This will read like I am venting, and I am, but it’s also important info for people who are trying to help their single friends who didn’t ask you to help them.

Just a spoiler alert: they do not want your help.

I have been single for seven years. Yup, seven years. I was a junior in high school when my last relationship ended, and I knew after that two year mess that I needed a break. The longer my break took the more comfortable I got with myself, and the more I realized that the person I am in a relationship is not a healthy and happy person. I am the clingy, needy, overthinking type. I lash out over a text that sounds angry in my head, and every girl in his life is his sidechick. It’s just a thing about me – I am a wonderful girlfriend until I get a feeling something isn’t right. Then, I lose it, and nothing is ever the same again. I knew I needed time away from that, and to take part in the self-discovery and freedom that comes with being single. I have been loving the ride. I have enjoyed not spending time waiting for him to text me or crying over having a feeling something isn’t right. Some people hate being single. I, on the other hand, have learned to embrace it.

I think it was about year three or four that people started asking me the question “are you seeing anyone?” My answer always caused people to make this I-feel-sad-for-you face, which was sometimes followed by something like, “You’ll meet someone soon” or a comment on how pretty I am. I know that someone will eventually sweep my off my feet, and I promise you that I know I am very pretty. But, here is the thing: single people do not like being “helped” unless we specifically ask for it. We do not like being treated like charity cases. You are not Glinda, I am not Elphiba, and you will not be trying to make me popular. I am wonderful just the way I am. A dating site or blind date isn’t going to make me feel better unless I ask you to set it up. Lately, people have been trying to set me up with people they know, and that pisses me off more than anything. I am not done with me just yet, and how do you know what I am looking for in a potential boyfriend? It’s very sweet of you to try, but I would rather jump out of an airplane than be set up on a date. Just let me do me, OK? I appreciate the concern, but if I wanted help I’d ask.

This is, of course, just based on my opinion and what I have heard from other single people I know. We appreciate the gesture, but having the I-feel-sorry-for-you face thrown at us each year we show up to Christmas dinner without a date makes us feel like we do not have your support, which, in my case, is all I want: the support from the people around me that my choice to remain single for now is the right choice for me. When I find him, I find him. But, please, let me do this on my own, OK?