Happily Single and Not Wanting to Mingle

I haven’t had a date in three years. Actually, I’ve never been on a real date at all. The guys I’ve dated were both ones of which I knew prior to whatever it was we had going on had started. It wasn’t a relationship, there just wasn’t that kind of intimacy, but we didn’t really date. In all reality, we basically just hung out. So to be more truthful, I haven’t had a date ever.

And I am completely okay with this.

Do I want to be alone all my life, or not have someone to share my accomplishments and failures with? Of course not. One day I would like to have my imperfect happily ever after since I know nothing is perfect or a fairy tale. I revel in that and can’t wait for it to happen for me, but I am different from most girls. I don’t have to have it. I’m okay on my own.

Lately, the more girls I talk to, the more I realize that girls feel like they have to have someone. This is especially true for young girls and high-schoolers. A lot of these girls enter into relationships before they know who they are and then end up being easily persuaded by boys to do things that they will later regret. I partially blame society and also peer pressure.

In school, if you’re one of the virginal girls, you’re instantly made fun of and out-casted. What most young girls don’t know, however, is most of the people saying they are having sex are lying. Sure, there’s always the girls who are a little more slutty than others, and the couples who have been together forever, known each other their whole lives, or just have that certain respect and love for each other and are mature enough to handle having sex. This is not the case most of the time.

For boys, they don’t equate sex with a relationship. Girls do. When girls hear their classmates saying they’re having sex, they immediately think those classmates are all in relationships and they’re the only ones who aren’t. They start to wonder if something is wrong with them, or if they’re too weird, or not pretty enough to find someone to make them happy. They start to feel badly about themselves. They should not.

Society doesn’t help this. There’s something about seeing happy couples that makes young girls want that. When you were a kid, did your parents ever say, “when you grow up and live by yourself?” No. They always make some reference to you growing up and getting married, or you growing up and sharing your life. This even extends into having kids, which is a different story that we won’t get into.

It seems that hardly anyone is happily single and not wanting to mingle. Don’t get me wrong, it’s always good to keep your options open. On a random Sunday you may meet the guy of your dreams when you’re not even looking, but if you’re looking, chances are the person you’re going to find is a person who is also heavily looking and wants someone right now. No one ever thinks about the future when they’re lonely.

It is okay to be single. It’s okay to take time to find yourself, and to know how to be okay on your own. There is nothing wrong with you if you actually enjoy being on your own. Being with someone is so much more than having someone to kiss, or spend time with. It’s about not only sharing your heart, but changing your life and finding out who you are with someone else. Sometimes you have to change your life drastically after being single for so long, and when you do, you find that you liked things the way they were before. You don't like everything you're sacrificing just to be with someone.

If this happens, it does not mean you have to be alone, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t be. Sometimes you’re just with the wrong person who doesn't know how to be alone themselves and demands all of your time. If you’re independent, this is hard and eventually you will resent the person while they slowly turn into a toddler, yelling and screaming for your attention. When this does not work, they often turn hostile, or begin to throw everything on you hoping you’ll feel badly and give in. This is why it’s important to know who you are before you delve into sharing your life with someone. If you do, you’ll be able to laugh it off, tell them to hit the road and be left with no scars.

Even if you do know who you are, it’s important to realize that the other person you’re with may not. You may fall madly in love with this person, or even just become comfortable with them. It may seem like they know their own strength and this is what attracts you. They have it all together, they are mature, they are exactly what you want, and then one day they change. Now everyone changes as the years go on, but it’s far more drastic when the person doesn’t know who they are.

Friend is the best example of this. He was the most well adjusted person I ever met. I was jealous of how well he had it together, while I was struggling. Now here I sit almost four years later, completely happy and confident that I am a dorky girl who is essentially sixteen and can argue why Selena Gomez is more talented that Justin Bieber even though they both came from single teenage moms. Friend, however, is drinking and whining, and trying to throw blame for his own problems on everyone else.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to be mean to friend, but because of his actions, he causes his own problems. He spent his whole life holding it together because he had to be perfect for his parents, and once they were gone, his life became something he quickly lost control of. It became one bad decision after another and he didn’t want anyone’s help because he was tired of being told what to do.

