Dating

Valentine's Day Inspo

Dress: REVOLVE | Clutch: REVOLVE | Shoes: Similar

If you are riding the single train this Valentine’s Day and I was the betting type, I’d bet that you are on one end of the spectrum or the other. You either hate today or could absolutely care less. I’ll cut to the chase and let you in on a secret, I could honestly care less. In fact, I had forgotten about the holiday and celebrating it with a significant other until social media shoved the notion down my throat a few days ago. Now if you asked me a year ago how I felt about being single on Valentine’s Day my answer would be completely different than it is today. In fact, I wrote an entire blog post on the how much I hated the holiday here. And while I still really love that post, my feelings towards today and my season of singleness have changed entirely.

Today marks exactly one year since my last first date. One year since my first heart break. And one year that I’ve truly been single. Would you believe me if I told you that is by far the longest that I’ve been single? Up until last year, I had never been without a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day. Well not since high school at least. I jumped from boyfriend to boyfriend for 8 years straight without ever truly being single for long.

And after being single for 365 days I can tell you this. I am thankful for my season of singleness and what it has taught me about myself. How much it has grown me as a young lady and made me figure out how to love myself. I am thankful that through the hurt it brought some of the best days of my life. For without the heartbreak and the soul searching I know for a fact that I wouldn’t have quit my job, I wouldn’t have traveled the world, and I wouldn’t have found such contentment and confidence in the life I have created.

More than being thankful for my season of singleness, I am proud. And while it would be nice to have someone to text throughout the day, share a pizza with, fix my car, see a movie with, snuggle with, laugh with, do absolutely nothing with, blah blah blah, the act of having to do these things alone has given me such a since of empowerment, confidence and appreciation. And through the soul searching and new found love for myself I can confidently say that being single is exactly where I need to be.

If you are alone this Valentine’s Day, recently single, or maybe you’ve been in this season for longer than you are wanting to be- here are some things to remember and celebrate that all of you helped played a hand in reminding me this week.

NOW IS THE TIME TO BE SELFISH

You have your entire life to be with somebody else. While there are so many wonderful and special things about being in a relationship, it also comes with certain burdens. You will have someone else to answer to, check in with, plan around, share costs with, and split your time with. Now is the time to spend too much money, go on that trip because you can, move to a new city, quit your job, start a new job, find a new hobby, and honestly do anything you want. There is not a reason in the world that you cannot do whatever it is your heart desires.

IT’S OK TO BE PICKY

Date if you want to date. Or don’t. It is your choice and your choice alone. The older you get, the more against the norm it is to be single but what my season of singleness (and probably age) has taught me is that we are the lucky ones. We are the ones that have experienced more life. More grief. More soul searching. More happiness. More understanding. We know what we like and don’t like. We know what we deserve and what we aren’t willing to settle for. The longer we are single, the more we realize how much we have to give up to be in a relationship and if it’s anything short of a fairytale, well then it’s just not worth it.

FIND YOURSELF BEFORE YOU FIND THE ONE

If I had to pick one reason why all of my relationships didn’t last, it was most certainly (as cliche as it sounds) because I needed to find myself and I couldn’t do that while I was with someone. I needed time, space and a lot of soul searching. And with each new boyfriend I thought that maybe they could help me figure out what I was supposed to be doing with my life or how to fully achieve contentment. But this is not anyone else’s job but our own to feel content and secure in who we are. I have grown more, seen more, discovered more in the past year than I have my entire life. Our season of singleness allows us to figure out what drives us, motivates us, what makes us feel alive and happy. And when the right person does come along, they will appreciate how well you know yourself and feel secure in who you are.

Top: Similar | Pants: AG | Shoes: Johnston & Murphy (under $100) | Purse: Similar | Sunglasses: Similar

Photography by: Banavenue

From a young age, girls read about their prince charming and we are taught to be hopeless romantics from day one. Well nowhere in any of the fairytale books that mom was reading to me did it say anything about finding my prince charming in a bar or on a dating app but as we grow up and start to enter into the real world, we realize this whole dating and relationship thing is a little (ok, a LOT) more complex than Cinderella made it seem.

We now have so many more variables to deal with in the dating world than our parents ever did and don’t they just love to remind us of the “good ol days” every chance that they get? I can just hear mom saying now “why can’t you just pick up the phone and call one another?”. O Mom, don’t you know that there are a million and one other ways to try to contact someone before actually making direct contact?!

We now live in the age of social media, texting, and other superficial ways of flirting. Before you can even think about going on a date, you have to go through all of these hoops just to get there. First it’s the exchanging of numbers, then it’s some superficial small talk over text, and then maybe you even add one another on one or five million forms of social media. You can’t just come right out and ask to go out for drinks because that would make you seem crazy!! Believe me, I feel just as ridiculous typing this as you probably do reading it, but that my friends is what our world has come to!

I am not shaming anyone who has met their significant other in a bar or on a dating app because I have most certainly met guys in both scenarios. I am more so upset with the fact that since we do have all of these variables to deal with, it’s like nobody knows how to be direct and forth coming! All of these variables allow us to hide behind our little smart phones and play games. Whether we want to admit it or not, that’s what it is, it’s mind games! Why are we making dating so much harder than it has to be? Why can’t we just come out and say “hey, I like you?” without sounding too needy or too clingy?

So yea, call me old fashioned but I am still holding out for one of the good ones. A guy that has no issues with picking up the phone and having a conversation until 2 in the morning. Not someone that purposely waits 5 hours to respond to a text message (because that’s playing the game right?) or would rather send filtered snapchats back and forth than hang out with me in person. I’m tired of the mind games, I’m tired of the lack of self confidence that social media has built, and I’m tired of a dating world that is built on forms of communication that aren’t organic.

If you are riding the single bus and feel my struggle, all that I can say is that our prince charming is out there and when you find him, he is not going to play games. If there is one thing that I am certain of, it is that if a guy genuinely likes you, he will do anything in his power to talk to you and get to know you. Not text you every other day, not Snapchat you at 2 am, not Instagram direct message you because he saw you post a picture in a swimsuit, not Facebook message you because he sees you are online. No ladies, don’t stand for any of that. He will want to hang out with you and if he can’t do that, he will still make it known the best way that he knows how that he likes you. Now, I can’t tell you how that will look because here I am still single, but believe me, if a guy is into you, you should know without a doubt and if you don’t, well then he isn’t worth your time. *Tell him boy bye*

So hold out for your prince charming. The one that mom read you fairytales about. The dating world might look a whole lot different than it did in those children books and even now with all of the perfect ending chick flicks, but I promise you, he is out there. Maybe in a bar, maybe on a dating app, or maybe someone in passing, but make sure to hold out for the one that doesn’t make you question if he likes you, one day you will just know. And that’s the one worth holding out for!

Real Talk: How I Really Feel About Being Single

NOW IS THE TIME TO BE SELFISH

IT’S OK TO BE PICKY

FIND YOURSELF BEFORE YOU FIND THE ONE

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