I remember the first girlfriend I ever had. I was a 7th Grader at Medlin Middle School and her name was Sarah. You couldn’t tell me anything at school, as I walked through the halls with my shoulders broad and my head held high, I felt as though I was literally on top of the world. We’d hold hands, sit together at lunch, and even hang out after school. Well, at least until I had to get on the bus to go home. It was a magical time indeed.
And then she broke up with me at the end of the week.
“I think we should just be friends” That was her reasoning for ending a relationship that only lasted a week. You mean to tell me that I sat at your lunch table for a week, for you to turn around and do this to me? I held your hand knowing good and well I could’ve been written up every passing period, and now you want to be friends? I was hurt, I was angry, and I didn’t understand what I did wrong. I was only 13 after all. I hadn’t even begun to comprehend how relationships worked, what it meant to have a significant other, or how to even date someone in the first place. She was 12 so neither did she. There was one thing I had definitely come to understand, and that was that breaking up and then having to be single sucked, for lack of a better term. But that was in 2004. Things are a tad bit different now.
I truly believe that Valentine’s Day is the most comical day of the year for social media. For 24 hours non-stop, Instagram is flooded with pictures of couples kissing in the park, taking selfies on lunch dates, and the occasional bedroom, decorated with rose pedals and Hershey’s chocolate. Twitter and Facebook timelines are overrun with elegant statuses about one’s boyfriend/girlfriend. You can’t walk the streets without seeing a grown man carrying an obnoxiously large and vibrantly colored stuffed animal, and how can we forget about the increase in flower sales the morning of February 14th. Love is definitely in the air, as well as in people’s bank accounts, and yet, while everyone seems to embrace the joy of having that special someone to show their affection towards, there are those who can’t stand it. The kissing, the hand holding, the celebration of anniversaries, they hate it all. It isn’t just on Valentine’s Day either. It’s all the time. A popular trend with the current generation is posting a meme with a celebrity making a negative or disapproving facial expression, and then putting a caption at the bottom of how they view people in a relationship. “Me when I see couples out at dinner [insert stank face here]”. It has become almost the norm to publically disapprove of those who are in a relationship. “I’m single because I don’t need anybody to make me happy” or “If I see one more relationship picture I swear I’m deleting the app” are common phrases I see on social media, on any given day. It’s almost as though single people are putting their “freedom” in the face of couples deeply in a relationship.
To the people who are single and feel the need to constantly remind us just how “Single AF” you are: We get it. You’re lonely.
I certainly mean no disrespect, and yet, if that’s what will get the point across, I do. It’s very clear to everyone that you, the proud and boastful population of single people are indeed lonely, and longing for the one thing that you spew negativity about. By all means, continue you on with your relentless meme’s and page-long statuses about the single life and how splendid and worry free it is. We the people in relationships firmly agree. Being single has many advantages. Only having to pay for yourself on outings, never having to worry about what the other person would prefer, a nice warm bed all to yourself, and endless amounts of solitude on Friday nights. Even then, you’ve got friends. Oh yes, being splendid is indeed a grand adventure of self-discovery, self-indulgence, and self-celebration. Then you’ll start to yearn. It will be small at first, and it will slow grow with time until you find yourself green with jealousy of those around you. You see the truth is, there’s nothing wrong with being alone. There are millions of people in this world who live complete and fulfilling lives, strictly by themselves. This isn’t for those people. Those people are content with solidarity because rarely do you ever see them complain about their chosen lifestyle, let alone talk about it. This is for the people who can’t stop talking about being single, and can’t stop hating on those that are in a relationship. They feel the need almost on a daily to say something, anything, about how grand the life of a single person is, simply because it’s popular.
Being in relationships are great, but only if the two people are “just chillin’”. Having someone to call your own is fantastic, but only if you and that person are “just talking”. It’s almost as if being single equals the ultimate freedom, when in reality being single means that you are A. Choosing to be alone, or B. Nobody wants you. In the current generation, it is the latter. Even when people try to say they “choose to be alone”, it’s still because nobody wants them, and that’s ok because eventually someone will.
So to the people who are constantly throwing jabs at the couples out there on social media, it’s alright. Be patient, because God truly made someone for everyone, and just because you’re by yourself right now, because you don’t have that special someone to lock hands with down a rainy street on sunny Tuesday in the summer time, doesn’t mean that you won’t bump into that special someone in warm coffee house on a chilly Thursday in November. Just be honest with yourself, because taken is what single wants.
