How do you build a life with someone when you aren’t entirely sure where your own life is going?
There was a time when I thought being 24 meant having your life together. I thought that by this age, I’d have a career I loved, a routine that made sense, a solid group of friends, be engaged to the love of my life and maybe have a dog. I was under the assumption adulthood would feel like arriving at a final destination but instead it just feels like driving down a highway questioning whether you’re even going the right way. Apparently, you’re supposed to figure out your career, your finances, your friendships, your romantic life, and who you are as a person all at the same time. No pressure, right? :)
But between teaching high schoolers, going back to school myself for my masters, and trying to maintain at least a little bit of a social life, I barely have time to sit down and breathe. I mean yah sure I know I’m working toward something, and I know these commitments are helping me build a future for myself, but sometimes I wonder when I’m actually supposed to enjoy the life I’ve been working so hard to create AND all while trying to get that part of my life situated there is the addition of dating. Which somehow feels like an entirely separate full-time job that I don’t have the time or emotional energy to do.
Being back in my hometown and trying to date is a strange experience, especially when you know you have aspirations that might eventually take you somewhere else. There’s something comforting about being somewhere familiar, around people and places you already know, but there’s also this feeling that you aren’t necessarily supposed to stay there forever. I want to build a career where I can explore new places, opportunities and see what else is out there in the world before I settle down and start a family…which I ultimately do want.
The thing is though I don’t want to make myself smaller just to fit into a life I have already outgrown, but at the same time, I do want someone. I want a relationship. I want to have a person to call after a long day at work, someone to make plans with on the weekends, someone who knows how your day went without you having to explain every little thing.
I want to experience the ordinary parts of life with someone you genuinely like. The frustrating part is that I don’t know how those two things can coexist.
How do you build a life with someone when you aren’t entirely sure where your own life is going?
How do you date when you’re working, going to school, and trying to make time for yourself, let alone another person?
How do you let someone into your life without worrying that eventually you’ll have to choose between the relationship and the opportunities you’ve worked so hard to create?
These are the questions I constantly ask myself.
I don’t want to be tied down somewhere simply because a relationship makes it convenient to stay, but I also don’t want to be so focused on building my future that I miss out on having someone beside me while I’m doing it. Because the truth is, I don’t want to choose between having ambitions and having a relationship. I want both. I want to be proud of my career and still have someone to come home to. I want to pursue my education and have someone who supports me through it. I want to be independent without feeling like I have to do absolutely everything alone. I want someone who understands that my life is busy, that I have goals, and that I’m not always going to be available at the drop of a hat, but who still wants to make an effort.
I don’t think that’s asking for too much, but sometimes dating makes you question whether it is. For example, whenever I think I’ve found someone I might actually want to make room for, things seem to fall apart…and there have been at least two prospects. Different guys, different states, different stages of life, different ages and different situations, but somehow I’m left with the same feeling: confusion.
Think about it, you start talking to someone, you get excited about the possibility of where things might go, and for a little while, you let yourself imagine that maybe this one could be different. You let your guard down thinking maybe just maybe this person actually likes you. Finally you won’t have to wonder where you stand. You start letting yourself think that this will turn into something real. AND THEN what feels like out of nowhere, it crumbles, and you’re left trying to figure out what happened.
I think that’s one of the hardest parts about dating. You don’t always get an explanation and if you do does it even make sense?? Sometimes things just end with a conversation, with distance, maybe mixed signals, or even a sudden change in energy. You can replay the conversations, analyze the texts, and revisit every interaction looking for the moment when something changed. You can make yourself crazy asking yourself questions you probably wouldn’t ask if you weren’t already feeling vulnerable. Like was it something I said? Was I not enough? Was I not obvious enough? Did he just not like me as much as I liked him? Or was there never anything there to begin with?
And that’s when dating starts to affect something much bigger than your romantic life: your confidence.
I wish I could say that I’m completely secure in myself and that when something doesn’t work out, I can shrug my shoulders and move on and you know what…sometimes I can BUT there is always times when I find myself wondering is it me? Am i the problem?
Sure you can know logically that not every person is going to be compatible with you and still take rejection personally. You can tell yourself that someone else’s feelings aren’t a reflection of your worth and still feel a little less confident when another situation ends without the explanation you wanted. It’s difficult not to question yourself when you keep getting excited about the possibility of something and then find yourself back at in the same spot.
The irony is that I’ve worked hard to become an independent person. To have goals. To have a career. I mean i moved to another state for my dream job and now I’m teaching tv production to high schoolers while pursuing my master’s degree in sports law to start building a different future that I’m proud of. I don’t need someone else to make my life meaningful, and I don’t want a relationship simply because I’m afraid of being alone. But I would like a boyfriend. I would like to feel wanted. I would like to know that someone is excited to see me, that they’re thinking about me, and that I’m not the only person trying to make something work. Wanting those things doesn’t make me weak or less independent. It makes me human and maybe that’s part of the problem. We sometimes treat independence and vulnerability as if they cannot exist together.
