This Is Why You Can’t *Just* Hook Up

When you’re the only one who’s lonely, you feel it ten times harder. Loneliness is a terrible feeling. There’s nothing worse than the desperation to find someone to belong to, and if you feel that way for long enough, you’ll find yourself reaching out and grasping onto any type of intimacy that comes your way.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to get so caught up in the moment that you start to see magic where it doesn’t exist. But once that spark fizzles out – and trust me it fizzles out fast – you have to ask yourself if you fell for the man or just the moment. It’s gonna hurt like hell when he blows you off, but at the end of the day, the sad reality is that you really should have seen it coming. And I’m not saying this to be mean. I’m saying this because it’s something that I had to learn the hard way.

Fairy tales are not made up of one night stands. It’s easy to whisper and make promises in the middle of the night, but once the sun comes up, you’re left with nothing but last night’s makeup, a bitch of a hangover, and a whole lot of regret. It’s nobody’s fault really. It’s just how it goes in the hookup culture we’ve created.

Somewhere along the way, falling into bed with a stranger became easier than falling in love, so now we do it all the time.

If you’re lucky, both people walk away unscathed, but let’s face it: sex is a game changer. No matter how cool and calm you are going into it, you might just come out feeling attached. Blame it on the hormones or the tequila or the way he kissed your forehead when it was over, but something inside of you clicked and decided that maybe this could go somewhere. Or, even worse, you’re left with a gaping hole inside of your chest that you desperately need to fill.

You feel used and empty, so you tell yourself that if you can make this guy matter, then you won’t feel so damaged anymore. But you can’t force feelings where they don’t exist. It doesn’t make you bad people, it just means that sometimes timing is everything and at this point in time you want different things.

When you feel lonely it’s really tempting to use sex to fill that void, because for a little while it makes you feel so good. But I can guarantee that the loneliness you’ve been trying to escape will still be there waiting for you in the morning. Maybe even more so, because you’ve had a taste of something you want but can never really get your hands on.

Love is the ultimate goal, and for most of us, we aren’t going to find it in the bed of some guy we barely know.

Could this guy be everything that you’ve ever wanted? Maybe. But more than likely you’re just seeing what you want to see. Don’t think that you have to settle for meaningless one night stands because you’re convinced that anything is better than going to bed alone. There is no shame in being alone. Casual sex is great if that’s all you’re looking for, but every time you mess around with someone “no strings attached” you can just as easily become tangled in the strings you thought you left behind.

If you can look past the heat of passion and still like the person standing in front of you, sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind and take a chance. But if he doesn’t return the effort, you have to accept that it was what it was and now it’s over. You have to let it go. Don’t be ashamed for making the same mistake that so many people make all the time.

Once someone has seen you naked, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to show them your heart.

But some people just aren’t interested in seeing it. And honestly, that’s okay. You just have to know who you are and what you really want, because no matter how badly you think you just want sex, you might walk away feeling differently. You can’t keep trying to silence your heart with alcohol and casual encounters. That’s what you do if you want to be touched, not if you want to be seen.

You have to shake off the disappointment of unrealistic expectations and stop selling yourself short. Every girl deserves to be loved and respected, and you have to be brave enough to believe in that. Even if it means being on your own for a little while.