For most of my dating life (which started around my freshman year of high school), most of my friends didn't date and had no intention of dating. That being said, trying to maintain a friendship while in a relationship wasn't always easy. In general, trying to juggle school, work, friends, family and a relationship isn't easy.
But it's even harder when your friends who have never been in a relationship, don't understand.
If you don't want to date, that's totally okay, do whatever makes you happy.
What bothers me is when someone, especially one who has never been in a relationship, tries to tell me, how my relationship should go.
Or who I should be dating.
Or anything about my dating life.
Don't get me wrong, I've been in my fair share of bad relationship choices. But they were all decisions that I've learned and grew up from. Without those mistakes, I never would have learned what I do and don't want in a relationship.
Not long ago, I was in a fairly bad relationship. Some would say it was borderline abusive, others would say it was straight up abusive. Not getting into the details of that, I knew I had to get out of the relationship, not only for the sake of my sanity but for the fact that I no longer saw that person as someone I could be with. I had started to grow feelings for a close friend, who was saving me from the relationship I was in.
The friends I had didn't approve of that previous relationship, which was understandable. But it was constant criticism on my part, instead of his. It was "you jumped in the relationship too soon" or "this is why I told you to stop dating for a while" putting the blame of the bad relationship on me. While I know it was my decision, this could have happened to anyone, at any point in their life. I was looking for understanding by coming to them, they were judging.
It had dawned on me that they did that with my relationships quite a bit.
When I had started dating my current boyfriend. Some of my friends weren't exactly thrilled. While some of them were trying to give him a chance, others refused and would bash him at every chance. Due to something that happened years ago.
Now, I'm not saying that my friends needed to be really close with the guy I'm seeing, but it would've been nice for them to give him a chance. It hurts knowing you have such strong feelings for a guy, that your friends just refuse to accept. They said I should've stopped dating because I date "too much."
SEE ALSO: 16 Things You Say To Your Friends That Can Actually Be Slut Shaming
I had waited months after my past breakup to start dating him. I wanted to get to know him on an even more personal level than we were before, so I knew what I was getting myself into. While those friends didn't approve, I realized with a lot of long thinking, that they weren't the kind of friends I needed to keep in my life.
I loved those friends, we shared great times together and I would never wish them anything less than the best. But it was time to cut our ties because we had different goals for our futures. I wouldn't want to be friends with someone who wouldn't give my significant other a fair chance. If that's wrong of me, so be it. But my goal is to spend the rest of my life with him. To live with him every day and share a life together. I'm not exactly doing that with my friends.
If your friends don't like your significant other, before even giving them a chance. Start to re-evaluate your friends. If you like them a lot and your family likes them a lot. Or just a few of your friends don't like him, but the rest of them do...it might be time to say goodbye.
