Why I’m Single (And My Roommates Are Too)

My roommate once referred to the seven of us as “morbidly single." The phrases “forever alone,” “so single that it hurts” and “somebody please just hold me” have also jokingly been thrown around on occasion.

If you’re envisioning seven 20-year-old college girls sitting around a TV watching Season 2 of Laguna Beach, while face deep in individually sized mini pizzas (deep crust, of course), you wouldn’t exactly be wrong.

Although this picture of desperation and loneliness may fit the stereotypical role, we couldn’t be more different from the four-shots-deep girl in the black skirt at the bar waiting for the love of her life to walk through the door at any moment; we subconsciously choose to be single.

On the outside, we could not look more different. One is half Asian, one is half Trinidadian, one is a WASP and the rest are a combination of Italian (which is the category I fall under) and other European nationalities. Every single one of us has our own different personality quirks that if combined, would make one bangin’, baller of a girlfriend.

In a true cohesive group of friends, you all should be nothing alike but exactly the same. Think about your roommates or group of best friends for a minute or two and you’ll understand what I mean.

That being said, it’s really no surprise that we’re all single. We are the same, in the realm of our levels of self-respect, trust and our never faltering commitment to what we know we deserve.

The problem with the college dating scene is people engage in awkward hookup situations and settle in to sudo-relationships that only live up to half of their expectations and isn’t what they truly deserve.

Personally, I don’t excitedly partake in the college hookup scene; it’s just not for me. I don’t like the way I feel the next morning and as a strongly relationship-oriented person, I don’t fare well with unauthentic intimacy. For some of my roommates, this is also the case. The others, however, do participate in this hookup culture, and enjoy their adventures and accompanied stories (as do I every Saturday morning, over breakfast potatoes and shrilling, knee deep laughter.)

These roommates acknowledge that what they’re doing is for the thrill factor, a necessary ingredient in creating a depth of experiences to pull from as they make the inescapable journey towards personal growth. That’s not to say the rest of us don’t also have our share of experiences to pull from as well, we just find our answers to the same questions in different ways.

I’m single because I want someone to shake the world around me and catch me off guard often. I want someone who will bicker with me constantly and drive me borderline insane most of the time but always snaps me right back when I’m about to fall out of the line of love. I want that insanity, that dysfunction that no one really understands but in some odd, bizarre way they know that it just works. 

What’s perfect for me isn’t perfect for my roommates, whose ideal guy might be an athlete (jersey-chasers of the world unite) or might be the hottest techy in the Tri-State area (this roommate didn’t work at the Apple Store for nothing). What I’m getting at here is that we’re all waiting for someone who is perfect for us, whom we’re perfect for too.

My roommates and I might all be riding solo, but that’s because our hearts all abide by the same golden rule: There’s nothing wrong with being single, but there’s something wrong with settling. If there’s something wrong with that, then sue me.