You Control Your Dating Destiny

By Lauren

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I am genuinely happy in my single-dom. I don’t find myself staring angrily (and jealously) at happy couples as they pass by or judging the quality of an evening out at the bar based on how successful I was with the opposite sex.

I don’t sit home watching romantic comedies and sobbing into my pillow as the couple lives happily ever after and all I can think about is how I am going to end up alone. With cats.

Quite the contrary, I have become quite taken by my current situation; I can do what I want when I want and worry about no one but myself. I have all the time in the world for my family, my friends, my work and everything else I want to devote my energies to. I am happy. Really happy.

Unfortunately, my best friend isn’t taking to her life as a single woman quite so well. She is where I was about six months ago; missing a previous relationship, feeling like the only single girl in the world and beginning to doubt herself as a person. Oh, and missing sex….terribly.

It kills me to see her like this. After all, I have been there – every girl has been there – and it sucks. No. Worse then sucks. It sucks the life out of you. You sit around wondering what is wrong with you. Why everyone but you is happy in a relationship. Why you too can’t find that kind of happiness. You are doing everything right; when is your turn!?

I think my current state of contentedness started when I realized that I wasn’t doin’ it right. “Right” for so many of us means going out and waiting for someone to approach us. It means staying in our comfort zones and waiting for things to happen. I don’t know where we got these standards, but it doesn’t happen that way! And – being independent and driven – I began to realize that I shouldn’t have to depend on someone else finding me to make me happy.

Finding a relationship takes work. Unlike what we see in romantic comedies, love doesn’t always find us; we need to find it. And not simply by throwing on a low cut top and hanging out at a bar. We need to leave our comfort zones and seek it out; embrace our single status and have friends set us up, explore new activities, try new dating avenues – internet dating, for one – and make things happen for ourselves.

We need to stop playing the role of dating victim and take control of our own dating destinies.

So, as much as I want to comfort my friend and find the words that will remind her how fabulous/beautiful/smart she is and that she too will find love, I will not do it. Not because I don’t want to see her happy but because I do. Her situation requires tough love: a reminder that she is not a damsel in dating distress and that she is just not trying hard enough.

She didn’t sit around waiting for people to give her a college education or a prestigious career, why should her love life be any different?