#laycation | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

illfoandillfie · 5 years ago

Text

Warmth

Request: I would be so interested in a smutty fluffy hc about Joe and Reader from Seaside Rendezvous if they ran into each other at a ski resort cause I feel like warming each other up would be quite the scene 😉 - @queenmylovely

SR Masterlist

Pairing: Joe Mazzello x Reader

Warnings: Smut (18+), fairly soft and fluffy though

Words: 3951

A/N: Requested as part of my 1000 follower celebration, go longer than I planned but since when have I every managed to keep this series short?

Taglist: @laedymoon @dtfrogertaylor @ezmina98 @vee-ndetta @atomic-watermelon @kellypenac @labessieisallama @deakyclicks @jennyggggrrr @drowseoftaylor @hannafuckingsucks

@ramibaby @briarrose26 @d34d-0n-th3-1ns1d3 @painkiller80 @stephydearestxo

It was your friends’ idea, a small getaway before the start of the new term. You’d quickly agreed, feeling like a break would do you good and together you’d settled on skiing. It was going to be fun. Not necessarily the actual skiing part, though perhaps you could be persuaded, but the idea of spending a week in a cute snowy log cabin with your three best friends was too good to pass up. It was certainly a welcome distraction. Christmas had come and gone, Joe along with it. You’d somehow won yourselves a few extra days together, a completely unexpected gift. But once more he’d gone home, though this time you’d been able to steal a final kiss at the airport. Since then you’d been in a bit of a low mood. The first time you’d parted, on your final day in Hawaii, you’d been expecting it since he first talked to you. You’d had time to ready yourself for it and though it knocked your spirits for a few days, it was easy to shake free of the melancholy and move on. But this time had been so unexpected and so rushed you felt like you’d barely processed that he was back in front of you when he was already waving goodbye as he boarded his plane. And it took you a little by surprise just how upset you’d been watching him walk away. You definitely needed a pick-me-up and what could be better than some girl time with your best buds.

Arriving and unpacking was a noisy affair – play fights over who would get which room, a rush to get the fireplace going straight away and bring some warmth into the cabin, and loud discussions about whether you should go skiing now or wait until later. But it was nothing to the noise you made when you took note of the buildings around you. Only a brief walk away was a bar that was sure to be full of people later in the evening, drinking and bragging about their skiing prowess. And an even shorter distance away, outside the cabin next door, there was an equally rowdy group of young men dragging their own luggage through the snow, laughing as they began to settle into their accommodation. There was a split second of calm as you collectively realised what was happening next door and then the sounds of scuffling as the four of you rushed to the window for a subtle look, each of you peering through the curtains to ogle the attractive bunch. Maybe hooking up with a hot stranger would help you shake Joe from your system. Your friends seemed to feel the same.

“Jesus look at them. Y/N, we are going to get you laid,”

“Thanks I guess,”

“Well you’ve gotta stop being hung up on Hawaii Joe, no point pining for him when you’re not going to see him again. Might as well use and loose one of these guys, get your mojo back,”

“I spose so,”

“Be a little more enthusiastic please. Look at that one’s arms, Christ.”

“Nah, he’s not really my type,”

“Good, I call dibs,”

“Sam! You can’t just call dibs!”

“You’re just jealous, Bea” Sam stuck out her tongue as she moved away from the window, “should we go and introduce ourselves?”

“Keep it in your pants for two minutes. Let’s just wait until tonight,”

“But I wanna talk to a hot guy now!”

“No, Em’s right,” Bea piped up, “they’re bound to be going to the bar tonight. We can time our leaving for when they leave, make us seem a little less desperate,”

“Y/N, you’ve been silent for too long, what do you think?”

But you weren’t paying attention to their conversation. You’d stopped paying attention when you saw one of the guys come out of the house, moving back to their luggage to grab another bag.

“Guess we know which one Y/N’s called dibs on then,”

You still hadn’t heard a word they said, not even when they all called your name and asked what you were doing as you stood and walked to the door. You wrenched it open and took a step outside before you froze in place.

“Y/N, what is with you?”

“It’s Joe,” you squeezed your eyes shut and then opened them again, double checking you’d seen right but there was no mistaking him, even from a distance.

“Wait, Hawaii Joe?”

“Yes Sam, Hawaii Joe.”

“The same Hawaii Joe you magically hooked up with while we were away over Christmas?”

“That’s the one,”

“Bullshit!”

“Nope, that’s him,”

“You’re certain?”

