Okay, so I’ve come the conclusion in the past few weeks that I’m in love. No, not with some unfortunate boy, but with the idea of love, and I think we all are. As a girl I was taught from a very young age that I should want to fall in love, have the prince rescue me from a terrible/bad/horrible situation, so we begin to romanticize these types of things. I remember being in preschool and thinking I had found the love of my life because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do. As girls we grow up in a world to be dependent upon males.
I remember having a crushes upon crushes in elementary school, however, I was never the lucky girl to have a boyfriend. In middle school it seemed to me that everyone was falling in love, everyday someone was in a new relationship and in love, because we thought that’s how love worked. Again I was never the girl with a boyfriend, but after seeing my middle school diary over this past summer I had thought I had fallen in love several times.
The time came for me to venture onto high school, and for whatever reason I decided that I was not cut out for love, and I was not going to be the girl to fall in love, or at least anytime soon. Yet, January of that year a boy I had a crush on asked me to be his girlfriend, and I quickly accepted. Now this being my first relationship I did not know how to react, we went on very few dates, to football games and the annual fair. Sadly a little after a year, it ended. In this whole timespan of over a year, we did not say the three magic words that everyone loves to say in their relationships, we sent hearts over texts, and yes I liked him a lot, but I did not love him. After the sadness had ended, I moved on to another boy, but he was gross and I didn’t like him so we broke up. He was my first and only kiss. I regret it deeply. It was obvious to me that I was not in love, even though he thought he was falling in love with me.
By this point I was almost seventeen, which to me seemed very old to not be in love, even though most of my friends were single and they too were not in love, but I had always grown up with the idea that I was going to fall in love in high school. My parents had been high school sweethearts, and I had always watched high school love stories where they lived happily every after. I thought that I would be like my mom, falling in love at 16 and marrying young. It was about halfway through my junior year when I realized that love that young was not what I wanted. At the time I really like my best friend, we had been inseparable since the beginning of the year and everyone had already thought we were dating. However, he did not want to date because he was not ready for marriage, and basically the timing was never right. We had a falling out the following year and we haven’t spoken since.
As I neared the age of 18 I began to think about what I wanted with my life. I was scheduled to go on trip to Europe with 39 other high school students from the area, which I did and that experience changed my life. It was this little “vacation” that brought me to the realization that I was not going to have the same love story as my parents. My best friend was not going to come to his senses like what happens in the movies and fall in love with me. I also learned a lot about myself. I always knew that it was hard for me to tolerate people for more than a few hours, let alone a life time. I learned that maybe love wasn’t for me.
At 17 this is a hard realization to come to. As I wrote previously, it is in a girl’s DNA that she is supposed to fall in love. I had been taught through countless movies, the love stories of my family, and society in general, that I was destined to fall in love, get married and have a family. However, I also realized that I was really lucky to be realizing this now rather than later in life. I figured more out about my self in nineteen days then the rest of my life put together. I wanted to travel and I wasn’t about to get settled down after college to stop that dream. Sure, senior year came and I had two crushes, but I never pictured the one going very far, and the other one crashed down around me and now I realize that it would’ve never worked out anyway. I don’t want to fall in love. I don’t want a love story, I want my own story.
As you may or may not know, I am 19 now and in college. I’ve been here for about three months now and I haven’t found anyone really, and I think it’s because I’m not looking. If someone cute asked, sure I’d go out on a date or two, but I know it will be hard to find someone who wants the same things as I do. Now, even though I’m not really looing that doesn’t mean I can watch a romantic comedy and not desire that kind of affection, because I do. That doesn’t mean I don’t get jealous of seeing happy couple, because I do. I know I feel this way though because I was trained by society to feel this way. I know that for me to be myself and be happy it’s being single, or with friends. Maybe someday I’ll be lucky enough to find someone who wants the same things as me, but I don’t think that it’s going to happen. I’ve been taught to be in love with falling in love, and I no longer want that. I want my own dreams, and that’s what I’m doing now. I don’t think I realized this until I wrote it all down for all of you as well. Whatever happens now has to be God’s will because I don’t think I’m going to be chasing after anyone anytime soon.
So this was a very serious very long post, and I’m really thankful to those of you who made it this far. Thanks for reading. Love you all.
XOXO
Mary
