The wind rustled through my freshly curled hair as the moon hid behind dense clouds. Leaves had piled up on the porch in crunchy mountains, neglected by my roommates and me. The wood of the deck stair was cold as I sat, staring at my barren backyard, clutching a crystal goblet with the most childish of drinks–a Shirley Temple.
Two of my best friends sat with me, talking me down from a rare emotional outburst after I’d suffered an ill-timed romantic spiral, considering the gaggle of people in my living room.
“I hate feeling like this,” I said, drawing my knees to my heaving chest. “So much for everyone, all the time.”
My best friend swallowed thickly, her eyebrows drawn together in pity.
“No,” she shook her head. “I wish I was more like you.”
At the time, it had seemed like a futile attempt to make me feel less insane for what felt like an overreaction to a blink-and-you-miss-it slight. Her words didn’t make any sense. I hadn’t been on a date in two years, almost three. She was freshly out of a relationship, not an uncommon thing for her. Why would she envy the chronic emptiness I felt?
I make an effort, I promise. I scroll through various dating apps with nothing but a cold sense of detachment. It wouldn’t matter if Adonis himself were on Tinder; it wouldn’t make me pay attention to my matches.
In a fate worse than death for a college girl in 2025, I’m quite the romantic. I always have been, growing up on a diet of Netflix rom-coms and idealized versions of the boys I saw glimpses of in the school halls. My singular attempt at a casual attachment ended swiftly and cleanly, with only the faintest twinges of guilt from my end. I know what I want, despite my own resentment of it.
I crave what my friend and countless other girls on campus have: the ability to be casual and cool, or as Samantha from “Sex and the City” so eloquently put it, “have sex like a man.” I watch my friends pursue casual attachments like the ones I saw on television in my preteen years with envy. They have something to stave off the loneliness, like a cigarette warming their hands in the winter.
I always assumed they were content with the cycle, already consumed with schoolwork and extracurriculars. Why add a relationship to the ever-growing pile of responsibilities?
Yet, on my porch in the dead of night, my friend and I understood one another. The all-consuming, terrifying emotions I felt at all times were a luxury to her. I asked myself, is it better to combat loneliness or face it empty-handed?
The emptiness was clearly something we shared, probably more universal than the involuntarily single like to admit. Knowing that doesn’t change the pit in my stomach, but it does make it easier to swallow.
Writing this feels somewhat like that nightmare where you go to school naked, but maybe that’s the point. Facing loneliness with your weapon of choice, armed with the knowledge that it’s not just you in the army.
I still hate my romantic disposition most of the time, but at least I know what I want. That’ll just have to be enough for now.
