I'm in a relationship currently, but before that, I had been single my whole life (minus a brief stint with a passionate love affair in the sixth grade).
Simply put, I was used to being single, and I was good at it.
How is one good at being single, you ask? Well, it's quite simple: You refuse to settle, and you learn to be OK with doing things by yourself so you don't feel the need to settle.
There are people who have those two rules down pat, and then, there are the people who frankly just suck at being single.
And how do you suck at being single? You do just the opposite of the rules listed above: You settle, and you hate doing things by yourself so much that you act on this need to settle.
So you find yourself giving these doofus guys a million and one chances, while they're simultaneously destroying your self-esteem and keeping yourself from meeting someone great.
Read along for a comprehensive profile of every guy you're clogging your life with when you just SUCK at being single.
The guy who bails on you last minute every single time
You give this guy the benefit of the doubt because you "like" him. But rather than actually liking him, you only want to like him, but he makes it impossible because he's never around.
Every time he bails, he chips away at your self-esteem a little more, but you keep making future plans because you want to believe he'll actually show up next time.
The guy who is blatantly in love with someone else
You can imagine how the whole "he doesn't love you, he's just using you" thing that comes with this guy wouldn't do wonders for your self-esteem.
It's clear this guy isn't focused on you like you're focused on him, but for some reason, he keeps you around anyway.
The guy who dates you while he also blatantly has a girlfriend whom he isn't in love with
He may not really be in love with her, but... he's still in the relationship with her, AND he still dates you on the side.
Even if he really doesn't love her and really does love you, is being the side piece of that coward REALLY worth it?
The guy who only speaks to you when he's drunk
Yeah, it's really not GREAT for the old self-esteem when the guy who was inside of you last night won't soberly acknowledge your existence the next day.
The guy who says mean things to you
You know, the guy who calls you mean names and goes out of his way to make you feel terrible about yourself and the guy whom you spend too much time crying over.
BETTER TO BE WITH HIM THAN BE TOTALLY ALONE, RIGHT? (Wrong.)
The guy who ignores you in public
Behind closed doors, this guy LOVES you. But as soon as those doors open up, he wants nothing to do with you at all.
He even acts like he's embarrassed by you, but you still try to make it work because you think if you try hard enough, maybe he won't be embarrassed eventually.
The guy whose friends know nothing about you, even though your friends know his full name, birthday and SS number.
If he liked you, his friends would know about you. I know that, you know that, he knows that and everyone knows that.
Yes, you're a little embarrassed by the fact that you so OBVIOUSLY like him way more than he likes you, but you just make lame, arbitrary excuses for him, like "he's a boy" or "maybe he just keeps to himself," to convince yourself this is normal.
The guy who kicks you out when he's done hooking up with you
This "man" literally will not let you sleep in his bed for an entire night. The minute he comes in you, he decides it's time for you to go.
He is, without a doubt, THE WORST, but something about him seems to make that one fleeting instance of togetherness worth the comedown of being kicked out.
The guy who refuses to cuddle
This guy's done hooking up, and before you know it, you're pushed off to the opposite side of the bed, where you're left feeling sad, alone and frankly kind of cold because he's a cover hog.
You try to convince yourself this is normal and that you actually hate cuddling anyway because HE'S A HUMAN WHO WANTS TO BANG YOU, AND TO YOU, THAT'S BETTER THAN BEING SINGLE.
The guy who makes you feel like vomiting when you're lying in his arms
Your body literally rejects this guy. He holds you in his arms, and you feel more uncomfortable than you've ever felt.
But you still keep coming back because he's nice or he's fun or he's... just there.
The guy who hits on all your friends.
You can't take him out with you because he gets handsy with your friends and will honestly hit on anyone with a pulse.
You try to convince yourself that this is no big deal, that he's just being friendly and that he's just a "flirty" guy who happens to like you the most. But we all know the truth: If he's doing this in front of you, God only knows what he does when you're not around.
The guy every single one of your friends despises
If every single one of your friends hate him, it's probably for a good reason. So stop trying to convince yourself that they're wrong. They're not.
The guy who told you he doesn't want a relationship (even though you do)
When this guy tells you he doesn't want a relationship, you'll probably pretend like you're totally cool with that because WHY NOT? You think there's a chance he'll see how COOL you are and change! (Spoiler: He won't change.)
The guy who told you he wants a relationship (even though you don't)
You're probably stringing this guy along for the attention, even though you don't quite like him all that much. In fact, the amount of attention you do get from him slightly repulses you.
But you keep him around because maybe that feeling of repulsion will eventually go away. Or maybe you'll meet someone else better. It's just better than being alone.
The guy you've been on-again off-again hooking up with for years
He's comfortable and he's safe (minus the whole irreversible emotional and psychological damage part) to you, so you go back to him every time you're feeling lonely.
And every time you go back to this guy, you set yourself back about a million steps from actually finding someone solid.
Despite my sarcastic comments here and there, let me make one thing clear: BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH ANY OF THESE NIMRODS IS WORSE THAN BEING SINGLE AND ALONE.
So stop forcing something that just isn't there because you're feeling lonely. The loneliness will pass eventually. But what these guys will do to your self-esteem will last a lot longer.