If you’re an ambitious woman, you’re supposed to be confident, self-sufficient, and completely unbothered when someone doesn’t choose you. You’re supposed to have your priorities straight and never let a man distract you from your goals, and yes, while I agree that your life shouldn’t revolve around whether someone likes you, I don’t think wanting a relationship means you’ve lost sight of yourself.
You can be ambitious and still want affection. You can be independent and still want someone to show up for you. You can have a full life and still wish there were someone who made it feel a little less lonely sometimes. I also think there’s something uniquely frustrating about dating while you’re trying to figure out the rest of your life. When your career feels uncertain, you want stability somewhere else. When you’re overwhelmed with responsibilities, you want someone who makes life feel easier rather than more complicated. When you’re working toward a future you can’t entirely predict, you want to know that at least one part of your life is moving in a direction you understand. But relationships don’t always offer that kind of certainty. Sometimes they introduce even more questions into a life that already has plenty of them which leads me into my next hump that I need to get over and that’s social media.
I see people my age getting engaged, moving in together, traveling with their partners, and building lives that look so settled from the outside, and I still am trying to fit a date into my schedule without sacrificing the time I already have allocated towards other things such as my second job, grading assignments, completing my own coursework, working out, seeing my friends and of course my own personal rest time that I never get but when I do…I SAVOR IT! So yeah, it’s easy to wonder whether I’m behind, everyone else has figured something out that I haven’t and somehow I feel as if I am making dating harder than it needs to be.
To argue the other side of things, yes social media is not all that and a bag of chips. We don’t see the uncertainty behind someone else’s relationship, we see the pictures, the announcements, and the milestones, not necessarily the conversations, compromises, or difficult decisions that got them there.
I don’t want to rush into a relationship just because other people seem to be moving forward and I don’t want to settle for someone who isn’t right for me simply because I’m tired of starting over, but I also don’t want to pretend that I don’t care about finding someone. I do. I want a relationship, the connection, the little routines, and the feeling that someone is choosing me as intentionally as I’m choosing them. I want to experience love without feeling like I have to put my ambitions on hold to make room for it. I do admit it, embarrassedly, that I’m not completely content doing everything on my own.
Maybe the hardest thing to accept is that I can’t control the timing of any of it. I can work hard, pursue my education, show up for my responsibilities, and make decisions that move me closer to the future I want but I can’t force a relationship to work, make someone feel something they don’t feel, or guarantee that the next person I meet will be the person who stays. I can only decide what I’m willing to accept, how I treat people, and whether I allow the outcome of one situation to determine how I see myself. Although I am still learning how to do that.
I’m learning that not every ending comes with an explanation, that not everyone who enters your life is meant to stay, and that someone’s decision not to pursue a relationship with you doesn’t automatically mean there is something wrong with you. Sometimes people want different things. Sometimes the timing isn’t right. Sometimes two people simply aren’t compatible…and sometimes you may never know, as frustrating as that is, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my twenties questioning if I was good enough.
I used to think that by 24, I’d have a much clearer picture of my future. I thought I’d know exactly what I was doing, where I was going, and who I was becoming. Instead, I’m learning that growing up means accepting that some parts of your life will feel settled while others remain completely uncertain. I don’t have a perfect answer for how to balance all of it. I don’t know exactly where my career will take me, where or when I’ll eventually settle down, or even when I’ll meet someone who wants the same things I do. I still have moments when I question myself, and I still wish dating didn’t sometimes feel like an riddle in trying to understand why something that seemed promising suddenly fell apart. I’m trying to remember that my life is bigger than the people who decide to stay in it, and my worth isn’t determined by whether someone chooses to pursue me.
So this is me deciding I’m not behind, I’m just in a part of my life that doesn’t have a neat title yet. I’m still building my future, learning what I want while trying to become someone I’m proud of along the way. I don’t need to have every answer right now, even if I wish I did. Because maybe being 24 isn’t about having everything figured out. Maybe it’s about learning that you can want a big career and a great love story, independence and companionship, adventure and stability, all at the same time. Maybe it’s about accepting that wanting someone doesn’t make you any less capable of standing on your own. And maybe the goal isn’t to find someone who makes you question whether you’re enough. Maybe it’s to find someone who fits into the life you’re building without asking you to abandon the person you’re becoming.
Until then, I guess I’ll keep teaching, keep working toward my master’s, keep figuring out what I want, and try not to turn every unanswered text or failed almost-relationship into a referendum on my self-worth.
I have a lot of life left to live, a lot of things I still want to accomplish, and a lot I haven’t figured out yet, and that’s okay.
