Throughout my entire high school career, no my entire life, I've been a hopeless romantic. Always spent my time thinking about finding my prince charming and whatever happy ending I was pining for at that moment. I had always felt like I had to subscribe to this narrative. I had always felt like I was behind the curve in regards to romantic love. It hadn't ever occurred to me that it was possible to be alone and be happy. For as long as I can remember, I've always been the girl who believed that I was only unhappy because I was without my soulmate, without my person. Why is there a ridiculous notion that once you find your person, all of your wrongs are rights and suddenly all of your problems disappear?
I've been in relationships though, however, I've always been relatively unhappy while in them. Partially because the only people I've dated are jerks from the planet "Ugh!", but also because I was so intent on finding a boyfriend, solely to have met that goal, I didn't care about who I was actually dating. I just needed a person, even if we weren't actually compatible.
Why is this true of our society? Why does the overarching goal have to be finding a significant other. I'm 17--why do I care? One answer is straight up, old fashioned, hormones. Another answer is the fact that in every movie/tv show/book that I can think of the heroine has to have a love interest. If she doesn't, then she's not interesting enough.
I realized this the other night while delving deep into the pit of my own self discovery, by that, I mean I was having absolutely no luck on Tinder. No, but seriously - It's such a weird feeling coming to the conclusion that you are a leech for affection, not because you feel like you need the affection, but because you feel relatively uninteresting and inadequate without a piece of arm candy.
It's almost hard to explain because I don't consciously feel like I suck and I need a boyfriend, but when I'm single I feel like I am never happily single or enjoying my time alone, I'm always either heartbroken or looking for the next way to get my heart broken. I don't actually live my life waiting for the hot teen heartthrob of my dreams, I do a lot of cool things with my time. That being said, however, there's always this underlying feeling of: Oh wait, you're alone.
I remember being on the beach in the Dominican Republic and everyone was trying really hard to get cell phone service in order to snapchat their significant others a picture of the gorgeous beach and instead of feeling like I was lucky to be able to just enjoy the moment without worrying about having to text someone, I felt lonely. I felt like the lack of a person to text made me enjoy the moment even less, just watching everyone fumble around trying to share this amazing view with their loves, and I was just there.
Why is romantic love seen as the end-all-be-all of existence? Why does it seem like the ultimate ending to everything is finding your one true love, and being with them for the rest of their/your life?
I'm sorry about getting weird and vulnerable on the Internet.
