Stop Telling Me I’ll Find Someone
I vividly remember the first day I learned that I love my independence. I was in elementary school, probably first or second grade, and I had just finished eating lunch with my best friend Shelby. Somehow, we lost each other amongst a sea of other hyper, four-foot-tall children on our journey outside of the school for recess. The realization of being apart from my friend gave me a sudden urge to avoid her completely. She really was one of my favorite people. She could go from screaming laughter to blubbering tears like a light switch and her eyes were always wide like she was seeing magic. For a child full of emotion, she was never mean. But the idea of losing her on this day felt like we were playing a game of hide and seek that only I knew about. I felt the hilarity of pulling a prank and the wonder of discovering something for the first time. So I started running.
I don’t remember how we would spend a typical day together at recess, but it probably consisted of jumping rope while chanting rhymes about Cinderella, or maybe drawing with chalk. On this day, my desire to be my own company took over. I practiced my skills on the monkey bars, climbed a plastic rock wall, and turned the entire playground into my personal obstacle course. Refusing to do anything but what I wanted to do, by myself, felt exhilarating. If anyone approached me asking to play, I’d let them know how very busy I was.
When I ran into Shelby after recess, she told me how she was looking all over for me. I lied and told her I couldn’t find her either and continued to play by myself a couple of times a week during recess. I started taking bike rides on the weekends to go sit on benches in front of neighborhood ponds when no one else was around. Without even leaving the neighborhood I imagined I had biked for miles. I can’t remember what I would think about in these moments by myself while I was so young, but I remember it feeling important to have that time.
Eventually, I left Shelby for good after my parents divorced and I moved with my mom and older sister to a new town before entering fourth grade. I managed to make friends near my new home, but I accidentally avoided them. My house didn’t have a landline, and as soon as I got a three-inch-tall flip phone passed down to me from my sister, I lost it for months behind my bed. I didn’t look very hard for it, and I didn’t have much use for it anyway. The camera sucked, the pre-installed games were confusing, texting by number was complicated, and phone calls bored me. Throughout middle school, my friends had to show up at my house unannounced to get me to hang out with them. I had a lot of fun with them, but I was never lonely by myself. I would sit in my closet writing stories and attempting to make stop motion films with a rubber green alien I got from a vending machine.
In fact, I don’t think I knew what loneliness felt like until high school, after having my first serious boyfriend. I lost my only friends while I was in that relationship because I’ve never been good at balancing my time between more than a couple of people. There was also a new and weird pressure to be popular, or at least well-liked. In high school, if you didn’t have at least someone to talk to at all times, you looked like an outcast. At Neuqua Valley High School specifically, not having someone to talk to where there are nearly 4,000 students only amplified my unpopularity. I didn’t know how to approach new people in a way that wasn’t awkwardly formal and subject to judgment. As a child, being independent was a quality that adults found charming and admirable. As a young adult, people older than me turn apologetic anytime I mention being single, even if the end of my last relationship had long passed. I got used to the
highs of companionship from friends and lovers followed by the lows of loneliness and singledom, but those experiences aren’t unusual for any hormonal teenager. As I entered college, I gained better control of my emotions and they were no longer so easily dictated by who I spent my time with.
College of DuPage is a paradise for any introvert who wants to learn and grow without the pressure of finding friends. Don’t get me wrong, the students are friendly and I forced myself to smile and wave if I ever ran into an old high school acquaintance. Okay, I did get sick of the pushy older man with a ponytail who somehow managed to keep finding me and reciting the Bible, preying on my politeness. For the most part though, no one cared about my solitude and my fear of judgment went away. I no longer compared myself to others. Anyone who looks like they have their stuff together their first year after graduating high school is a liar and might do well pursuing a career in acting.
Spending more time on my own allowed me to learn about myself and reflect on what makes me happiest. My relationship status and how many people texted me in a day no longer had an effect on my sense of security. I gained back the confidence I had when I was in first grade. As it turns out, my self-love is directly related to my comfortability in being alone. I used to dream about meeting my soulmate and getting married, but maybe that was because I thought I had to. Besides, it’s what everyone else kept wishing for me. When a high school relationship didn’t work out, my friends would tell me, “You’ll meet someone way better than him, don’t worry.”
The truth is, I’m not worried. Not anymore at least. Who says an everlasting, romantic, monogamous relationship secured with a ring is the end goal when it comes to love? I don’t even like diamonds!
I love my own company. Why should that be okay (but still disappointing to Aunt Martha) when I’m 20, and then suddenly humiliating when I’m 40? Why must my soulmate be my husband, and not my friends, sister, neighbors, artwork, or my future cat named Nelson? Love is in my mother’s laughter when I say something that takes her by surprise. Love is in offering a helping hand. Love is rooted in the soil. Love is having a queen-sized bed to myself, letting my leg hair grow out, and replaying Miranda’s hilarious rejection to Steve’s first proposal on Sex and the City twelve times in a row. Being single, or having less than three friends, or only going out once a week doesn’t equate to a lack of love and happiness.
But I don’t think I’m the only one scratching marriage off my priority list and throwing out my fear of loneliness. In a recent study, University of Maryland professor Philip Cohen found a significant decline in U.S. divorce rates since 2008. Millennials are most responsible for this trend according to Cohen, who says “the overall drop has been driven entirely by younger women”. Not only are millennials building more stable marriages by getting married after turning 25, earning a Bachelor’s degree before marriage, and having fewer or no children, a lot of us aren’t getting married at all (Cohen). Perhaps our choice not to commit is because we have an overwhelming number of choices and are afraid to settle. Probably it’s because millennial women are taking advantage of a time where we can be economically independent. Maybe some of us think monogamy is unnatural, a box not everyone can fit into. Maybe we’re all a bunch of smelly weirdos.
Maybe I’ll walk down the aisle next year. I don’t think young people really believe marriage is a total garbage concept. Most of us are just more preoccupied with learning to love ourselves. Getting lost in an age that is exploding with options and gray areas and change is easy, and so taking time for ourselves is crucial, not pitiful. Make friends with Shelby, but run away if it means making the world your playground first. Leave introverts alone and let them buy their own ring, one with rose quartz or something.
This piece was written for P.S. I Love You’s first ever writing prompt. Tell me what you think!
