You have never reached the milestone that is a one year anniversary. Honestly, you’re lucky if you reach the six month mark. You always bow out of relationships before they become too serious.

You love the flirting during the first few months of a relationship, when the butterflies are swarming through your veins and the blood is pumping red hot in your heart, but after the excitement dies down and you get used to dating this person, you get bored.

Bored of the stories they retell during every night out that were only funny the first time. Bored of the same compliments they keep giving you that you used to blush over but now know are coming before their lips move. Bored of the way their skin tastes and their kisses feel against your collarbone because they are just so predictable. You get bored of the repetition, bored of the expected.

And that boredom blends together with fear. The fear of staying with this person even though there are a million more out there. The fear that this person will be the last person you ever call your own. The fear that you’re making some huge mistake that you won’t be able to wiggle your way out of in the future because you have too much history.

You don’t understand why you always have to complicate good things, why you can’t just enjoy the moment and see where it takes you. Sometimes, you hate yourself for it.

You hate that, whenever you are single, you wish you had someone to call your boyfriend. But whenever you have a boyfriend, the small moments make you realize that you’re secretly scared of commitment — which is so weird, because you have been searching for it for so long. You have claimed you wanted exactly that since you were young.

That’s why you are never the first to say I love you. You are never the one to bring up the topic of marriage or children or moving in together. Those life-changing moments scare you to death. They seem too final. Too adult for someone your age to consider.

You never stay in relationships for more than a few months, because the idea of spending forever with the wrong person is paralyzing — but that’s the thing — you still haven’t met the right person.

One day, you’ll reach that one-year milestone with someone and you won’t even realize how it happened so fast. It will feel like you just got together, even though it also kind of feels like you’ve been together forever.

You’ll find someone who you can joke with about your first dance song and wedding cake flavor, and at the same time you’re completely serious, because you know that a wedding is 100% in your future.

You’ll know that this person is the real deal, the reason why all your other relationships were so short lived — and there won’t be a spark of fear. There won’t be any doubt in your mind that you’ll stay together.

You’ll know that this relationship isn’t only for a few months. It’s a lifetime type of thing.