“100 per cent,”

“Well go on then,” you felt a shove in your back and then heard the three of them giggle as they shut the door behind you. You turned in time to see them scurry over to the window, a better vantage point to spy from.

“Hey!”

Sam just shook her head at you, even ignoring when you made a shivering motion, wrapping your arms around your torso. They’d pushed you out without your warm coat, though thankfully you were still wearing an old hoodie. It wasn’t quite as thick as you would have liked but it was better than nothing.

“This is very Pride and Prejudice of you,” you called through the window, “Trying to make me catch a cold.”

Bea made a shooing motion with her hand and with a with a final eye roll you set off towards the second cabin.

With each footstep you got more nervous, what if you were wrong? What if you only thought it was Joe because you were thinking about Joe? But your mind was put at ease when the door opened again and the familiar face stood before you.

“Y/N?”

“The one and only,” you said, remembering the Christmas party where you’d met again. You couldn’t help the smile that broke out, a mirror of Joe’s as he pulled you into a hug, swinging you around in a circle. It was nice for numerous reasons though the warmth was definitely one of them.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” he said as he put you down.

“You mean completely by accident?”

“It’s becoming a habit Y/N,”

“I can’t believe this,” you almost pinched yourself but contented yourself with touching his arm instead, “how do we keep doing it? Ending up in the same place?”

“I don’t know but I’m glad it keeps happening. Are you here with people?”

“The three nosey bitches in the window,” you pointed with your thumb and his eyes darted towards them though they were quickly back on you, “they’re the reason I’m under-dressed by the way. But what about you?”

“Mean of them,” he said rubbing his hands over your arms, “I’m here with a few pals, we needed a bit of a break and thought skiing might be fun,”

“That was our thinking too,”

Joe looked back at the window and you turned to follow his gaze, the three others ducking down beneath it.

“Don’t worry about them Joe, they’re harmless. Pretty sure they didn’t believe me when I said it was you.”

“We don’t have to sneak around them?”

“Lord no. I’ve told them all about you and Sam was just saying her goal for the trip was to get me laid,”

“Think I can help out with that,”

“So no girlfriend then,”

“Nope,”

You melted into him as he pulled you close and kissed you, feeling warmer than you had any right to considering you were standing in the snow.

He broke away too soon, leaning back and narrowing his eyes at you, “What do you mean you’ve told them all about me?”

“Only good things I swear. You haven’t told your friends about me?”

“I’ve told them some things but not all the things.”

“My friends call you Hawaii Joe,”

“You don’t want to know what mine call you,”

“I think perhaps I do,”

“After one more kiss? You’re going to think badly of me,” he leaned in but you put your hand over his mouth, giggling. He licked your palm.

“Tell me first,”

Joe let a huff of breath escape his nose and then grabbed your wrist so he could speak, “they call you beach slut,” he crinkled his nose as he said it, almost wincing, though his face softened when you laughed.

“To be fair, my friends kept referring to you as my Hawaiin Lay but it was so dumb I made them stop. We settled on Hawaii Joe as long as they got to call it my Laycation in front of other people.”

Joe snorted, “very creative,”

“Yeah because beach slut is fucking Shakespearean,”

“Fair enough, can I have that kiss now?”

“Does it come with a cuddle? I’m starting to freeze.”

Once more you felt his arms snake around you, pulling you into him tightly. You had to tilt your head back a little but it was worth it to feel his lips on yours again.

“Joe! Where’d you get to?”

Joe groaned, pressing his forehead to yours, “almost forgot about them,”

“Joe! Jo- oh, shit man, sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt. God you move fast,” the man with the nice arms Sam had claimed started to head back inside.

“Steve, wait,” Joe called after him, “This is Y/N,”

“Y/N? You mean -”

“Hi, nice to meet you!” you ducked out of Joe’s embrace, moving to shake Steve’s hand, “I’m the beach slut,”

Steve started to blush and you heard Joe’s snort of laughter from behind you.

“You heard about that?”

“It’s fine, I’m teasing. The name’s not inaccurate really.”

“What’d you want Steve,” Joe said through his laughter, his hand finding its way to your hip, not wanting to let you go completely.

“Well I was going to tell you to get your butt in gear cos we’re all ready to hit the slopes, but if you’d rather stay here....”

“Oh shoot, yeah I forgot about that. Give me like two minutes?”

Steve nodded, told you it was nice to meet you and headed back in doors, probably to tell whoever else was there that you were real.

