The Last Single Man in LA
I know it’s non-traditional or maybe even uncanny to be a 25-year old single man in the land of beautiful people, complaining about being single. But for someone who grew up in the Southern city of Atlanta and most of my high school counterparts are engaged, married, or married with kids, it seems like I have come to a crossroads in regards to my comfortability of being single in my mid-twenties.
I’ve been binge watching Sex and The City for the past 6 weeks--another casualty of the pandemic-- and have realized that although it seems fun to be single, maybe being single is not the only way to have fun. Today, I was lying in bed and received a notification from Snapchat that I had a memory from 4 years ago, which is always fun to go down memory lane. The video was me in the car after a seemingly long night at a club. I turned to my friend and said, “on a scale of 1-10 how much do I miss my special friend.” My friend promptly answered, “a 12 or maybe a 20, but whatever it is, that’s deep!”
Four years ago, I thought by this age I would have it all figured out--love, career, and friends. However, it seems that love is not possible in the city of Los Angeles. I date to no prevail, fall for the wrong ones, and run into way too many throuple situations then I would like. No judgement, but the fairytale of two people falling in love seems to be just that, a fairytale. I can place the blame on leaving the South or that the love of my life is not here, there, or anywhere. Maybe it’s me, who knows!
My therapist and I have been working on my issues with trust and abandonment for the past few weeks and her advice was to stop dating with all the stipulations and just have fun. So I have decided to date as much as possible this summer. I want to let go of the stipulations of career, family legacy, college degree, and all the other unattainable bullets on my list that keep me from giving someone a chance. Dating can be fun, just like it was in college. We all had that college love affair, so why can't we have it again in our mid-twenties without the stipulations of a life long partner or marriage? Maybe with a new found freedom, I will find love.