluffy comforter + great blanket + lots of pillows + an exceptional mattress topper. It’s flawless, trust me. My comforter is warm enough that I don't need the blanket in the winter — it’s purely for aesthetics, and for naps, when I don’t feel like using the comforter — but light enough to not make me hot in the summer. Perfect. I sleep with two pillows, but I have four total, plus four throw pillows to pile on when I decide to make it up or when I decide to take a nap. Great blanket + huge pile of comfy pillows? Oh my god. Try it.
The best part? I get that bed all to myself. I can sleep in the middle of it, on the sides, wherever I want, because I don’t have to share. One day, I’ll find someone I like a lot and I’ll begrudgingly have to share, but when I do have to give up starfishing in the middle, at least I’ll have perfected the art of making a comfy bed.
You figure out what you really love.
Alright. That sounds so cheesy. So let’s pretend it’s not for a second and get to the real point: when you have no one to pay constant attention to, what captures your interest?
Boyfriends are great, but the relationship doesn’t really get anywhere unless you have other interests and things you can each do by yourself. You’ve gotta be independent before you can be dependent, so when you’re single and butt-hurt about it, figure out what you absolutely love to do and do it. You have nothing else to interrupt you.
You learn how to be alone.
I’ve learned more about myself after dating people who haven’t been quite right and then being single for a while than I ever realized there was to learn in the first place. While not having a boyfriend can get really annoying at times — "Oh, it’s your friends’ date night again? Perfect. I’ll just play at home with my nonexistent cats and scroll Facebook to see who else got engaged," — it’s really a great way to figure yourself out.
Being alone used to scare me, and it took a trip to Italy and two years of being single to realize I work better when I can be alone sometimes. I’m more of an introvert than I ever realized when I was dating someone, and I’ve also realized I don’t need someone else to go with me if I want to do something, which is something I forgot after dating my past boyfriends and getting used to their company.
Before I dated my high school boyfriend, I went to every school dance by myself, figuring I’d find someone to have a good time with once I got there. I wanted to go, and I wasn’t going to let the lack of a date keep me from making some memories. This mindset was one I naturally lost once I entered the dating world, but is one I’ve slowly regained.
The summer after my sophomore year, I studied abroad, leaving the country for the first time by myself, hoping my roommates would be cool once I got there, because I didn’t know them or anyone else who’d be in my program. Good news: they were beyond cool, and some of the best people I’ve ever met. It scared the life out of me, but once I got there, I started to learn how to cope by myself.
Because I didn’t have an international phone service plan, I could only text my friends back home and call my family when I was connected to WiFi. This was the ultimate test of being totally alone. My roommates had a different class schedule than I did, so when I ventured out into the city by myself, I was essentially disconnected from everyone unless I bought a coffee and connected to a café’s WiFi, which I usually didn’t. I had no phone to use, no one to talk to, I couldn’t even understand those around me, because everyone I could possibly eavesdrop on was speaking Italian anyway. It was literally just me and my thoughts, and it was the scariest and coolest lesson I’ve ever learned.
This past summer, I interned at a hotel in Seattle. Before I got on the plane, I’d never been west of Alabama, and, once again, I was hoping my roommates would be cool, because I didn’t know anyone else out there (they were, too, just like my Italy roomies). When my roommates had different work schedules than me, and I had no one to hang out with, it was a lot easier to find something to do by myself after my trip abroad.
Learning to be content alone is an interesting lesson to learn, and it takes a lot of practice to master it, but it’s one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned while single.
You take a lot of selfies.
It’s true. When you do things alone, you want to capture the memories, even if no one is there to remember them with you. Thank goodness for the invention of the front-facing camera and for Snapchat — it doesn’t reverse your pics like your regular camera does, and you can save them to your camera roll without posting them to your story or sending them. Single life hacks. Plus, you know exactly which side is your good side. So when you do get a boyfriend, you know which side to be on in pics of you two.
Dating gets tiring.
As I stated, I’m content alone. I’ve learned how to do it really well, and it takes a lot to pique my interest these days. The promise of a free meal isn’t enough to get me to go on a date just for the sake of “getting out there” or “giving it a chance” anymore. I can buy my own food, and I’m a really good cook, but I’m bad at small talk. It’s awkward and annoying, and unless I actually like you, I don’t want to sit through a whole meal having to think of something to say.
And at the same time, I hate when guys are overly aggressive. Yo, just because we matched on Tinder doesn’t mean you can have my number or take me out after a five minute conversation. Social media has ruined the dating world, if you ask me for my opinion. It’s ruined the idea of slow and steady and created a new world of fast-paced and aggressive. I don’t ever go on Tinder dates. It’s more of a game for me. It’s nice to see how many matches you get, but guys on Tinder move too fast and usually, they just want sex. You're cute, but no thank you.
I’d rather stay home and watch Jamie Reagan kick butt on Netflix than go on awkward dates I’m only half feeling. Plus, I’m also really busy, so I’ve gotten to be a terrible texter unless you’re someone I really value talking to. Small talk in texts is just as cringe-worthy as small talk on awkward dates.
Unfortunately, awkward dates are part of life, and part of being single, but so is being over them and learning what makes a guy worth an awkward first date — a cute awkward one. You learn what your standards are, and after a while, it becomes easier to stick to them. You might be single longer, but hey, I’d rather wait for a great boyfriend than settle for a mediocre one.
My standards? Make me laugh, ask me my middle name and my sister’s major, show me you’re actually interested in me, open my car doors, don’t be overly aggressive about taking me out the minute we meet. It’s sexier when you’re nervous and wait a week or so. I’ve been single for a long time, so don’t be overly aggressive. I’ve gotten used to having my space, respect that. Eye contact goes a long way, especially if you’re shy about making a move, and you get bonus points if you know the slightest bit about cooking, especially if you can hold a knife properly.
You realize how much your friends rock.
You knew they rocked before, but you realize how amazingly awesome they are once you don’t have a guy to keep your attention.
Like when that guy you were crushing on decides "nah, nvm," and you call your best friend who immediately sends her boyfriend out to get a bottle of wine and tells you to come over because she’s making you dinner.
Or when guys just actually baffle you, and you ask your best guy friend to help interpret what the heck something means, and you end up staying at his house until 3 a.m. talking about relationships and life. And you know that he's sitting there translating the weird things girls and guys do and what they actually mean to each other, even when he has an exam the next day that he should’ve been studying for, but he lets you stay and talk anyway because he knows you need it.
You learn a lot about life.
It comes in phases. You go from freshly single and not wanting to look for a new guy, but feeling like maybe you should, to calming down about your breakup but still not looking, to opening up to the idea of someone new but still not being ready, to finally thinking you’re ready and completely messing up your next attempts at letting a new guy in because you’re so nervous and it’s been so long, then freaking out about it because it feels like you’ll be single for life, to eventually being a contented single person, because you realize the mistakes that ruined your first attempts at getting back out there weren’t really that big of a deal, and your friends were right, he really did miss out.
The timeline of singledom is different for everyone. Some people can immediately start dating again after a breakup, while it takes others a while to get back on their feet. But eventually you realize that all the cheesy lines about being single — like, “Good, you don’t need a boyfriend anyway,” or, “It’s his loss” — are actually true, because you’re a catch. Once you realize this, single life gets a lot happier and easier, because you stop caring what everyone thinks and value yourself more. It may take a while to get to this point, but you’ll get there. In the mean time, enjoy watching all the guys who think they deserve your attention but don’t. It’s fun, trust me.
