College is, for many, the best experience of life. My personal experience of college was promising during the first few weeks when I met some of the best people that I’ve met in my life and with whom I’ve shared many of my most important experiences.

Even though I was exceedingly happy to be given the opportunity of studying abroad and pursuing my dream career of a broadcast journalist, I started feeling out of place a few months into my first semester of college.

Something I had never taken into account before and something that had never had much significance in my life started to become something that I thought of mostly every day: being in a relationship.

Suddenly, I started noticing that everyone around me was in a relationship, which I had never been bothered by, but that started to become a reason for my self-criticism. Out of nowhere I began feeling the need to analyze myself and scrutinize who I was in order to find a reason as for why I was still single.

Maybe I wasn’t thin enough, my face pretty enough or my personality too shallow. I began feeling pressured to be in a relationship even though no one was physically pressuring me into being in one.

Because I didn’t have a boyfriend, my mind was telling me that I wasn’t good enough.

After hours of talking to my best friend (who lives 16 hours away, by the way), I saw a side of the problem that I had blinded myself to.

Being single in college is not at all a problem, it’s a blessing in disguise. While it might seem that you’re the only “loser” without a boyfriend, here’s a list explaining why being single is not the end of the world:

It allows for you to discover who you really are and what you’ll do with your life. When you are part of a relationship you’re often heavily influenced by the choices and likes of your partner.

Being on your own will allow you to fully explore who you are and instead of loving someone else, loving yourself.

Without a boyfriend chaining you to a relationship, you’re free to all the new experiences that come with college. You can go out and dance your cares away with whoever want to dance with and stay as late as you want because there’s no one holding you back.

You might even add in a little flirting with this guy you just met and guess what’s the best part about it? You’re doing it guilt-free! You didn’t come to the party with a guy hanging on your arm anyway.

Girl’s nights are always a choice, too. What better company than your girlfriends to have a Gossip Girl Marathon, bake some delicious treats you pulled out of a Tasty video on Facebook and talk about what you’re going to do on the weekend.

You’ll have more time for yourself. Want to start going to the gym? Now you have the time to. What about joining the singing club that you’ve always wanted to be a part of but never got around to doing it?

You’ll even have time to polish up your grades AND still have time for knowing other people and be social.

Embrace being single! At the end of the day, riding solo isn’t so bad, is it?