1. If you’re single but most of your friends are in long-term relationships, it can feel like you’re doing something wrong.

2. You’re not. There is absolutely no difference between you as a single person and your friend who is in a relationship.

3. If you have real mates, good mates, then hanging out with them and their partner is actually quite nice and you get double the friends!

4. If you find that your friends in relationships make you feel like the annoying third wheel when you all hang out, then you should dump these friends, these friends are bad.

5. Being single can sometimes feel you’re “behind” in your love life when actually you’re just in the middle – in between people in unhappy relationships and people in happy relationships.

6. All of the people in unhappy relationships still have to break up and then be single, before finding someone they truly want to be with.

7. Society values being in a relationship over being single. If the world wasn’t constantly telling me that my life would be better with someone in it, then I wouldn’t feel like time is running out and I would be content as I am.

8. As a result, I struggle with knowing if I’m actually ready to settle down or if I just feel pressured into it.

9. Being single has distinct advantages. You don’t have to tell somebody where you are, what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with. You don’t have to account for someone else’s feelings or schedules. If you want to move to Spain, you can.

10. You have also have all of the money to spend on yourself.

11. But you also have half the money for a deposit on a house.

12. Getting a house is the only reason I want a relationship tbh.

13. People who say “oh you’ll meet someone, I can feel it!” are talking out of their arse.

14. And people who say “I have no idea why you are single!!” are basically saying “There must be something wrong with you”.

15. Sometimes you’ll think “What is wrong with me?”

16. And there will be something you can work on, like maybe subconsciously you always go for unavailable people, or people who treat you badly.

17. But most of the time there isn’t anything wrong at all, the real problem is the expectation that you need to be in a long, committed relationship to be “normal”.

18. If you have a really great family, or friends, or both, this kind of love often feels enough.

19. Until you watch one of your friends lose their shit over someone and then you wonder – will I ever feel that way?

20. This usually happens around winter, when you want a warm body while you watch Netflix, or to go on an impromptu weekend trip to Vienna.

Image Credit: Netflix

21. Online dating is the same cycle: bored> download app> bored> fed up> uninstall app> lonely> reinstall app> bored.

22. And despite a lot of people wanting to make a meaningful connection, we don’t treat each other like we want it. We treat each other like we’re all not good enough to commit to and so we never commit.

23. Yet there seems to be some people who are constantly finding new relationships and you wonder “How do you they do it?”, “How do they even get one relationship?”

24. But also “Are they really in love?”, “Are they just afraid to be alone?”.

25. And as much as it’s hard to believe, some people are just lucky, and happen to find good, real relationships on a regular basis.

26. Because annoyingly, luck plays a huge part in finding love. You can’t just work hard at it and reap the rewards like most things in life.

27. You don’t earn the person of your dreams after 500 swipes.

28. Sometimes I wonder if I’m capable of falling in love, despite being a loving person.

29. Then I realise that it takes so many things to align for that to happen.

30. And that whilst many people fall in love constantly, for others it takes time.

31. And you shouldn’t be shamed or judged for that because everyone experiences love differently, and that’s OK.

Via BuzzFeed