It's the holiday season which means you will likely be spending time with your family.

While this is a wonderful thing and has many positives, there are also some negatives to this. You may have a relative you don't get along with, or you may be bombarded with personal questions that you'd rather not answer.

Some of the worst being:

"Do you have a boyfriend?"
"When are you going to bring a boy back for the holidays?"
"I know this nice boy who plays on the football team at your school. I'll give him your number, maybe you'll hit it off?"

And so on and so forth.

To those with a significant other, congrats. You can answer the question and move on without having to explain every detail behind your relationship status. For those single folks out there, you know the all too familiar experience which I often equate to the second layer of hell.

Ever since I started high school, I have been bombarded by questions such as these. It wasn't until this year, though, that I began to feel as if these questions put all of my value into finding a man.

If I'm dating someone, they assume I'm thriving, even if the rest of my life seems to be falling apart.

Whereas if I say I'm still as single as a Pringle, I get sympathetic looks and am told the all too common phrase "It's okay you'll find someone soon." Here I am in what I see as the prime of my life; good grades, good friends, life seems good and yet with one question I feel as if I'm reduced to simply a woman in need of a man. If it were just some strangers or acquaintances, I wouldn't think twice about it, I'd laugh and move on, but this is my family who keeps bombarding me with these questions. To be reduced in such a way hurts and I often times find myself justifying why I'm still single to them.

People may be single for a variety of reasons.

For some their schedule may be too full to commit to a relationship, others may feel like they want to focus on improving themselves before looking for a partner, and some just may not have found anyone that suits their tastes yet. To those with crushes on cute boys in overlapping classes, my heart goes out to you. The reasons why someone is abstaining from dating is a personal matter that they shouldn't have to disclose to relatives unless they want to. It shouldn't be an annual event.

For the record, I love my family, and I love spending time with them during the holidays, and I really don't mind personal questions. All I ask is that they stop asking the same shallow one year after year. Change it up; ask me about the classes I'm taking or what's the funniest thing I've done this school year. Just stop making me feel as if I'm a character in a Jane Eyre novel.