By: Leighton Curless
I always joke with my friends that I’ve never dated anyone.
Not really, anyways.
They then proceed to chime in to clarify that I have—which is technically true. So then why do I feel like I haven’t had that experience?
From a fairly young age, relationships are shoved down our throats. Not even just by others in our lives, but by the media. Cinderella finds her Prince Charming and he saves her from a life of being enslaved by her evil stepmother, Aurora can only come out of her coma with true love's kiss, etc. And especially as we age, everyone in teen programming has significant others and on-screen kisses. So I feel as though it’s fair that the rose-colored glasses we wear when we freshly enter high school are valid.
I had my first and only boyfriend when I was a freshman/sophomore in high school. He was super sweet and was one of my best friends at the time, but he liked me a lot more than I liked him. Famously, he had been asking through a friend of mine if I would say yes to going on a date. For a long time I said no since I wasn’t sure of my feelings and I knew that wasn’t fair for him. Eventually though, those rose-colored glasses were slid back on my face by those around me, saying how cute we would be together. He asked me out after the Spring Dance at his school.
To say the relationship didn’t go well would be an understatement. It’s not like we fought or anything, because that wouldn’t have physically been possible. We barely saw each other all summer. This was my fault of course, as I had a lot of stuff going on, and my pseudo-boyfriend always got pushed to the side.
Once we got back to school, we started getting back into the swing of things, but even then the relationship moved at snail speed. After eight months of dating and many talks with friends about how the relationship just wasn’t working, I broke up with him on my sixteenth birthday.
I know you’re wondering, how in the world did you not see it sooner? How did he stay with you that whole time? And honestly, I don’t know. I think that I just wanted to be in a relationship so bad and have that coming-of-age moment I so desperately longed for that I was willing to turn a blind eye to all of the faults.
So where does this put me now almost four years later? Not much further. I have done a lot of reflection since then, trying to understand what went wrong. I’ve made sure to not jump into things with others too fast so I can fully comprehend my feelings before I commit. This, however, has completely stunted my dating life.
To this day I still really struggle to navigate relationships, both romantic and platonic. I also feel that, since I haven’t had much experience I haven’t been able to figure it out. And now that I’m in college I feel like it’s too late to figure it out. But I know this isn’t true.
Feeling lonely and left behind since you have no experience to show for yourself is not necessarily a bad thing. Trust me, I had to learn the hard way. It just means that you are better at prioritizing yourself and your desires. It’s ok to have high expectations! I know I do.
There is, and always has been, this idea that you have to start dating young and that the later you wait the weirder you are. But I’m here to tell you that, even though I know it doesn’t feel like it, you will get there. Everyone has a different story, otherwise what would they make movies and write songs about?