Tuesday, October 26, 2004
After being asked 'Why don't I have a boyfriend?' approximately 10,732 times, I finally came up with a good answer.
I don't have a boyfriend because I'm not at a point in my life where I want a serious commitment. Also, I don't need a significant other to make my life worthwhile or to validate my existence. So many people feel incomplete on their own or weaker without a significant other, like some part of them is missing so long as they are alone. I am not a broken person who needs another to fill a gap within me to make me complete. I am whole.
Do I feel like I am missing out on that degree of emotional support? I won't say I wouldn't appreciate having it, but it's not like I can't live without it. I motivate and support myself, and when that is not enough, I have my faith. I am not one of those who searches for strength in the people around her. I find strength in myself.
More often I see commitment as causing weakness rather than curing it. It is only when I emotionally attach myself to another that I feel I cannot live without him, am sad without him around, and can think of nothing but him. Only when I am committed to another do I feel incomplete without him near.
So why am I not dying to fall in love again, today? Quite simply because I enjoy my sanity. I like being alone because I feel in control. It is easier to rely on only myself. It is easier to trust in myself because it is harder to deceive oneself. There is nothing I can't do on my own that I can't ask for help with. Perhaps I am too self-reliant for my own good.
Why do you ladies insist on believing that not having a boyfriend is some sort of inadequacy? And why do you men assume there is something wrong with me because I do not have a boyfriend and that I am mentally ill because I don't want one?
Though the way so many of you desperately need someone else's approval and pine for someone to live for is completely incomprehensible to me, I suppose that being comfortable with oneself and happy and thankful for what one has rather than resentful of what one hasn't is just as completely an alien concept to you.