As my would-be graduation date approaches, I get asked a million questions about my future. What kind of job are you looking for? Are you going to stay in Michigan or relocate? Is grad school in your future? All of these I had anticipated and had answers locked, loaded, and ready to go. Anything but sales! I would love to stay in Michigan, but Chicago is a close second. Absolutely no more school. However, there is one question I’ve been asked that I did not prepare for, nor know how to answer – When are you going to settle down and find a boyfriend?
It’s come from people who only mean well: family members eager to expand the herd or friends who have laughed with me through the many (many) bad dates I’ve had. Hell, it’s a question I used to ask myself constantly; at 21 years old, I still haven’t had a serious relationship. I used to agonize over this, spending countless amounts of time wondering when my knight in shining armor would finally show up and give me a reason to delete my Tinder.
Though I wasn’t consciously aware of it, I had been attaching my self-worth with my relationship status. I thought that because I was single, I was missing the other half I needed to be complete. I was waiting for someone to come along and fill in the blanks, sure that once I had obtained a boyfriend that all my problems would go away. I outwardly presented myself as confident and content with my singleness while an inner turmoil brewed underneath.
Maybe it was seeing so many unhappy relationships around me, maybe it was learning more about the sexuality spectrum, or maybe it was simply divine intervention, but one day I realized how hypocritically I had been acting. How could I be preaching about being a strong, independent woman to my mentees or younger cousins if I pictured myself as a damsel in distress? Realizing how much weight I was putting on finding a partner truly shocked me, and I went to work on rectifying this disconnect between who I thought I was and who I wanted to be.
I started to detangle myself from the dating apps I had so often turned to when lonely or bored and started investing my energy in self-love projects. I went through my contacts and got rid of the numbers and names I used to distract myself. I started investing much more time in my platonic relationships. I wanted to dedicate some time to falling back in love with myself, and I finally found myself becoming the happy person I used to say I was. There were plenty of obstacles in the road – times I re-downloaded Tinder for validation or reached out to an old flame I knew I shouldn’t be speaking to. Those hiccups were disappointing, but I tried to continue to learn and grow from them. And grow I did — I can now say with 100% honesty that I am happy being single.
The question initially had me frazzled and stumbling for a response, but now I know what to say to those who ask when I will lose my beloved single title. I will find the right person when it’s right – I will not force it, and I will not obsess over it. Unfortunately, there will always be people who will think I need a relationship in order to be happy. They’ll just know that unless I have someone in my life (preferably male), that I am not living up to my potential. It’s become my goal to be living proof against that idea, and to show people that being single does not mean being incomplete, lonely, or unhappy. So I will continue to live my life as authentically and unapologetically as possible, knowing that I am a full package all by myself.
Written by Anna Dunigan