I promise. I’m really not.

Tonight, I was creeping through facebook, as I tend to do occasionally (because how else will I keep up with the people I don’t talk to) and I noticed that a friend’s little sister is engaged.

This is not to say that it’s not awesome for her, and I’m so happy that she’s happy; it’s just…

So I have these two girlfriends who have been my friends since probably before kindergarten. Somehow, twenty years later, we’re still best friends.

Growing up, our younger siblings were also friends. We each have a younger brother and those brothers are within a year of each other. One of us also has a younger sister, just slightly younger than her younger brother. She’s the one who just got engaged.

The other’s younger brother is engaged. My brother is quite seriously dating someone (who I actually love).

It’s just a matter of time before all the younger siblings are married………………………………………………………before I am. Ah God, I really, truly attempted to resist.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. People find happiness and love at all walks of life and it shouldn’t be discounted nor compared.

It just hit me, I guess, as things tend to do: I’m kind of, like, alone.

And have been. For quite some time. Or at least two years. Over two years.

And it seems, seems, seems, like everyone else…. isn’t.

Alone, that is.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.

I just don’t always think about it or notice it and then suddenly, everyone and their mother (literally, everyone and my mother) are engaged. Or married. Or pregnant. Or at least fucking someone.

Ahem.

Not whinging.

*makes hand gesture as if to say, ‘that’s final’ and kind of means it*

I’m always kind of on the fence, you know? Like, sometimes I’m desperate to be with someone and then other times I’m looking around at my apartment going, thank Christ I’m not with someone.

There’s a hell of a lot of mental and physical freedom that comes with being alone. Shall we say ‘independent’ from here on?

I mean, I can sleep til noon and stay up late and eat whenever I want and – wait, that’s the freedom that comes with being unemployed.

Um, so I mean, being single: I can sleep til noon and stay up late and I can spend two hours at the gym and only buy groceries for one and go to Starbucks without asking anyone’s order and – you know, this still sounds like unemployment.

I guess it’s just nice to do my own thing. Most of the time.

Then I see everyone around me dating/getting engaged/getting married/getting pregnant/buying houses/getting dogs and I think about how much I desire those things. I don’t need plural house(s), but everything else, yeah.

When I moved into my new apartment, I decided to get a king-sized bed and put my queen in the second bedroom. When I told dad I was getting a king bed, he was like, “expecting company?”
I was like,

But then I was like,

Sometimes I just wonder how the fuck I’ll ever meet someone if I don’t have a job or whatever; but maybe because I don’t have a job yet, I’m not meant to meet anyone…. yet?

I don’t know. Everything happens for a reason and everything happens when it’s meant, but man alive, I’m not getting any younger.

What I am getting is more fit. Did you know it’ll have been a month, Friday, that I’ve been working out and eating healthily? That’s somewhat of a milestone, I reckon.

Truth be told, I would like to be in some semblance of fitness before I meet ‘the one’ – it’d be ideal, anyway. So maybe once I’ve got that checked off the list…

I’m still ridiculously, if not stupidly, optimistic about my future. I have literally zero prospects (in the dating pool, anyway; jobwise might be another story), and yet I still find myself looking like that heart-eyed emoji. If I could bottle it, I’d sell it.

This whole post even ended up more positive than I had planned. ‘The fuck.