Lessons I’ve Learned From Never Being In a Relationship

I’m in my early twenties and have never had a romantic experience. Not even one of those cheesy middle school relationships where he walks you to your class at the risk of being late to his own or holds your hand discretely in the lunchroom. I’ve never even received a horrendously pink cheap teddy bear to parade through the hallways with on Valentine’s day…. but to be honest, I hope I never do.

Truthfully, romance and I are more like acquaintances. She’s that friend of a friend, you know the one that you’ve only heard about over mimosas at Sunday brunch.

So since I’ve never experienced a romantic relationship, that means I’ve spent a lot of time on the outside looking in. As I’ve observed romantic experiences I have learned quite a few things about how people view, express, and experience romantic love … most importantly, why many of these experiences result in failure and insecurity.

We don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like because we’ve never seen one.

Growing up the only examples we have of love are the ones we see in movies. So when we’re 8-years-old watching Princess Aurora awakened by pure kisses while our mother’s shoulders weaken from carrying the marriage, it can create a conflicting reality.

Plus, I’m sure the story of Princess Aurora is much more inviting and desirable to the subconscious mind of an impressionable 8-year-old.

However, the problem with these fairytales is that they’re just that. They’re fairytales. They aren’t reality but somehow they still become our definition of an ideal relationship.

So when we find ourselves navigating life as an adult wondering why our relationships aren’t like the ones in the movies, should we hold Disney accountable? Our parents? Or ourselves? Because we never took the time to really analyze and create our own realistic idea of love.

Unfortunately for most of us, we’ve never seen a real-life example of what a healthy romantic experience looks like. Most of the marriages in our families have failed or never even wanted to get married in the first place. And if they are married, the ins and outs of the relationship like the cheating, misogyny, and dated views of divorce always remain untalked about.

Because of this, we subconsciously absorb our parent’s ideals towards relationships. Our parent’s insecurities then become ours. Their attachment styles become ours.

We view sex differently than our partner.

When partners have inconsistent views of what sex means it can create a huge crack on the surface of communication.

It’s no surprise that many women have been taught to view sex as a sacred practice… And depending on who you ask, that’s either a good or bad thing. But truthfully so, there is no “right” or “wrong” view on sex.

However, there is one that fits your lifestyle. And if you’re in a romantic relationship with someone, it should fit their lifestyle too. It’s important to ensure that both partners share these same views before even engaging in the act of sex.

When these views differ, it’ll cause issues within the relationship and feelings of insecurity and instability. For me, I’ve noticed that many women seem to think that allowing a man into their body creates a quicker route for him to enter their hearts. We view our bodies as the highest form of intimacy and think that if we “gift” it to him, that it’ll somehow catapult the relationship into new heights. These are the direct effects of too many fairy tales, forced religion-based values, and sexual incompetence.

Allowing a man to penetrate your body does not unlock new unexplored levels for the rest of your mind, body, and soul. Just like he should with access to your vagina, he must earn access to the rest of you as well — and that should be earned with consistency, communication, and pure intent.

Unless you are someone who wants a sex-based relationship, then that is completely okay. But just make sure you communicate that. There’s nothing worse than sleeping with someone who views sex as a side hobby when you view it as the highest level of intimacy.

We would rather be disrespected than alone.

When people complain about their relationship, they’re usually harping about things that started as small annoyances and have turned into huge deal breakers. Many people fail to realize that those seemingly “small things” that eventually led to huge arguments where bothersome for a reason. They were red flags.

That lack of intention or attention that you thought you could “fix”, or assumed was a “quirky personality trait”, is now the downfall of the relationship. In turn, it makes us feel helpless when we’ve become miserable two years into the relationship.

What started as cute clingy jealous behavior during the dating phase has now morphed into huge insecurity whenever you make friends of the opposite sex or need time to yourself.

But somehow we still choose to deal with it for the sake of not being alone.

As mentioned in my first point, there’s so much emphasis put on romantic love. From a young age, we’re told by society that experiencing romantic love is the end all be all. From Disney movies, cartoons, and pretty much every marketing campaign to ever exist, young girls are constantly told what place romantic love should hold in our lives.

But we are never told how we should go about finding this love. We’re not instructed on the importance of setting boundaries and sticking with them. We aren’t told how to love ourselves before even thinking about loving someone else.

Love is not just an experience that’s confined to who you go to bed with at night. Love can be felt between friends, family, love for your profession, and most importantly love for yourself.

But due to the emphasis we’ve been conditioned to place on romantic love, we tend to ignore the importance of our other relationships. Therefore, we may feel inadequate when we don’t have a romantic partner, thus creating the need to always have someone regardless of how unfit for a relationship they might be.

We have a way of glamorizing romantic relationships instead of glamorizing happiness.

We use romantic love to replace the love we never received from our parents.

Our parents are responsible for many of your first experiences and feelings, including love. This is why when a mother gives birth to her child, she places the baby on her chest. It’s that skin-to-skin contact that creates an ultimate bonding experience.

But what happens when that ultimate bonding experience never surpasses those important moments after birth? When love starts and ends after that skin-to-skin contact? When a home is just where you sleep and not where you feel valued?

One of the most beautiful things about love is how it can be felt in all forms, but when you grow up in an environment that is void of this – then you have no example of how to love.

As hard as it is to admit, some of us are automatically born with a disadvantage when our parents are emotionally absent for us as children. Their emotional immaturity is likely due to a lack of emotional immaturity they had to endure while growing up. It creates a never-ending cycle of not knowing better so you don’t DO better.

It’s a hard pill to swallow but many of us don’t know how to love because we don’t know what it even feels like. Our parents never gave it to us so we bounce from situationships to relationships hoping to fill that void.

All in all, my experiences with love are all second-hand experiences from friendships and even coworkers, but they’re equally important because they’ve shown me how important it is to find someone who FITS you.

There is such power in knowing who you are before entering a romantic relationship. When you are able to identify your likes and dislikes or your strengths and weaknesses, it makes it much easier to find someone who compliments your life instead of completing it… because we should already be complete before even entering the relationship.

Love is both an emotion and a CHOICE. So make sure you always choose wisely.

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Previously published on medium

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