6 Things That Happen When You Feel Eternally Single

Everyone has a friend they think they can set you up with.

Getting “set up” with someone can often feel like being persuaded by a pushy salesperson to buy something you don’t want or need. You know the person doing the matchmaking, but you don’t know the potential match. It could go one of two ways. Either your best friend has magical matchmaking powers and actually sets you up with someone you truly have chemistry with…Or they set you up with basically the only other single person they know thinking that all single people will magically get along and become less single. Dating is not always magical, and unlike the magician who pulls a rabbit out of a hat, you might have to pull a couple of snakes or lizards first. Sometimes going on a date that your friend sets up can be worth the try, and sometimes it can be a trial and error. The point is, if you don’t try you’ll never know.

You become more oblivious to guys who notice you.

You have been single for so long that you think Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome from across the bar who has been staring at you for the past 20 minutes is looking at the girl behind you. Nope, he’s looking at you, and you have to start noticing! Just because you feel like you’ve been single forever doesn’t mean you’re undesirable. Take notice to the guy who notices you! Better yet, start paying attention to the guys who YOU have your eye on, and approach them. Your single status doesn’t indicate that you’ve blended into the background, you are the focal point and Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome’s alluring stare will prove it.

Your family asks if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend at every gathering.

Remember when you saw Auntie Amelia at the annual Christmas Eve Party? Remember her disappointed face when you told her you were still single? Well, one month later at her 90th birthday party, when she asks you the same question, you still have the same answer, and she still wears the same disappointed reaction on her face. Elderly relatives love to hear about how your life is coming together, what you’re studying in school, what you want to do after school, but when it comes to dating, they want to hear about your future wedding and babies, not about your single shenanigans. Cue the complaints about not enough or no grandchildren at all, and start getting used to them. Don’t worry about your relatives’ desires for weddings and babies. If you want that for yourself, it will happen when you’re ready, and if you don’t I’m sure there’s some support group out there that your disappointed relatives can attend, I have no grandchildren anonymous.

You start to groom less often.

This is one of the sadder side effects of being eternally single. You haven’t had a boyfriend in ages, so who cares if your eyebrows start to grow a little out of wack, or your dark brown roots begin to grow over your bleach blonde hair? Well, you surely don’t. When you are newly single it is the opposite. You groom almost obsessively and everything is always ready to go.

Eyebrows waxed, nails painted, legs shaven, you name it, it’s taken care of. But when your single days drag on for what feels like an eternity, you start to become a little less groomed and a little more…let’s say scruffy. Truth is your best friends won’t care if your upper lip hair is making a comeback, but the even sadder truth is that the guys you may be interested in do. This doesn’t mean that you have to paint your nails and curl your hair to make guys like you. It means that even though your single you deserve to pamper yourself every so often! Try out a new lip shade, rock those heels that have been sitting in the back of your closet, sometimes amping up your otherwise lazy efforts gets you out, about, and motivated.

You eat whatever your heart and stomach desire.

When it comes to that Double Stuf Oreo, you stop worrying about the lifetime on your hips and fall in love with the moment on your lips. You indulge much more in your guilty pleasures because you don’t have a significant other who will judge you for them, or steer you away from them. Who needs a boyfriend when you have Nutella? It’s all fun and dandy when you’re single and eat what you please, but don’t let your forever single eating habits go too crazy. Happy and healthy go hand in hand. Love your Oreos but give your treadmill some loving too.

You think about your exes.

You’re single now, and have been for a while, but remember those days when you actually had a boyfriend? Of course you do. You are most likely only remembering the days in which you were happy with that ex, and you are completely overlooking the days in which you weren’t. When you’ve been single for so long, it is completely normal to think about the potential in your past relationships, but keep reminding yourself why those relationships failed, and try to move on. It is impossible to move forward if you’ve got the car in reverse. Thinking too much about past relationships will prevent you from forming new ones. So stop looking up your ex on Facebook, and start seeing what else is out there.