“Sorry,” Joe said softly, “forgot we’d decided to go skiing first thing,”

“Nothing to apologise for. I should get back to the girls anyway.”

“Get yourself in front of the fire before you freeze to death,”

“Yeah, exactly. Will I see you tonight?”

“Absolutely. I think we were gonna head to the bar after we’d finished skiing.”

“What about we meet there then?”

Joe agreed, leaving you with a last lingering kiss before he ducked back inside and you headed back to bang on the door to your own cabin.

“So it was him?” Em asked, handing you a few fingers of whisky as you sat in front of the fireplace, letting the heat wash over you.

"Either that or she's moved past him real quick,"

“No, it was him,”

“God could you maybe sound a little less in love, it’s sickening”

“I’m not in love,”

Bea made a disbelieving noise as Sam took your hand, “Sweetie, you’re not not in love,”

“No, I can’t be because that wouldn’t make sense. Joe was a casual fling for a few weeks while we were on holidays and that’s it. Except for what happened over Christmas but that was just sex. And a couple of dinners together. And also I haven’t stopped thinking about him since. Shit,” you downed your drink in one, almost choking on it as Em silently poured you another, “do you think he knows?”

“He’d have to be a bit oblivious not to. But based on how he was looking at you I’d guess he feels the same,”

“What do you mean?”

“The goofy lovesick smile when he saw you, the way he didn’t want to stop touching you, the ridiculous amount of kissing,”

“No, that’s nothing. That’s just how things were in Hawaii. I told you, after we fucked the first time we couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”

“Okay but you also said that it wasn’t all sexual, right?”

“I mean, there was a few times where he’d like half hold my hand when we were by the pool but that was because we were horny but my family was around and we didn’t want them to work out that we were sleeping together.”

“Mmhmm”

“Guess there was also a few other things,” you remembered nights on his balcony, your head against his shoulder as you talked softly, and falling asleep in his arms, and once when you'd snuck out to walk along the beach at night, hand in hand.

“Y/N, you’ve got it bad and so does he,”

“Ugh now I have to deal with this,” you sighed, “Why’d you have to tell me? I was perfectly happy not realising,” The wait for Joe to return from skiing was an anxious one. You weren’t quite sure what you were going to say or when or even if you should say anything. Eventually though, as the sun began to sink behind the mountains, you heard the noise from the bar pick up, people arriving from all over the resort, and decided to make your way there.

“Shame it’s so cold,” Sam said as she led you through the snow, “harder to make a big winter coat look sexy compared to a bikini, right Y/N?”

“Yeah I guess,”

“Jesus, just tell him you like him and you wanna suck his dick more often than you currently are. You’ll work out the details later. Now, I’m going to find my man with the big strong arms and see if he can’t throw me over his shoulder or something,” she shot you a wink and then pushed open the door to the bar, followed by the other two. You took a breath and made to follow but the hand that wrapped around your wrist stopped you.

“Hold up, I’m over here,” Joe said, pulling you out of the doorway, “thought it’d be easier to find you out here than in with everyone else,”

“Good call,” you hoped you sounded normal, not too uncomfortable, but you couldn’t stop yourself from giving his face a once over, trying to spot the signs everyone else had apparently seen.

“I know you just got here but, d’you wanna get out of here? I haven’t properly seen you yet and, since no one's going to be in the cabins...” his eyebrows twitched suggestively and you quickly agreed, hoping that sleeping with him would help distract you from everything else you were feeling. What didn’t help was the way he took your hand, his fingers filling the spaces between yours, making your heart beat harder against your chest. You felt almost unsteady as you walked back up the path, but not in a bad way. It was like everything had shifted slightly, not out of alignment but rather into it, and your brain was just catching up, processing that things had been crooked before.

“Fuck,” you muttered to yourself.

“What was that?”

“Oh, um, nothing just how was skiing?”

“Oh so much fun,” Joe grinned, “I’ve only skiied a couple of times before but I had a blast, even if I fell over a lot,”

“Not good at skiing, not good at golf. Are there any sports you can do?”

“Hey, you weren’t good at golf either,”

“But I was better than you,”

“One point doesn’t count. Especially since it was your fault I missed half the shots I missed,”

“Sure, Joey, you keep telling yourself that,”

“You better bring your ‘A’ game tomorrow when I challenge you to a race.”

“No fair, I’ve never skied before!”

“You haven’t? Shit that wouldn’t be fair.”

“Guess you’ll have to give me some lessons,”

“Guess I’ll just have to find some other way to make you pay. Your place or mine?”

