I know the ideal goals in life are to go to college, get married, have children, and live happily ever after (in that order). But, what if I’m just not ready for that yet? Everyone always talks about how high school and college are the time for dating mistakes, but I haven’t dated anyone, so how am I supposed to know how to date?

Society tells us a lot about our relationships and how they should work. There are many, many examples in television, movies, magazines, and social media of what our dating lives should look like.

Personally, I also have many friends who are in long-term relationships and who are very happy. As a result of having so many relationships around me, there have definitely been times where I’ve been jealous of not having a boyfriend, but there have also been times when I’ve been able to see where they could unintentionally hold me back.

My friends in relationships are super happy in them, don’t get me wrong. But, being close friends with them, I think that I am able to see some flaws that they can’t see. For example, my college offers a lot of study abroad programs and is ranked nationally for our accessibility to them.Seventy-nine percent actually study abroad before graduation, which is an insane number.

However, one of my friends is restricting herself to only studying abroad for a winter term, which is a month long. I’m sure that she’s still going to benefit from it and have a great experience, but if I were her, I would want to do an entire semester away so that I could completely immerse myself (which I am planning to do).

I’m not saying that her boyfriend is restricting her and telling her not to do this because I know that this is not the case, but she herself is choosing to not go abroad for a semester because she doesn’t want to be that far away from him.

Now, I’m not a feminist, and I like looking at cute guys just as much as the next girl, but I’m not building my whole life around them. I have way better things to do in life than wait for some boy to ask me out or ask some boy out myself. If he’s not the one, then I’m going to spend time focusing on myself and my other life goals.

Going to dances with a date is probably one of the most overrated things ever. Sure, I don’t mind having a guy as a date, but it just becomes so complicated if it’s not defined as a “date” date or as just friends.

Even though I can acknowledge that it’s way more fun to go with friends, I still have that feeling that I try to hide every dance. Because, like it or not, I am a teenage girl and I, like many others, would love to be asked in a big, dramatic, over the top way to a dance.

On another note, being in college has taught me that my girl squad or girl gang, whatever you want to call it, are way more important than guys. They are the ones who are always down for an impromptu dance party, movie night, gossip session, and everything else that I could ever want.

So I definitely am not protesting having a boyfriend (hinting at you boys out there), but for right now, I don’t really care if I have one and I'm perfectly okay with that.