By Jess Downey – Not What I Ordered

I can remember when I was in college and I felt like the token single girl. All my friends had boyfriends and even if those relationships ended their phases of singledom never seemed to last as long as mine did. It also seemed like every girl I met also had a boyfriend. Oh, and all of my guy friends also had girlfriends.

Yeah, I was the token single girl all right.

Honestly, it wasn’t from lack of dates on my part. In fact I would bet that I went on 10 times the amount of dates that my friends did. It’s just for some reason the dates I went on never turned into relationships and theirs did. It always looked to easy. Dating seemed so easy for them. Relationships seemed so easy for them.

And then there was me. Boyfriendless. I tried to shrug it off but it was hard and it made me think there was something wrong with me. Naturally, I picked on whatever made me different from them. And of course I also picked on whatever I thought was wrong with me. If only I was skinnier or shorter then surely I would have a boyfriend. Maybe if I was just a little funnier or more charming. Maybe even a little more lady like (whatever that meant).

Having a boyfriend just always seemed like what would happen in life. It seemed like the logical progression for me. You grow up, you go to college, you find a boyfriend and then you marry him. All my friends were doing it so it seemed like that’s how life was supposed to be. I felt pressure to make it happen and when it didn’t I felt like a failure.

After a few years of beating myself up I realized that I was really being my own worst enemy. When you continually pick yourself apart there comes a time when all you can hear is all the stuff that is “wrong” with you. All that really does is make you miserable and clearly none of that is all that great for your self esteem. So even if I met a guy I wanted to date, who wants to date the miserable girl with no self esteem?

When I finally allowed myself to breathe and relax I wondered why I wanted a boyfriend so badly anyway? Was it just something that I thought I should have because everyone else was doing it? I was never the girl who did something just because everyone else was doing it but suddenly that’s exactly what I was doing. And I hated it.

Over time I realized that we all develop and discover things at different times including having a boyfriend. I shouldn’t pressure myself to have a boyfriend just because everyone else does. The simple fact is that my friends found guys they wanted to date (and eventually married) but I didn’t. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.