“Let’s go to mine. Don’t think the girls’ll be surprising us anytime soon and we’ve had the fire going all day so should be a little warmer than yours.”

He followed you to your cabin, only letting go of your hand when it became clear you needed it to open the door, and refrained from undressing you while you restarted the fire. As soon as I was lit though he reached out, pulling you backwards onto the rug by your waist. Your squeal turned into a laugh as you swatted at his hands, trying to shuffle around to face him as gracefully as you could. You’d only just managed to half turn around when his lips crashed against yours, needy and urgent, his fingers twitching against your skin like he couldn’t get close enough, even as you moved onto his lap. Seemingly the distraction worked, every other thought forced from your mind as his fingers burned a trail over your back and sides, pushing your shirt higher up your torso.

“Jeeze Y/N, fireplace, snowy cabin, talk about romantic. I think traditionally, we should be sitting on a bear skin rug, but this’ll do,” he muttered, pulling back just far enough to get your shirt over your head. As soon as it was on the floor he leaned in to you again but you froze.

“Y/N?”

“Sorry, I um,” you pushed yourself off his lap, scooting back across the rug until you were a safe distance away, the word romantic repeating in your head over and over.

“Hey, no, if I’ve rushed you or something,”

“No, it’s not you. Or it is but,” you dragged your hands over your face and let out a frustrated breath, “it’s my idiot friends. They got into my head about something,”

“Something to do with me?”

“Yeah, they think I’m in love with you. And I’m starting to believe them,” you shrugged not sure what else you could do.

“Yours too huh?”

“You had the same conversation?”

“You mean the one where they were all super condescending but it was warranted because apparently I’m too dumb to realise how I’m feeling? Yeah we had that.”

“What did they say?”

“That they’d spied on our goodbye after Steve went in and told them you were there and that I looked like a loveskick puppy and I should tell you how I felt,”

“Yeah, same conversation. Assholes.”

“And I think they might be right. Think I do actually love you, which sucks,”

“Thanks so much,”

“You know what I mean,”

“Yeah. Definitely complicates things.”

There was silence as you both tried to work out where to go next. You wanted to crawl back onto Joe’s lap and curl up against his chest.

“I’ve never been one to believe in fate or signs from the universe or anything like that but we do keep finding each other,” Joe said softly, staring at your knee, “maybe there’s a reason.”

“But what about....everything? We live so far away from each other and we're still at college and what if it’s not love what if it’s just an infatuation exacerbated by distance? We’ve only ever been together during breaks and vacations and what if it’s not real?”

“That’s why I didn’t say anything until you brought it up. But I do keep thinking about you. Especially after Christmas.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Okay so, what do we do?”

You bit your lip, thinking, “well, we’ve got this week right?”

“Yeah?”

“So what if we spend this week together and try to work out what we’re dealing with. And then at the end of the week, if we decide there really is something here we can exchange numbers and emails and talk about what to do next.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,”

“It is but you'd have said anything was a good plan cause you’re half hard and want me to blow you,”

“I’m not saying that isn’t a factor but it’s not the only one.”

“Yeah, yeah. Lucky for you I’m still a slut even away from the beach,” you laughed as you finally gave in, letting yourself get close to him again, settling back into his lap. His touch was a little more hesitant than it had been before, yours too. You felt more nervous than you needed to, more than any other time you’d been with him. But as soon as your lips brushed his you felt better. Kissing Joe was easy. It felt right even when everything else was just a confused jumble of questions and sudden realisations. You let yourself relax into him, winding your arms around his neck and shifting as close as you could get. The fire cast a warm orange glow over both of you as took your time undressing each other, Joe easing himself down to the rug as you leaned over him. You raised yourself enough that you could remove his pants and your own, trying to pull them off without having to leave his lap for too long.

“You okay?” he asked, the pad of his thumb slipping over your kiss swollen lips.

“Yeah, bit nervous for some reason but good. I’ve missed this.”

“I’ve missed it too,” he pushed himself up on his forearms until his nose bumped yours, “missed you.”

“Gosh you’re sweet,”

He hissed when you wrapped your hand around his cock, pumping him slowly, and you chuckled.

“Unfair,”

“Maybe, but I do like hearing you whine,”

“Feeling’s mutual, “he pressed his thumb to your clit, your voice catching in your throat,”

“Shit, wait, I forgot to grab a condom, left them back in my room,”

“Please tell me you’re joking Joe. I don’t have any on me either.”

