For five years now I’ve been single. Really single. Not like the last time, where I fell in and out of love a thousand unrequited times with the same person, always believing that the perfect relationship was just around the corner.

I’ve been single in the sense that I haven’t dated. I’ve been single in the sense that I haven’t even tried to date. I’ve been single in the sense that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had romantic thoughts about another (real live) person.

The first year or two were hard, but necessary. I was done pandering to men, doing whatever I thought they wanted in order to win their attention. I was done defining myself by whether I was loveable or fuckable by another person. I was done trying to build a white picket fence life in an overgrown garden of a world that I’d only just begun to explore.

It got easier. I became my own beloved, caring for and supporting myself, creating a wonderful, vibrant, dream of a life. The idea of being in a relationship like I had experienced in the past was laughable. Why would I settle for a relationship when loving myself was the happiest I’d ever been?