This is understandable, but Friend also assumes that I am going to baby him and his bad decisions. I am not. I will never be mean to Friend, but I am not going to idly sit there and listen to him tell me about the awesome parties he had, and how he was so drunk that he ended up doing one stupid thing that caused three more stupid things. It makes me want to hand palm him in the head. I will tell him to be more responsible for himself in the nicest, most encouraging way possible and offer to help him learn how to do so. If he gets pissed off at me, it’s fine, because one day when the smoke clears and he realizes he can’t go on like this anymore, he’ll realize I was genuinely only trying to help. Everyone else babies him. It’s not helping him, it’s hurting him.

He knows what he’s doing is wrong. He admits it but he will not stop. I have one thing to say to this. It takes just as long to make a good decision as it does a bad one. However, it takes ten times as long to clean up after the mess you’ve made when you made the bad decision, whereas with a good decision there are no consequences. There are going to be things in life that come along and slap you in the face that you did not cause, but that’s life. You deal with that bridge when you come to it, and take solace knowing that sometimes shit just happens. You can’t lay down or die, or blame your bad decisions on what you can not control. If you feel yourself unable to make good decisions anymore, or find yourself so unhappy that suicide seems like an option, it is okay to get help. Don’t let your pride get in the way and continue to make bad decisions. This will just make it harder on you later, if you get to later.

And last but not least, I am always here to talk to. This extends to any of my readers. Sometimes it’s easier to talk to someone you don’t know, so I am here. I won’t post it on Dear Cassadee if you don’t want me to. I will just talk to you, so feel free to reach out to me. My email address is in my profile. Lord knows I’ve made plenty of mistakes and can not and would not judge anything you would bring to me. No one is perfect, and that’s what makes everyone unique. The imperfections are what make us perfect and we will all make mistakes, no matter how horrible. Not all mistakes can be fixed, but time can heal everything and apologies can be made. The situation can be mended.

Speaking of Dear Cassadee, I’m working on the section right now. We’ll see where this goes. While I’m working on that, I was wondering if the readers would like to participate in Dear Cassadee. If a question came along that I could not answer, and it was okay with the author of the letter for me to post their inquiry anonymously on the site, would you all be interested in throwing in your two cents? Or ten cents? Or even five bucks?

To the wonderful young lady from Malaysia who comments on here - I now realize I do not know your name. If you left it and I do not remember, I sincerely apologize. I am extremely sorry to hear that destiny has decided it has something else set in its sights for your life. That is extremely difficult, especially when a decision is made that wouldn’t be one you could have predicted. It’s hard having your life planned out and thinking you know what to expect, and then all of a sudden it’s turned upside down. I am sending you a hundred hugs through the internet, all while admiring your inspirational strength. A lot of woman could learn from you. Keep your head and keep going. You will soon find the reason why things didn’t work out as you thought they would, and you will find a path that is ten times better for you.

Zoe - I know I’m commenting on you last, but definitely not least. I just have more to say to you. One thing I’ve learned is that if it’s important to you, it’s important. You don’t have to justify the way you feel to anyone else. Even if it’s something that seems minor, if it’s weighing on you, it’s not. Even if you just write all your feelings out for yourself and never show anyone else, it really helps. I wrote Friend a letter that I never gave him, but it got everything off of my chest. And who knows, what you write, even just for yourself, can come in handy later. I ended up needing a very personal letter between two of my characters for my novel and had no idea how to even begin to write it. That’s when I found the letter to Friend and it fit perfectly. Better yet, no one ever has to know that it wasn’t originally written for the novel.

Never doubt yourself. Sometimes things feel so messed up and confusing, but you know yourself better than anyone else. People can give you advice left and right, but ultimately you know in your gut what is right and wrong. Always, always follow your heart. Leave your ears open for incoming thoughts that you may not have otherwise welcomed, because sometimes your heart will flutter around those thoughts and set your feelings alight. Before you know it, there will be a solution. Sometimes it is just that easy, and others it takes a lot of time. Time does heal everything, as cliche as that is.

Furthermore, you could probably make a ton of money just because you are smarter than at least a few thousand people on the internet. I am dead serious. I searched and searched for that gosh darn follow button with no avail, and now I feel like a total idiot. Not only did I not see the follow button there, but I searched and searched only to find a ton of people with the same problem, and zero answers as to what happened to the follow button. And then you come along and point out that the follow button has moved to the top. I say find all those people who can’t find the follow button, and promise to help them find it for five bucks. You could make a fortune. Thank you for finding the follow button. If I’ve never mentioned this, you are completely awesome.