Valentine's Day

Here's the thing: I'm pretty happy being single. It's the same reason I'm pretty happy living alone, and didn't like having roommates in college: I'm an introvert and I'm really particular about how I spend my time. I need a lot of alone time. I don't like to plan things in advance. I spend a lot of time in my own head, and I'm so used to that. It's hard to picture someone outside taking up a huge spot in my life.

I'm somewhat selfish. I don't like compromising and I have strong opinions.

I'm a giant believer in having to be completely comfortable and happy being single and being yourself before you can love someone else. And not "happy" in a sense of being resigned, but actually truly happy. Which I am. Maybe too much. I like doing stuff alone. I've gone solo to museums, the zoo, movies, baseball games, hockey games. I've traveled around Spain alone and considered trips to other places alone. I'd rather be by myself than with someone who is going to ask dumb questions or make me split my time, or whatever.

I haven't had a ton of relationships, and part of my problem is that I seem to have always been in them for the wrong reasons, and I don't think I've ever been with someone who was remotely right for me, at the right time. So maybe that's my real hang up on relationships. But then again, it's hard to picture finding someone who would be all the things I need. I can see myself falling in love, but it'd have someone pretty spectacular. One of my friends is in this amazing relationship, where they forgo basically every societal relationship pressure and just do their own thing. I admire the way they define for themselves what it means to date someone and to be in love.

It irks me that society demands that you can only truly be happy if you're in love. That the default state of humanity is to be in love with someone of the opposite sex--and then this is how the path of your relationship will go, we will tell you the proper order of things and how you will feel at each point. I wonder how I would feel if society didn't have this pressure. Maybe I'd be more inclined to be in a relationship because I'd feel more like I was choosing it. I wouldn't be so stubbornly against doing "the normal thing."

There was a point when I was a little bit lonely, which I didn't realize until I got my cat Puck and suddenly I felt like "how did I survive so long all alone in here?" And I realize the cliche, I do, but she is the greatest thing in my life, so who needs love?

I suppose my current conclusion to love is that I will/would be quite content to be single forever. I'm quite fine with that and I'm tired of other people/the world making me feel like I shouldn't be, or all knowingly, "oh, you'll change your mind someday" or whatever. Ugh.