Insert Witty Title Here

Think about how much time you spend each day making sure no one thinks you’re crazy. You follow all the social rules, you don’t send your crush a text message unless it’s been seen and processed by a team of experts, you don’t leave the house until you’ve changed at least four times. “I’m wearing this new designer,” you tell the imaginary crowds. “It’s called InsEcUrIty by Insecurity For ‘Nsecurity…”

You dedicate so much of your energy into reassuring near-strangers that you are totally normal. You are not weird! When you enter a house party, there’s no need for a record scratch. Promise! Check out your Facebook and Twitter too. It’s completely fine. The right amount of funny and smart. You’re not posting pictures of you drunk eating tacos in an alleyway. You’re not tweeting mean things about your ex because that would be nuts! Talk about oversharing….

Tell all your friends that you don’t want a boyfriend. Everybody knows that love only happens when you’re least expecting it! So just expect not to expect it, you know? Go out for a girls’ night at Sushi Samba and get wasted doing sake bombs. Then have an UH-MAZING guy named Chad or Brad or Tad come up to you and ask for your number.

“Are you trying to ask me out?’ you’ll ask incredulously in-between bites of your Maui Monsoon rolls. “Because I was really not expecting this. I was not looking for love tonight. I just wanted to have a nice night out with my girls and now my future husband might be standing in front of me. I don’t know. Like I said, I just really wasn’t expecting to find love at Sushi Samba.”

Kindly tell Brad or Chad or Tad that you’re just doing you right now and send him on his way. Think that rejecting him will increase your odds of finding a boyfriend.

4. You have this thought semi-regularly: “How were the ladies of Sex and the City always so happy? If being single is this #dark at 25, imagine what it’ll be like ten years from now. Possibly just an endless of montage of the two single people left on Earth roaming the streets, pawing at people’s windows and getting drunk on the StairMaster at a local YMCA.

It’s taboo to admit that you’re lonely. You can make jokes about it, of course. You can tell people that you spend most of your time with Netflix or that you haven’t left the house today and you might not even go outside tomorrow. Ha ha, funny. But rarely do you ever tell people about the true depths of your loneliness, about how you feel more and more alienated from your friends each passing day and you’re not sure how to fix it. It seems like everyone is just better at living than you are.

A part of you knew this was going to happen. Growing up, you just had this feeling that you wouldn’t transition well to adult life, that you’d fall right through the cracks. And look at you now. La di da, it’s happening.

1. Take a long flight and discover upon landing that you have no new texts or voicemails.

5. Turn any age. Birthdays are the place where many epic shame spirals live.

6. Try to kiss your ex in a moment of drunken honesty and have them be like, “No.”

10. Forget to lock the door on a public restroom and have someone walk in on you pooping. “SOMEONE’S IN HERE!” you’ll scream bloody murder. “I AM IN HERE!”

11. Get rejected by someone you weren’t even into. This is such a humiliating shame spiral, oh my god. WHY?!

4. Have your friend sit alone in a bar for 20 minutes until you show up. This will terrify them. The second they get to the bar, they’ll do a quick scan of the room and realize you’re nowhere in sight. So, uh, what do they do? I guess they could sit… at the bar. Yes, yes, that’s what they’ll do! They feverishly text you so no one can approach them. If someone did, they’d just show them their phone and hiss, “Excuse me, I’m on a date right now!”

Honorable mention: Tell them to meet you at a house party where they don’t know anyone and conveniently fail to show up.

Let’s start with the obvious, shall we? You need to stop dating people who hate themselves. If someone doesn’t practice self-love, you can pretty much guarantee that they won’t know how to love you.

You need to stop dating people as an experiment. “I wonder what it’s like to date someone short or depressed or Republican or Christian or vegan.” Stop. Stop. Stop. You know what it’ll be like. You’re no longer the person swimming in naïveté. You understand things now. You understand people, relationships and dynamics. Most importantly, you understand yourself. You no longer have the luxury of pretending that you don’t know any better. (And that sucks because the second you figure things out, life becomes less fun, doesn’t it?)

I want to go out of my comfort zone and be more open to having new experiences. My life exists on a rigid structure, a structure that prevents me from having any surprises or spontaneous adventures, and I prefer it that way. It keeps me far away from stress, which is my number one enemy. I can’t help but think that because of my rules though, I’ve missed out on a lot of life. By being so afraid of everything, I’ve cut myself off from so many opportunities, so much potential love and excitement. Sometimes I fear I’ve become so locked inside of myself that I won’t ever find a way out. And all for what? So I wouldn’t be out of control? Sometimes the best things come from being out of control.

I want to be less ruled by guilt and shame. I’m getting better but I’m not quite where I’d like to be with it. I still find myself making mistakes and going into intense shame spirals because of it. It never gets me anywhere; the shame just makes it worse. It feeds into my guilt, blows it out of proportion, and leaves me feeling so bad about myself. I’ve been learning not to do this anymore, to make a mistake and just have a hit and run with it. Leave the crime scene! But you know, easier said than done!

Watching Celeste and Jesse Forever made me revisit the age-old question of “Can you be BFF with your ex?” In my experience, the answer has been no. I dated my best friend in high school and when it ended, I didn’t have the wherewithal to cut him out. Instead, we just resumed our close friendship without the sex for FIVE YEARS. Oh, it killed me and all my friends were just like, “Ryan, what the hell are you doing? He’s your ex. You can’t be friends with him.” I would dismiss them, saying that it happened back in high school so it didn’t count. We were older now, more mature, and could totally be best friends without it getting weird.

Wrong. So wrong. This is always wrong, right? When has this ever worked out for anybody? Maybe in your 30s and 40s when maturity is a real thing instead of something we PRETEND to have but it certainly doesn’t happen when you’re a 22-year-old psycho with little experience in relationships. Simply put, I lost my shit for five solid years. As long as we continued to be best friends, I was a damn basket case. Why? Because I had never had such a close friendship with another gay guy before or after and it screwed with my head. Our bond was so iron-clad that it made my feelings all smudgy. If we got along so well, why weren’t we together? Isn’t that what you should do with your best friend who also likes boys? Shouldn’t we just get married and be best friends forever?

Tell me you love me, even if you don’t. Chances are you don’t. This is why it’s the last time. Because you don’t love me anymore and can’t bear to pretend otherwise. That’s okay. That’s fine. Whatever. Just get to work.

The last few times we had sex were terrible. I knew you were falling out of love with me with every single thrust, so I’m owed this. I’m owed one last amazing f–k. I deserve it. I deserve to be lied to. Give it to me.

Don’t play music. That’s too cheap. That’s an easy way out and this isn’t supposed to easy. This will be the hardest sex you’ve ever had. I want to hear every moan, every groan, every labored exhale. I want to hear the unflattering “smack, smack” sound of your body going into mine, the sound we all abhor during sex and pretend not to hear.

Silence.