I'm almost 20 and I've never had a boyfriend.

Guy here.

I hate to use a cliche, but the grass-is-always-greener principle definitely applies. I'm not that much older than you, only 25, but I've spent a lot of time being single and kind of floating around while my friends were pairing off for months and years at a time, and a lot of them seemed really happy and fulfilled and connected I really thought a few of them were gonna get married. I really felt stunted next to them because of how much time I spent unattached, especially since relationships are important to me and I always want one.

But as time passed and those couples moved on from one another or didn't, but maybe should have, it became pretty clear to me that a lot of them were not really connected at all. Some of my happiest, most competent friends could not manage to keep their thing going, and drove each other batshit trying to hold onto something that wasn't working.

On the other hand, I have had a few relationships of my own come and go now, of their own accord. I never went out looking for one, except in the sense that I was always receptive to the idea. Those relationships were of course not without stress, trial, and a degree of sadness when they ended, but I was never tearing out my hair and wracking my heart for the last drops of infatuation like some of the people I've known. I've found those to be astonishingly common things for people to do when things aren't going their way.

Bottom line, good relationships happen when you're ready for them, not necessarily when you feel like you should be.

People will tell you that it's not healthy to feel incomplete without a partner, and I don't think that's true. I completely understand feeling the need to be with someone in that way, and it's totally okay to feel that.

What's not okay is to let that feeling rule you. Keep your wits, maintain good judgment, take care of yourself foremost and don't stop growing and being the best version of yourself you can be. It will happen for you.

/r/TwoXChromosomes Thread