I’m pretty single right now.

Tess Johnson

A quick examination of my laundry might confirm this. Devoid of a boyfriend’s button-downs or boxers, what’s mine is unmistakably mine. Half my bed is often a resting place for my bras, books and extremely glamorous bags of gummy worms. But not, for the past couple of years, a boyfriend.

I haven’t dated a single person since I graduated from high school. At least not officially. But I have had relationships before — two lengthy ones, in fact, lasting a grand total of four confusing, immature and complicated years. I listened to a lot of Jack Johnson and slathered on glittery lotions. I was a kid who thought I was an adult, just like every other kid. These times seemed great, but in retrospect, we were just too young to know what great was.

When you’re in high school, “great” is as simple as going to the mall and buying some stupid shirt from Hot Topic. It’s a party where the parents are out of town, so you try a wine cooler for the first time. It’s your junior prom and your polyester dress from Sears. “Great” means feeling each other up in a Honda Civic parked near Sonic. “Well, this is love,” you think, as you push aside a fry bag to make room for more idiocy.

But greatness evolves. I broke up with my last high school boyfriend the day I left for college. The night I moved into my dorm, I laid in bed watching a fuzzball dance around the air vent to the quiet snore-song of my roommate — a stranger with whom I now shared my only private space.

Leaving my home, full of unconditional warmth, was so odd that I could not assign it a feeling, positive or negative. How strange to part ways with my relationship, one that provided me with macaroni-and-cheese comfort. It felt great at the time, but it wasn’t healthy.

Following the first, I spent many college nights awake in many beds, just marinating in increasing reality. Learning to be myself — just myself — was surprisingly difficult. After years in my just-because relationships, I had become one of those trees that grows into a fence. Rip up the iron and the trunk is left deformed, unable to support itself.

When I stared into my bathroom mirror, my own reflection staring back defied expectations, because I didn’t truly exist. I had to spend some time inventing myself. Knowing how to please me. Not a him; not a we.

College imparts lessons. Like how to shotgun a beer, and you know, analyze Plato or whatever. In its four years, it taught me to be single. It’s not a thing I’ll be forever, but it’s nice to know that I’m good at it when I need to be.

Sometimes, “I’m good at being single” politely translates to “I’m an awkward dumbass”, “whoops, that was a ridiculous thing that I did” or just “I’m sexually frustrated, so let’s eat cheesecake.” But mostly it means I know what I like and that I make mistakes. I can feel OK about offering whatever it is that I’ve got.

I’m 21 now, and things are looking up. I don’t make out in bowling alleys or think that Hilary Duff makes fun music. I don’t have to hide condoms in a lunchbox and pray that nobody opens it. I have my own room in my own house which includes roommates; because living with other people makes me socialize and prevents me from sitting around drinking whiskey in the nude.

So after three years unattached, I know who I am. Maybe I’ll finally recognize when greatness is truly greatness, and not just great at the time. Cheers to high hopes.

— Tess Johnson is a senior from Savannah majoring in anthropology