How I learned to love to be single

For all my life, in terms of relationships, it's just been me, myself and I. I just fancied writing about something that, maybe, everyone feels like they have to do. I know that I've felt slightly abnormal because I haven't followed the 'conventions of teenage-hood', as it were. But I guess I haven't found the right person. In fact, the more and more I think about it, it seems like I might be happier, single. I don't want this post to later be hypocritical. What I write today is jut how I feel now. (Also, this is aimed at no one in particular, but just my general experience :D) 

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Growing up, I think much of my school life revolved around who was going out with who. It was like trivia: Guess who's going out with ___?!" 

It was always quite exciting to find out but more so to see how long people could keep the girlfriend and boyfriend status up. 

As we moved from little year 7s to year 10s and 11s, relationships began to last longer than a matter of weeks that you could count on your right hand. 

Love was now real. 

I wasn't ready for a boyfriend in year 7. In fact, I was still playing with Barbie's when I got home after school. But, low and behold, that was the last time I ever had a 'boyfriend'. I say boyfriend like this because, even thought we said we were on a relationship, we most probably weren't. 

I hated being social outside of school and so cinema dates and going to each others houses was a no-go. We simply saw each other in school. But even then, it wasn't love so much as it was experimental. 

But still, for all my false delusions about love, I still wanted to have someone. 

Every new school year I thought: this will be it. But every year I ended, I was still single.

It was finally at university when I realised how important it was to have your own time. I saw people every day. When I cooked dinner. I heard them as I went to bed. I bumped into everyone, everywhere. 

Though the social side of things has really helped me and is something that I really love about uni, I did still need my free time. 

I found a few spare moments to blog. But I hardly ever had time to read for pleasure nor work on writing stories. There was always something to be done and if I rejected social meetings in order to spend time with me, myself and I on a hobby, I felt anti-social.

I missed the time I had to myself. To do nothing or, conversely, work on something extra-ordinary. 

I also began to work out that being in love with someone was an incredibly emotional and time-consuming thing! (It also ate most of your credit and got you to watch films that you wouldn't normally watch, with food that you wouldn't normally have bought). 

Having a boyfriend was all-encompassing. You had to think for not only 1 person but 2. 

Maybe that's because I'm selfish in that respect, or maybe because I just don't know enough but there are some things I love about being un-romantically-attached. 

- I can eat what I want by the call of my stomach 

- I spend more time with my friends 

- I can get a cheap phone tariff 

- I can choose to see family or go on trips at the drop of a hat 

- I can spend more money on my family's presents at Christmas 

- it's ok to spend all my holiday in Dubai 

Maybe things will change as I get older, but sometimes there are people who ask: 'is there anyone you like?' Or who say: 'He'd be good boyfriend material.' But to both statements I would have to answer 'no' and 'maybe' and as for why: 'because I just like it this way.' 

Make a wish!!

My 19th this year was different for so many reasons and it gave me time to think: this time next year I'll be 20 - 2 decades old - and suddenly that seems a lot OLDER!! True: after your 20th, there's your 21st, but after that people only start celebrating the 'BIG 30', 'BIG 40', 'BIG 50' ... You get the picture. And that means one of 2 things. Either you savor each 10 year interval for fear of having to circle yourself into another age group on membership forms or you wait in anticipation until you can have a big party! And if it's the latter category; you'll spend your life looking forward, overlooking the present.

Each year, the night of the 7th of April sees me in my bed having been told by multiple family members that "this is the last night of being ..." It sees me dribbling, half-falling out of the bed and changing my pyjamas without being concious of it. 

But this year, I flew back home and watched the hands of the clock turn to my birthday as we passed over a country dashed with a million little lights. I was alone but surrounded with hundreds of other passengers. I was watching films, eating curry and finishing off the packet of 'family-sized' popcorn I'd bought with me which had been an addition to breakfast, my entire lunch and now midnight snack. 

As I took in these surroundings, I spotted an opportunity. Ever the analyst, I saw this scene - being on a plane, without a care, in anticipation with many people I'd never met - as a pointer. Some sort of marker for the year to come. 

This birthday was different. Maybe this year: my last year of being a teenager (the last time I could excuse stupidity for naivety) ought to be something more than a routine living of life. Maybe it should mark time for some changes. Trying something new. And with the marathon plaguing social media, TV and conversations, I suddenly felt a little like I hadn't achieved what I could have had I put my mind to it. 

So I'm drawing up a list, like a bucket list, of a few things I could do. Not every one can run a marathon and I 100% fit into that category - if it hurts, I generally can't do it. But a thought a couple of things that would be good for me. I don't know how useful completing the Harry Potter series will be but I thought I ought to do since I never have. But it'll be some sort of achievement. 

So hopefully, when I check back next year, I will have done something that put my teen years out with a bang.