Dating : I’m twenty one and I’ve never dated anyone.

Okay, I have watched my friends date different people for years.

Have I never wanted this for myself? Saying yes would be a lie, but an almost truth.

What does that MEAN??

Everyone has milestones they look forward to, right?

The ones that I gave a lot of importance to were turning older. Every year of middle school I couldn’t wait for the next year. You see, in my mind I was convinced that in the course of time my personality would ‘perfect,’ and I would somehow be graced by puberty’s promise instead of its prologue.

Aside from what it’s like to grow up as a goody-two-shoes kid and spend years shutting out real sexual preferences, I was confused. I watched trials and errors of relationships unfold in front of me, heartbreak and envy their recurring epilogues.

It was both knowing that being in a relationship made someone more interesting and, in an almost videogame-like setting, upgrade to a new social status.

High schoolers are the least kind to themselves, if not to anyone else. We constantly hurt ourselves and our feelings, but there’s so much more to factor in, right? If you were not ‘wanted,’ you were ‘that friend’ in the group. Not to mention the barrage of coming-of-age movies directed towards the people that had never dated, finally dating someone, only to find out they’d been dating on a bet/dare.

I was laiden with trust issues to the brim of my soul, thank you very much. I believed for the longest time that romance maybe just wasn’t for me and maybe someday a tall boy with cute hair and round-rimmed glasses would be my exception. It sounds pathetic now, but for me as an early teen, it seemed perfectly sound. I mean, that’s what I had been told time after time after time after time, right?

What struck me most intriguing was that desire was always conflated with the need to date someone. I couldn’t understand for the life of me why I would force myself to date someone if I could not trust their instincts or extend the benefit of doubt towards them.

I admit that I’ve crushed on enough people, but I would almost eerily mould myself to their interests. As if to be desired entailed a checklist of personality traits and I had to catch ’em all.

I also confess I have gone out on dates, but never gone any further than that. I suppose it’s also got something to do with being ‘old school’?

For years I couldn’t make sense of dating someone you did not know in and out. I’ve been described as an insufferable know-it-all, but that’s because I witnessed people being blindsided for years about their partners’ preferences, that little thing they didn’t like but always brushed off, their ‘gang hang outs’ and how they treated each other.

“Aaah you’re the best-friend-before-love kind of person?”

I laughed for a good ten seconds writing this. I was that person, yes.

One of the more notorious questions in the world is “Is it better to know or not know?” and it’s edgy tumblr-esque cousin “Would you rather be told a painful truth or a sweeter lie”

I have always and will always choose the first. My problem was that I let that choice rule most of my relationships with people and refused to budge. We never see things are complex or layered for a good part of years, because frankly we’re never told that there’s more to the picture than what we see.

I once thought I really had it all. Someone who paid me more attention than I’d ever gotten, who told me they liked me for me. I pushed them away enough, because why would anyone really love me for me. They must have wanted something or it had to be a joke right? When the person realised I would much rather doubt myself every step, every breath and every moment of the day, they politely pulled back. And honestly, I’m glad they did.

For many years I held onto that period of my life, that I had lost the best thing I had ever had. It took me years to understand that self-sabotage was my go-to move on any given day, that a girl like me did not deserve the best. I had lowered myself in my own eyes and built an ivory tower of sadness, me and my thoughts the only residents.

Enough “bRo HoW mAn” and “How’s a girl like you single?”s have come my way.

Learning to love yourself is hard, man. Especially if your environment has constantly told you had to earn love by being a certain person, that relationships just happen, that you have to be lucky, that you have to sacrifice and that you’re destined to be with someone. We write off a cheque of self-worth to someone we haven’t met in the hopes of cashing out on their love.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not as cynical as I used to be. Bitterness drove me for a long time, yes. “Why would I even try if it’s only gonna waste my time and energy LOL,” said a Rami not too long ago (obviously with a hair flip).

But I think I have come to a point in my life where I can approach something without hating and doubting every step of the way. That I can “put myself out there” actually be myself and have the courage to be liked for who I am. And that for me is a bigger win than anything else.

You may disagree with me, and I hope you do because I definitely do not know it all. It’s taken me so long to get here, I’m going to give myself credit for it.