It sucks when you are the only one in your friend group without a boyfriend — but it sucks even more when you’re in your twenties because everyone around you is getting engaged and inviting you to weddings and picking out baby names. Their relationships are getting serious while you are still searching for someone who will text you back without making you wait a week, someone who will take you on a real date instead of inviting you back to his apartment to chill.

When you’re in your twenties and you have never been in a serious relationship, there is a moment when you wonder whether something is wrong with you, whether you should go out more, whether you should change your look, whether you should lower your standards. However, that moment will pass. Those insecurities will dim.

When you’re in your twenties and you have never been in a serious relationship, you learn to stop caring what other people think. If aunts and cousins and coworkers assume you are miserable because you haven’t gotten married yet, you don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. You feel sorry for them. You feel sorry they assume the only way to reach happiness is with a man. You feel sorry their worldview is so small. You feel sorry they have a skewed understanding of what a successful woman looks like.

When you’re in your twenties and you have never been in a serious relationship, you eventually learn to accept the situation. You eventually come to peace with your single status. You realize a relationship does not determine your worth. You realize you would rather be on your own than in a toxic relationship mistaken for true love. You realize you are just as happy as any of your friends who have rings on their finger — maybe even happier.

When you’re in your twenties and you have never been in a serious relationship, you learn to enjoy your own company. You learn to embrace the quiet. You learn to be your own best friend. You slowly stop hating on yourself for every flaw and learn to treat yourself with more kindness. You learn how to appreciate your unique beauty because the most important relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.

When you haven’t found your forever person, when you’ve never even been in a serious relationship with a guy, it’s bizarre watching your friends get married to the love of their lives — but their celebrations are not your failures. They might get married before you, but that does not mean they are more gorgeous than you, more successful than you, more valuable than you.

When you’re in your twenties and you have never been in a serious relationship, you realize you cannot compare your journey to anyone else’s journey. Your lives are different. Your timelines are different. Your end goals are different.

When you’re in your twenties and you have never been in a serious relationship, you understand the single life is not something to cry about every night as you fall asleep. It’s something to enjoy for as long as it lasts.