Stop Letting Your Single Status Convince You You’re Not Amazing

A man doesn’t determine your value. Most of them don’t stick around long enough to see the real you anyway. If they barely know you, then they’re not turning you down. They’re turning down the shell of you, the inaccurate version of you that their mind has pieced together from past experiences and assumptions.

The number of Tinder matches you get doesn’t determine your value. Everyone on the app is only seeing a snapshot of you, a smile frozen in time. They’re not seeing the way your eyes shimmer when you laugh or the way that laugh sounds when it escapes your painted lips. They’re getting a fraction of the full picture.

Your Friday night plans don’t determine your value. Most couples aren’t going out on lovey dovey dates over the weekend, anyway. They’re lounging around inside, watching Netflix, just like you are. They don’t have some superior life, just because they happen to have someone to share their blanket with.

Your Facebook status doesn’t determine your value. No one’s using the site to keep tabs on you, anyway. They’re using it to brand themselves, to pretend that they have their lives together to impress the people they think are paying attention, but aren’t. No one even realizes that your status is set to “single.”

Your beauty doesn’t determine your value. The mirror can’t tell you anything worthwhile about yourself. It doesn’t know how well you treat your friends or how hard you’ve worked to get where you are. Even if your reflection reached perfection, would you really want to be with someone who valued your body over your brain?

Your Instagram pictures don’t determine your value. Drop #RelationshipGoals from your vocabulary, because no pair is perfect. Besides, the “happy” couples popping up on your feed might have taken their precious photo after a huge fight, before bursting into tears, or while or on the edge of a breakup. You never know the story behind the picture.

Your single status doesn’t determine your value. Think of all of the empowered women in the world without a boyfriend by their side. They’re not any less beautiful or intellectual, just because they’re unattached. Happiness doesn’t lie in the arms of a man. You can still end up with a thriving career, lifelong friends, and a penthouse apartment. Everything you can do with a boyfriend, you can do without one, right down to making yourself orgasm. So really, what are you wasting so much time on the dating scene for?

Sure, it would be nice to kiss your single life goodbye. No one wants to feel that surge of worthlessness after being ghosted or catfished or flat out rejected–but you shouldn’t be doubting yourself whenever a man you happen to like fucks up. Your relationship status doesn’t determine your value. That’s all up to you.