As seen on Medium.
I’ve spent a lot of time visualizing the idea for this blog, mapping out in my head how exactly I’d say what I’m feeling without coming off hateful, or vengeful. I tried to pinpoint Taylor Swift lyrics that would capture these feelings of being single and not caring, but also being sad because I got myself here. I thought that if I made a lyrical comparison it would make my stance seem softened, but truthfully, I don’t want it to be. I listen to playlists on Spotify called “Sad,” “Not Over You,” “Heartbreak” and I feel sad, but not because I am ‘without my other half.’ That implicates that being alone I am somehow not whole. I spend more than half my time alone and have grown so fond of my own company that I realized after long, thoughtful soul-searching that I don’t need no man to support me.
Freshman year of high school I fell madly in love with an older boy. Cliché, right? After two years together, I couldn’t see a future with anyone else, so it came as a major shock when he broke up with me before he left for college. My friends did anything to distract me and even changed my Facebook password so I wouldn’t be tempted to look him up. But it didn’t matter because everything made me think of him, even brushing my teeth, because he brushed his teeth.
Months later and 25 pounds lighter, I found myself having crushes again. I would get way too excited when a boy would text me and I would spend way too much time deciding what to wear to school in the morning for a head nod and the split-second it took for a boy to say “what’s up” in passing. I hardly ever thought about my ex anymore and we hadn’t talked since the breakup which, to a fifteen-year-old, was earth-shattering.
That winter, we bumped into each other at a swim meet and I hid in the bathroom until the coast was clear. I was right back to square one. Where was the new me? I had planned this moment for so long: if I ever saw him again (dramatic, I know) I would act like I was great, that I’d moved on, and that my life was way better without him. So why did the sight of another person cause me to shrink? Hint: because I was still way too invested. I still hoped that he would say he made a mistake, that we should be together. But what I should have done was be strong and realize then that he didn’t want anything to do with me so I shouldn’t care what he did at all.
When this majestic man broke up with me all I could think was “What now? My life is over.” I think I was so shaken up because without him I felt like I had nothing. I suffered from the classic first boyfriend syndrome. I became so pre-occupied with him that I let my friendships wilt. I still had a few friends, but nothing like before and the saddest thing was that I didn’t realize until I was all alone.
I never regretted the time we spent together, but I do regret the way I acted because those were precious, adolescent years that I will never get back. Everyone in my grade got to experience so many firsts together: their first parties, hook-ups, sneaking out, first run-ins with the cops, learning to drive; the good stuff. The stuff that makes you feel young and alive and that you only get to do once; the stuff you know you’ll ‘tell your kids about one day.’
It took so much time to rebuild friendships and it’s not because my former friends disliked me, but because they now had lives of their own, so I had to try 10 times harder to weasel my way back in. This consisted of getting blown off for plans a lot, because why hang out with me when they could hang out with their new friends who were reliable? I completely understood, I put myself in this awkward position. I still wasn’t getting invited to parties, no matter how much I put myself out there and tried to be relevant again, so that’s when I decided to focus on me: try a lot of new things and make some new friends. I did what I should’ve done a long time ago and, rather than feel sorry for myself, I took control. It was definitely a lesson I learned the hard way and I’m sorry it took me so long to get it right. It’s true though that your real friends will be there for you no matter what.
Now, it breaks my heart when I see friendships suffer from romantic relationships because you should be able to have both; it’s a balance. Or, in my case, it was more convenient to hang out with friends until curfew then sneak back out at 1 a.m. to meet boys because I would never miss a chance to hang out with a friend. Yet, I was also finally ‘getting noticed’ by boys again which I thought was sooooo cool. It was empowering after being dumped and not being able to pick myself off the kitchen floor from crying so hard, to hook up with a ton of cute guys and have the power to walk away and realize you didn’t want anything more. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me at the time.
Looking back, it wasn’t a healthy cycle. I’d meet up with a boy at night, then at school we’d act like it never happened, so I got to keep my life but also have something ‘purely physical.’ After years of this, I started wanting more. I was finally ready to have someone to go to the movies with and introduce to my parents, all that mushy stuff. Five years later. This time I was positive I’d do it differently: Friends first; check. Keep things light, have fun; check. Keep my sanity, error.
It was hard for me to trust that I had chosen the right person to be my next boyfriend, but he was beautiful, secretly funny, and the greatest friend a person could have. He came into my life at the perfect time, when I really needed someone, and he never left. If I wanted cake at one a.m., we would go get cake, or if I wanted to drive around until four a.m., we would do that too. I was allowed to just talk, and he’d listen. It was nice to have the focus on me, unlike in my previous relationship where I felt like I was always competing for attention.
I believe your true colors show when you are forced to make a big decision. There are always going to be pro’s and con’s, but ultimately, you have to do what’s best for you; you have to be selfish. In the face of fear, I cut ties with said ‘second boyfriend,’ because I panicked. I had this mentality that it was going to end at some point so why not now? Things were either really great, or we were pretending they were. We would talk about mindless stuff rather than talking about how we were both drowning in distance and schoolwork and unable to give our relationship the attention it deserved. It was harder than I remembered to take care of yourself and someone else and I swore I’d never let myself down again. I made a vow that I’d put myself first.
I was disconnected, and my mental health was suffering knowing I couldn’t be 100% perfect for someone else. I wanted to be hotter for him, I wanted to be the coolest girl to impress his friends, I didn’t want any other girls to look at him, etc. I was going crazy again. I knew I didn’t want to be defined by who I was dating and being so in-sync with another person clouded my own perception of my self-worth. The relationship wasn’t simple the way it was in the beginning. I had to move away and really be on my own to understand that I wasn’t the problem, it just wasn’t working anymore. Thankfully, I had friends to fall back on this time. It still took months to recuperate, but I shook it off.
Being single can really suck sometimes and I’d almost forgotten this feeling of loneliness, but it sucks more because you feel like you’ve let someone down. Society puts so much pressure on people to be in relationships but there’s just as much reinforcement that being single is ok too, you just have to seek it. You shouldn’t let your level of happiness depend on the attention from someone else, it should depend on you.