“Spose I can quickly get dressed and run for them,”

“When were you last tested?”

“Couple of weeks ago, and there’s been no one since,”

“Fuck it, I’m not waiting any longer,”

He grabbed you around the waist as you finally lowered yourself onto him, foreheads bumping as you tried to breathe. But once you felt capable of moving it didn’t last long. Neither of you had the patience to drag it out and you were very aware that the others could return home anytime and find you spread out in front of the fireplace. Your skin prickled with the burning heat of the flame and he warmth of Joe’s touch as he reached up to cup your breasts, squeezing them as you rode him. He left one hand playing with your nipple as the other dropped back to your clit, rubbing you in fast circles, pulling moans from you between panted breaths. His own moans were only building, though you gladly swallowed every one, catching his lips with your teeth accidentally, feeling his tongue against yours. His breath was hot on your lips as he came, his fingers never leaving your clit until you’d followed him over the edge.

Once you’d recovered enough to stand you grabbed the pile of clothes you’d created and Joe’s hand, pulling him towards your bedroom.

“Not quite the same romantic vibe as out there but I think having less chance of being walked in on is a fair trade off.”

He settled in the bed and pulled you against him, “I don’t know, still feels kind of romantic. Are you really okay with this? After everything our friend’s said, I mean,”

You snuggled deeper into his arms, “yeah I am. I know theres the whole distance thing but we’ll manage. Not like we’re going to be in college forever.”

“After you graduate you could move to LA with me,”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. Still gotta see how this week goes, how we feel about it all,”

“Yeah I know. There is a more immediate upside of keeping in contact I’m excited about,”

“We can organise vacations together?”

“I was gonna say we can send each other dirty pictures and stuff,”

“Joe!” you laughed, giving his hand a slap, “you’re shocking,”

“Yeah but you love it,”

You felt Joe drop a kiss to your shoulder, pressing his face into your neck, “Yeah, I do”

#my writing #joe mazzello x reader #joe mazzello smut #joe mazzello imagine #seaside rendezvous #god im bad at keeping things short lmao #especially with this series #anyway #im Soft for these idiots #i love writing them #1000 follower celebration

61 notes · View notes

fashiontrendin-blog · 6 years ago

Text

At 30, I’ve Never Been in a Serious Relationship — and That’s Okay

http://fashion-trendin.com/at-30-ive-never-been-in-a-serious-relationship-and-thats-okay/

At 30, I’ve Never Been in a Serious Relationship — and That’s Okay

I’ve never had a serious relationship. By my count, I’ve never dated anybody for longer than two or three months. I’ve never called anybody my boyfriend, never introduced a partner to my family or friends and never said “I love you.” At 30 years old, I am the only person in my social circle who isn’t married or in a long-term relationship. And for the first time in my life, I am completely happy with that.

In my twenties, I developed a bit of a complex about my relationship status. The conversation would follow the same rough script each time. First, people would marvel at the fact that I was single, asking something along the lines of: “How are you not taken?” Which translates loosely to: “What’s secretly wrong with you that is undetectable to the naked eye?” I would shrug and say I didn’t know, because really, there is no satisfactory answer to that question. But that didn’t stop people from asking it, sometimes adding one word which would make it sting all the more: “How are you still single?”

It used to bother me. A lot. I’d think to myself: Well, what is wrong with me? I was attractive, clever, funny. It was just a case of waiting for the right person, I kept saying, both to myself and to those who kept asking. Of course, once you’ve said that, every person starts to look like the right person. Each time I met someone new, I would put pressure on myself to fall in love, to outlast the two-month mark this time, to finally make it into “serious relationship” territory.

In some instances, this sheer determination (which you can feel free to read as “desperation”) put guys off. In others, even my will to succeed wasn’t enough to overcome basic incompatibilities. This frustration was compounded by the fact that the world often feels as if it is designed for couples. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a special offer or competition for a meal for one?

But was I actually lonely, or was I just self-conscious? Did I really want to share my life with somebody, or did I simply not want to be an object of pity? When you’re single, the way you see your own love life is often colored by how you imagine other people perceive it. And it doesn’t help that movies and TV shows condition us to think about single people in specific terms, usually stereotypes: the lovelorn sad sack, the asshole bachelor, the crazy girl, the pathetic spinster.

With each passing year, my lack of baggage began to feel like baggage in and of itself. I used to lie and say that I’d once dated somebody for a year, believing a fabricated romantic history would be less of a red flag than the blank reality. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was far from alone in being alone.

