Habits provide routine, stability, familiarity. They make us feel safe and in control when other areas of our lives feel like they are out of our hands. Relationships are probably the worst of all habits or addictions because it’s more than just you who gets fucked—it’s someone else, too.

So many people I know cling to others and fall into relationships for these same reasons. They don’t want to focus on their own inner shit because guess what? It’s hard fucking work. So they launch themselves into someone else in order to have a focal point. Will they admit this? Of course not. And if they do, they go a week, or maybe several weeks, saying they need to just be single, but then they get right back into the dating game just for the sake of dating.

News flash—dating around doesn’t make you single. Having a cuddle buddy doesn’t either. And neither does employing a friend with benefits. Being alone and embracing that solitude, the shittiness of it and all, makes you single. And what’s wrong with that exactly?

There seems to be a stigma associated with being single. I’ve never understood it, and I refuse to accept it or let others feed into it. I will call you out on your bullshit excuses and defenses because I can see right through them. I can see through them because I’ve used them before.

We whine about always getting screwed. We cry about repeating the same relationships over and over. Yet we don’t change our behavior or our thought patterns. So how exactly do we think anything will be different if we don’t do something different?

I had the same, yet opposite, problem. I was single for my whole life. I enjoyed it. Alone time is my savior and freedom is my middle name. And I was always saying that I just could not relate to anyone and I was just too damn picky. No one seemed to sync up with me and my idea of connection.

After finally meeting someone who completely knocked me off my feet yet not having the balls to say anything to them about it, I realized I had to do something different. I was scared of the real thing, because real things can hurt. But how would I ever learn how to open my heart if I had been constantly closing it off for 24 years?

I decided to jump for the first time in my life. Okay, so I fell flat on my face, but the point is that I chose to act. I chose to break my pattern and say “Fuck you” to my habitual stubbornness. I went completely out of my comfort zone to take a chance and see what could happen when you do so. Sometimes it’s magical. Other times it’s devastating.

Once I got my heart broken, I began the pattern of distraction—not through dating but through booze. Let me tell you, a girl’s best friend could really be a tequila sunrise (or six of them in a matter of two hours, but that’s neither here nor there). I went about eight months doing this, torturing my body and my liver all in an attempt to suppress the real issues because it’s easier and more fun.

There was a moment when I realized I had to stop and make a change. I reached my breaking point and I owned up to my hypocrisy. I learned to sit with my loneliness and my heartache and my anger and my regret even when it hurt the most. I knew that if I didn’t, my patterns would manifest into years of repeated mistakes, and I refused to end up like so many other people in my life.

To those people, I am only saying these things and telling this story in its brashness because I want you to be truly happy and content with yourself without needing someone, or something, else to bring you satisfaction, affection, or meaning. You have value all on your own, but until you dig down and until you embrace all of your flaws and learn to work with them completely on your own, you will never see it. And you will continue to lament, years down the road, about your repeated relationships and mistakes and wonder why nothing has changed.

Give yourself all the time in the world—personally, I’d recommend a year—to make peace with yourself without dating (not a single date), without distraction (alcohol-induced flirting included), and without dogged defenses (excuses be gone!). It may seem impossible, but it’s most definitely not, and you will come out of that time period with a clear mind and a clear understanding of who you are and what you deserve so that when someone else does happen to come along naturally without force, you will be smart and equipped and so fucking full of love, the world won’t even know what to do with you.

My new favorite phrase is “Sit with that shit!” and I will scream it from the rooftops forever. How loudly do I need to yell? I’ll be as loud as you need me to, friends.