The opposite of what Noah Calhoun said

Ever since I was fifteen years old I have been "that" girl. You know "that" girl that I'm talking about. The girl that constantly has a boyfriend or at the very least some form of guy in her life. I shuffled around and managed to get put myself in the dating situation, even if the guy that I just so happened upon was all wrong.

Wrong for all reasons. As in, nothing about us was compatible, nor did I even like being in the same vicinity as said person. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking- "Then duh, Katie, why wouldn't you just break up with that person and move on to find your happiness elsewhere?" Well friends, that is a legit question. (Like my use of the term legit there?)

I literally flitted from relationship to relationship looking for what I thought that I wanted. When one of my relationships ended, whether it was a long term or short term one, I would hop on that train and into the next one. I never gave myself the proper amount of time before I fell into the next one. And it's one hundred percent my fault. I have no doubt about that and I don't try to defend myself against.

It's. My. Fault.

I was in my last relationship for two and a half years. It was brutal, and horrible, and self deprecating. I was miserable and unhappy, long before it was over and yet I stayed in it. I tried to make it something that it wasn't and would never be. By the end I was so mentally and emotionally drained that I just couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't broken, but I felt that I had failed. I had failed to make another relationship work. Anyone who has ever felt any form of failure knows the feeling that I'm talking about. You get tired and you feel on the edge of defeat. So after that was done and over with I decided to take a break from all things relationship. I decided that I needed to take some "me" time and figure out what I wanted.

After all, in all of my failed relationships the common denominator was me. I wanted to figure out what I was doing wrong and fix the problem(s). Then one day as I was riding down the road I was hit with a realization. Something inside of me had evolved and in my grown up state I realized that perhaps it wasn't me. I mean, it was me, but for completely different reasons. Maybe, the one thing that I was doing wrong was choosing the wrong person to compliment myself.

Relationships are supposed to make you happy, and you are supposed to want to spend endless amounts of your time with that person out of love, not a sense of responsibility. I realized all of this, and it made me feel...amazing. For the first time in a long time I felt wondrous about the relationship that I was in. And that relationship was with myself. I did the things that I wanted to do whether that meant reading, watching TV, shopping, cooking, or walking around aimlessly. I realized that even though the idea of having a significant other was a sensational idea, that I didn't have to have that in my life.

In the past when I've found myself single, I would meet someone or have another in the back of my mind as kind of a "back-up" or "fall back". You know what I'm talking about, a "safety net". I would make a scenario in my head and build up the characters to be so unbelievable, that they would be exactly that. Unbelievable. No one could ever live up to the idealization that I had, and yet, even though I know this I don't want to settle for less. I don't want to settle for anything less than laughter and happiness. I don't want to settle for anything less than awe inspiring giddiness. In other words, I don't want to settle. I want the butterflies.     

It's been almost two years since I've dated anyone. And I'm ok with that. If it happens, then it happens, but I don't want to force anything. I got asked out on a date and everybody that I know has an opinion about it. Personally, I'm hoping that he just loses interest before the actual date comes to pass. I had a small panic attack thinking about dating someone. A million questions started running through my mind, and then I realized something. I realized that I'm not in a relationship, not even close to being in one, and I'm a perfectly able intelligent twenty-four year old woman in the twenty first century. Handy little fact to have in your back pocket. I can say no. I can say this isn't working. I can even just plainly say that I don't want to. I don't have to settle for anything less than exactly what I want.

I can't change the roads that I've taken, but I can certainly turn around and re-direct myself.