5 Perks of Singlehood

Image Source: The Keep Calm-o-matic

In today’s world of teen pregnancy, couples are seriously everywhere. I don’t think I noticed in college how populous couples were, but in New York, it’s really hard to look away when couples are French kissing on the subway or when couples are groping each other on club dance floors. Just yesterday, I gawked at this interracial gay couple for ten minutes as I walked up 5th Avenue. They were holding hands, pecking each other on the face, and doing other cutesy couple things that make you want to say “Awwww!”

In all honesty, I’ve never really been in a real relationship. I can’t ever remember changing my Facebook relationship status to “In a Relationship,” but my friends and I did often joke around and listed each other as fake spouses. (Yeah, we were those kids)

This is definitely me every night. Image Source: http://gifsfln.tumblr.com/

But instead of drowning myself in fudge ice cream and cheesing out, I try to not be entirely self-loathing. I mean, there definitely are perks associated with being single. Yeah, it’s taking me a little while to think of some, but they exist!

Here are my own five reasons for why being single is oh so cool:

1. You don’t have to please anyone. You can nerd out and be that little weird fat kid you’ve always wanted to be. Diets? No way. Well, diet and exercise if YOU want to do so for YOURSELF only. If I was dating someone, I might be a little weary to tell them how much I love cheese and Miley Cyrus, but I don’t, so I get to soak in my own weirdness 24/7.
2. You can people watch and have 10 second crushes ALL THE TIME without feeling guilty. Some of my friends, who are in committed relationships, feel guilty for looking at people or for having sexually perverse thoughts, but this fear and sense of guilt doesn’t exist in the world of singledom (I’m seriously making these words up, I know)!
3. Your schedule is pretty much OPEN all the time, unless you’re a workaholic like myself. Dinner plans on Thursday? No, those don’t exist. You can hangout WHENEVER and with WHOEVER you want. This freedom is only granted to single bodies y’all.
4. ME TIME does indeed exist. Sometimes, it’s nice to just relax and not be with someone (even friends) all the time. This little bit of personal quality time definitely helps me regain my day’s worth of lost sanity.
5. This goes off of #4, but you have ample time to work on yourself and to pursue your own personal interests, including but not limited to your career and/or hobbies. When you’re with someone, you often find yourself sacrificing your own wants and needs for the betterment of your relationship, and this just sucks. You need to work on you before you can work on anything else, especially a relationship.

Don’t let this be you! Image Source: Rebloggy

Just remember: Don’t let the pressure to be in relationship affect you. Who cares if you’re single? Enjoy the time you have to yourself and let it be a means to work on yourself and to achieve some of your own goals. It’s important to have a sense of independence and self-worth before ever committing in a longterm relationship. This is my opinion, so feel free to revolt (in the comments below)!

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for more weird tidbits and and unheard of love advice. Another interesting read is Thought Catalog’s “Ten Reasons Why Being In A Relationship Sucks,” which also reiterates some of my points but in a different context.