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.

Bruce Pruitt, a New York-based filmmaker, made a fascinating documentary about New York gays and the assumed hatred towards other gay men in the gay community. Not only is it a fascinating question — why do gay men often hate each other — but many of their responses were captivating if problematic. Some spoke about being embarrassed by certain aspects of the gay world, like unconventional sex that would be totally faux pas in the straight world. Others talked about only being attracted to masculine men and “not liking” stereotypical gay men or the stereotypical definitions of “gay,” which is probably why those people spend hours and hours in the gym working to be as masculine as possible so nobody will ever know they just sucked 25 dicks.

“Her life would be so much easier if she would just stop dating douchebags,” we say, “All his problems would magically go away if he could learn how to stick to a budget.” When it comes to the troubled patterns and self-destructive choices of others, we are Ivy League-educated psychiatrists, armed with stacks of dusty books and smug glances over the top of our understated glasses, ready to diagnose and call it a day to go back to our mahogany apartments and sip chianti. But when it’s us dating said douchebags, or spending our money irresponsibly, or hanging out with the kind of social group that exists only to make us feel unworthy, these problems are brand-new, mystifying, and completely unsolvable.

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.

Where is the rule that says we can only fall in love with another human being with whom we engage in a sexual relationship? Who dictated that being a hopeless romantic only entails how they they feel about the people they are dating, and the concept of dating in general? Are there not people who are hopelessly romantic about the art they devote every free hour to, the art through which they express every complicated sentiment they once were sure would have to go unsaid? Is their love for their work — and the hopeless dedication they bring to it, even in the face of never earning a penny in return — not beautiful, simply because it doesn’t involve another person? Do we need to be lying in bed with our love to know that it is real and worth giving our time to?

There are going to be times — maybe a birthday, a holiday, or simply a special moment that you thought would be shared with everyone you love most — when you realize that few people you considered friends are actually that close to you. You may be wondering where everyone is, why so few deemed it important enough to show up, why everything else was more pressing to them than the friendship you considered a real priority. You will begin to understand that the good friends, the ones you can count on to be there when it’s truly important, are as rare as they are wonderful. And while you make a resolution to treat the real friends with more care, for at least the moment when you realize so many others haven’t made the effort, you’ll feel terribly lonely. And that’s okay.

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?!

This is the crossroads. The ultimatum. The end of one step forward and seven steps back. The conclusion of a lengthy, weathering limbo that’s lasted entirely too long. Nobody wants to be pressured into these decisions, at least not right now. Making this call is something you want to do on your own terms, not with a metaphorical gun to your head. The options being given are clear and concise, but they’re also polar opposites. Take my hand and run away with me, or cut these ties, burn this bridge and run away from me.