#15- 7 Years Bad Luck

Today, January 13th 2012, is my seven-year anniversary... of being single. WAIT! I know what you're thinking, but this is not going to be a "take pity on me" sort of thing. It's not even going to be self-pitying, because I don't pity myself. I'm good. I just have some thoughts on the subject...

Seven years ago today, my ex-boyfriend and I broke up. I know I should have forgotten the exact date years ago, but my brain won't let me. I remember lots of weird stuff; I still remember my preschool boyfriend's name! (That's so me by the way; boyfriend at 4, single at 24. Funny how these things work).

Anyway, those seven years have been filled with all sorts of adventures in love and dating; unrequited crushes, drunken hook-ups, flings, awful first dates, amazing fifth dates, guys who disappear after the fifth date....What? Did I break a mirror in 2005? Because it's certainly been seven years of bad luck (ba-dum-ching). Oh so many failures, on my part and on the part of guys who missed out on a great thing. I mean, I think I'm a pretty okay person. I'm mildly attractive, fairly smart, funnier than most, creative... The list goes on. I get it; I rock. I just don't understand why guys don't get it. But maybe it's this, exactly what I'm doing right now...

I am so aware of my singleness.

All day, every day, in the back of my mind there is this little voice that's saying, "But you're single..." Ugh. What the hell is that? How can I get that voice to shut up? It's like everything I do somehow has to do with the fact that I am alone and that needs to change. And I know that I'm only (almost) 25 and I know I have SO much time, but the stupid voice doesn't accept that. It's like, "Alone now, alone forever!" Grrrrrrrrrrrr...

It doesn't help that right now I find myself single and all of the people closest to me have a significant other. Literally everyone. It's kind of incredible. But this happened to me before, during my junior year of college; my six suite-mates had boyfriends and I was the unlucky 13th wheel on the bus-o-love. I've gotten really good at talking to other girl's boyfriends in a way that is friendly but not too friendly, so that the guy feels comfortable around me but not so much that the girl feels like I'm a threat. Yeah, it's a skill, a survival tool even.

And I have heard all the advice, every cliche thing mothers and friends say to the single girl, like "No one will love you unless you love yourself," or "When you least expect it..." BLAH BLAH BLAH. Don't you think that after seven years I have kind of stopped expecting it? I expect nothing. I expect to meet someone the day monkeys come flying out of Wayne Campbell's butt, and he doesn't even exist...

So what do I do? Nothing I suppose, just keep trucking. I do think it's fitting that my seventh year of bad luck comes to a close on Friday the 13th, the unluckiest of days. Maybe all of that bad luck in love will cancel itself out, and tomorrow I will wake up next to Heath Ledger, alive and well, ready to devote his life to me... Or maybe I'll just wake up, and I will get out of bed, and I will venture out into the world on my own once again. Either way, I'm good, because after seven years I know that on my own, I do pretty well for myself.

Happy anniversary Maggie. I love you, and I always will.