Falling in love is overrated.

By Hannah Preikschat

Hannah is a dreamer, a book enthusiast, and an aspiring author. She's happiest when she's making other people laugh (or when she's napping). You can usually find her with her nose in a book, daydreaming, and eating homemade cookies.

Okay, I’m just gonna put this out there: sometimes having a boyfriend would be really great. 

Like Valentine’s Day, you know? I think Valentine’s Day would be a lot nicer if I was dating someone. Making little heart-shaped cards for my friends is great and all, but I wish that I had someone that I could write a sappy love letter for, then he would buy me chocolates and take me out to dinner, then I’d post something on my Snapchat story about how he was the love of my life and the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. 

Or even just for everyday life. I think that phrases like “I have a boyfriend” or “that’s my boyfriend” would be really great to say, and I’d probably say them way too much. I think that it would be nice to have someone to hold hands with. It’d be neat to have somebody to fall asleep thinking about and somebody to text as soon as I woke up. It would be nice to fall in love, you know?

Growing up, I always dreamed about falling in love. I hoped that at some point I would meet someone that looked like Nick Jonas and was very nice, and we would fall in love and never fight and get married and read books all day. Whenever I saw a boy that was around my age and reasonably attractive I was pretty sure that he was “the one.” I felt like falling in love was a super-important thing, and I wanted it to happen as soon as possible. 

Mostly, I think, I just wanted somebody to validate me. To me, it seemed like a lot of my friends were getting attention from boys, and I wasn’t getting any. I felt like it was because they were prettier or maybe because they were “normal,” and I wasn’t. What started out as a daydream about finding Mr. Right turned into the fear that maybe there was a reason nobody was falling in love with me. 

Hopefully you haven’t felt like this, but if you have: HONEY. LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU. Your worth does not depend on somebody else liking you. Liking yourself is so much more important. 

Life does not have a set schedule. Love does not have a set schedule. Things will happen when they’re meant to happen. And honestly, being in a relationship is way overrated. We are told all the time, especially through the media, that relationships are NECESSARY for happiness (which is untrue). We are told that relationships will “fix” all of our problems (also untrue) and that if nobody is in love with us it means that we are unloveable (EXTREMELY untrue!!). 

There are so many movies and books and songs that are focused on the importance of loving somebody else and having somebody else love you, but what about loving ourselves? Isn’t that important too? Shouldn’t we focus on that as well?

I ended up dating twice in high school, but both of those relationships ended pretty quickly because I just was not ready to be dating. I was still in the mindset that I could only love myself if I was being loved by another person. Unfortunately, this resulted in two relationships that ended after a few months and left me feeling worse than I had before. 

I’ve been single for about a year and a half now. Sometimes I wish that I wasn’t, but for the most part I’m okay with it. There are still times when I feel like I’m “missing out,” or times when I worry that maybe nobody is ever going to fall in love with me because I’m not funny enough or kind enough or pretty enough or… you get the picture. 

However, not having a boyfriend has also given me a lot of time to work on myself. I’ve been able to improve my mental health and spend more time doing things that I enjoy. I’ve been spending more time trying to fall in love with myself. And honestly, it’s been tough. It’s taking a lot longer than I would like. But it’s also been incredibly rewarding. 

Being in love is nice. It’s a good feeling. If you’re in love, congrats!! That’s awesome, and I’m super happy for you!! But if you’re not, that’s awesome too! Your life doesn’t just start when you fall in love, your life can start whenever you want. So live now! Go for bike rides and take yourself out on coffee dates, wear what makes you feel good and sing as loud as you want to. You’re so amazing, so let yourself be amazing! You are not meant to just be somebody’s “other half.” You are meant to be whole all on your own.