This experience isn’t an uncommon one among LGBTQ people, who until very recently were unable to openly enact the same romantic norms as their peers, often missing the formative dating milestones of teenage life entirely and coming to them much later in life when they finally found their community. Growing up in isolation can result in a kind of prolonged adolescence, with queer people sometimes entering adulthood ill-equipped to articulate their desires and unpracticed in conducting what we might deem “serious” relationships.

Of course, chronic singlehood transcends sexuality or gender. The social, cultural and economic shifts that have all played a role in defining the millennial generation have also reshaped the dating landscape. Women’s autonomy and fertility might still be considered public domain by many, but in many cultures the societal pressure to marry young and have children is lessening. And thank god, because late capitalism makes the old path to matrimonial bliss a rocky one. Our grandparents might have gotten hitched, bought a home and started a family by their early twenties, but a great many of us 20- and 30-somethings are hustling our asses off just to make rent — and that can sometimes get in the way of romance.

Charlie, 30, finds the pace and cost of life in London prohibitive to dating. “Dating apps have made people feel so disposable, and this isn’t helped by how busy our lives our now, how much we work,” she says. “It’s hard enough to carve out time to see your closest friends, let alone date. Sometimes I feel like I can’t afford to date; the idea of going out, spending money I don’t really have on drinks with a guy is so stressful. I have to budget for that, and honestly, I’m probably going to get more joy from a new skirt on ASOS.”

Meanwhile Chris, 33, says that a “lack of permanence” in his career left him without the mental or emotional energy to put himself out there romantically: “My jobs have never felt stable, and in my last job, I survived seven rounds of layoffs before finally getting hit myself. I was more comfortable having the ability to pack up and move if needed; any dating I’ve done since school has just been coincidental, not from actively seeking it.”

With all of this attention on our careers, maybe it’s not so shocking that we’re still more likely to meet a new romantic partner in the workplace than we are on a dating app, according to research by ReportLinker. “If I look at my friends who are coupled up in long-term relationships, at least half of them met through work,” says Charlie. “It feels like if you don’t meet through your job or through mutual friends, it just isn’t happening.”

As a freelancer who works from home, my chances of an office romance are slim. But spending so much time alone has been infinitely useful, helping me become more comfortable in my own skin. Working to build a livelihood out of nothing has been a core, at times all-consuming, objective, and creating something that is entirely for my own fulfillment has given me the kind of self-worth that I had been unknowingly seeking from external sources. Now that my professional life is at a stage where I can allow myself the temporary indulgence of sitting back and taking stock, I see that it’s altered both the way I think about love and how I look at my history of short encounters.

A two-month dalliance can have its own emotional value. It shouldn’t be deemed a failure because it doesn’t lead to something more long-term — just like a short story shouldn’t be judged as a novel. I’ve learned to take the pressure off myself and enjoy the company of another person. Even if it’s just a brief fling, I still often end up learning something new about myself. Like a holiday romance, but at home. (Laycation?) And in between dating, I’ve traveled alone, pursued my own goals and invested time and energy in the meaningful relationships I am already fortunate to have with my friends and family.

“Good idea,” a friend recently said, after I told them about my new worldview. “You’ll meet somebody when you least expect it.” This twisting of my intentions didn’t surprise me — I’ve heard it before — but I had to clarify that my shift in perspective has nothing to do with rebranding my loneliness for the sake of finding love. In fact, I’m not doing much to find love at all right now, and that shouldn’t be considered transgressive. So much of the modern language surrounding romance frames the pursuit of marriage as a foregone conclusion — a given. It leaves no room for alternatives and tacitly paints single people as victims even when that’s not how we see ourselves. I’ve worked so hard to become happy with myself that now I want to just sit and enjoy that achievement. Alone.

I’ve found this extended single life to be incredibly freeing. It’s given me a chance to explore different possibilities and consider less “conventional” criteria for fulfillment. Marriage, monogamy and parenthood are fulfilling to a lot of people, but there are all kinds of ways to be happy.

I’ve never been in love, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have love in my life. I might not have made space in my life for a boyfriend, but I have been there for any friend or family member who needed me, and they have done the same in return. A romantic relationship may well be on the cards for me at some point in the future, but I’ve stopped searching for it on the horizon. I am enough.

Philip Ellis is a freelance writer and journalist from the U.K. You can follow him on Twitter @Philip_Ellis

Collage by Madeline Montoya.

http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

0 notes