Now that the festive craze is starting to descend from the snowless holiday season I have noticed a trend in my single Facebook friends and my normal** friends as well. That being my single ladies (and even me sometimes) becoming annoyed bonkers with the twelve thousand engagements and baby announcements in the last 4 weeks. Seriously, I know of 12 couples to get engaged within the last 3 weeks!
Maybe I shouldn’t say annoyed because I think a major part of my friends’ holiday-engagement hangover is just because as a society I believe we’ve been raised to have a certain stigma engrained in our minds. A certain “life-stage rule book,” if you will, about at what age we need to be serious with a guy, be graduated from college, then engaged and married soon thereafter at again, a certain age. And, of course, followed by a career making an annual half a mill salary… OH! And we can’t forget the adorable [screaming] babies.
I can say that I’ve been in a similar situation. I wasn’t quite to the age where every time you turned around someone had a shiny diamond on their finger or had a creepy 3D ultrasound picture posted on their wall but I was once the 3rd wheel. I literally felt like the loneliest person on the planet. I felt I wasn’t worthy, pretty, funny – I mean absolutely anything “enough” to have a man!
What I’ve learned from life is that there is absolutely no rule book. Sure, it may seem everyone and their dogs are tying the knot or whatever but think about this:
Most of the people who I’ve talked to who feel “behind” are 20-25 years old! You have your entire lives ahead of you! (Don’t roll your eyes at me…)
Statistically, 65% of marriages end in divorce anyways! The longer and older you are it takes you to find your prince charming the more likely you are to know what you want in life and in a person. You’ve sewn your wild oats and are ready to settle down.
Why do we have to compare ourselves to another person’s life? Just because SOCIETY thinks you should work, get married and have kids doesn’t mean that it is God’s plan for your life. What if you’re meant to travel the world first or write a book? I mean anything!
I’m sorry but who the eff said you need to be with someone and have a baby to be happy and/or successful?
I know, I know – easy for me to say right? I’m not the one feeling lonely and out of place? Truth is, a man doesn’t make you feel less lonely, more this or more that, etc. I’m on the fast track to happily-ever-after but I still have down days where I feel I’ve lost touch with old friends or hate how I look or am frustrated about how my future didn’t turn out how I envisioned it (especially school wise…). I think that if you’re depending on someone for your happiness you need to take a step back and find a way to truly become happy with yourself and LOVE yourself before you let someone love you. Maybe, that’s what God is waiting for.
Feel like you’re doing everything right but every man still seems to run from you like the plague? What I learned way too late in the dating game is that a man that WANTS TO BE WITH YOU…WILL BE WITH YOU. Chasing is for shots and Tom & Jerry – if he doesn’t see your worth that is HIS problem, NOT yours!
This is probably the most frustrating for me to watch as a friend. I have been there. I’ve ran after people I should have let go because I wanted to be with them. I believe, when you find the person you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with it will just be magnetic – not even a question of letting go.
Sometimes we’re just not compatible with people and that’s why the first couple dates with different guys don’t go so smoothly or you change and your interests and beliefs have evolved and now reside opposite ends of the spectrum with that of your boyfriend (now ex). Don’t beat yourself up over it! Again, they just weren’t the one – take the life lesson and apply what you’ve learned to other aspects and future relationships when they come into your life.
You’re beautiful regardless if you have man candy or not. I truly believe there is someone out there for everyone. Some people find them and some people spend so much time obsessing over a past relationship they are blind to the future right in front of them or perhaps they rushed into marriage and met “the one” already after they had said their I dos.
Try to enjoy your moments now instead wishing your life away. I look back and want to kick myself for being so miserable – because, like I was always told, everything works out in the end. It did and I can’t imagine how awfully unhappy I’d be if I would have ended up with the guy I spent so much time chasing.
Keep your head up and focus on yourself for now! I am also a fond believer in, “when you stop looking for love, that’s when it finds you.” In the mean time, hit the gym, join a book club, make baskets, take shots for every engagement and/or baby picture posted, etc. Just do you and remember that you’re beautiful!
**normal as in no one is normal but the fellow crazy asses I surround myself with in my non-cyber life.
Also, my blog is still in the process of being designed! It's taken quite some time but I can’t wait for all of you to see it!
No comments:
Post a Comment