Thinking about relationships...
The day devoted to love is one that splits our generation down the middle. Those who are committed spend Valentine’s Day going on extravagant dinner dates, drinking wine and exchanging the clichéd gifts of chocolates in a heart-shaped box or red lingerie.
Those minus a significant other would prefer to celebrate the 14th watching a slasher movie with their other single friends.
Carrie Bradshaw and Miranda Hobbs thought of spending their Valentine’s Day this way in a scene from the Sex and the City Movie. Miranda asked Carrie, “Is it just me or is Valentine’s Day on steroids this year?” And Carrie responds, “No, it’s the same. We just played for the other team [last year].”
As a former serial relationshiper, I can’t remember the last Valentine’s Day I spent alone. But this year I’m looking forward to it being just me – no roses, no chocolates, no pressure.
I’ve been playing for the singles team for almost a year now and have never been happier.
Today, I spend my days doing exactly what I want to do, whenever I feel like doing it. There’s no more mandatory phone call before bed and no one I have to justify any one of my actions to. It feels so … free.
It’s not that I’m a relationship hater; I do believe that when they’re good, relationships can be both surprising and comforting. I’ve just never really been in that kind of partnership. For me, having a boyfriend has felt either dissatisfying or claustrophobic.
And I know that I’m not alone.
Over the years, I’ve listened to every one of my friends complain or cry over men. When we are out at a bar, it’s not uncommon for them to hide in the bathroom fighting with their boyfriend over the phone – and when it gets really bad, they demand to end the night early.
Though sad and pathetic, very few of us can deny wasting at least one of our nights out this way.
As a senior who has remained best friends with the same three girls since middle school, I now am seeing them begin to plan their futures around their significant others. One is applying to grad school in Washington D.C. to follow her boyfriend there and another is trying to graduate as soon as possible so she can leave her family, friends, and entire life behind and live with her boyfriend in his hometown.
In contrast, my own post-graduation plans are based on the one person I feel matters most: me. I am going to do what I have always wanted – travel to Europe and then move to a big city after I return to Buffalo. Come May, no one will be there to prevent me from leaving except myself.
Single or not, I believe every major decision in our young lives should never be made for someone else. When that happens, dreams are either suspended or ignored completely; people leave town when they really want to stay or they stay when they really want to leave.
And having just returned to reality from my latest Sex and the City binge, and still very much in the mindset that the answers to life’s most daunting questions can be found within those 94 episodes, I’ll leave with Ms. Bradshaw’s infamous parting words:
“Later that day, I got to thinking about relationships. There are those that open you up to something new and exotic, those that are old and familiar, those that bring up lots of questions, those that bring you somewhere unexpected, those that bring you far from where you started, and those that bring you back. But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous.”
E-mail: jessica.digennaro@ubspectrum.com