People ask me why I don't date in the same way they'd ask a sick man what's wrong with him.

They say it as if choosing to be single is a condition or disease, and once I leave them unsatisfied with my answer of "because I don't" they take that as their queue to try and figure me out.

Soon the questions start flying like paper airplanes across a classroom, questions that are supposed to be private and personal getting caught by the teacher and read out loud,

"Are you abstinent?" "Are you religious?" "Were you hurt?" "Were you raped?" "Did your parents have a bad relationship?" "Have you dated before?" "Do you think you ever will?"

You might as well ask me the number of stars in the sky, it'd take just as long to sort through all of

MY thoughts and emotions

and deliver a

SAFELY FILTERED ANSWER

to appease

YOUR nosy ass,

Just HOLD UP!

I'm not a curiosity.

I'm not a freak.

Why don't I date?

Why do you?

My love life is not some novel for you to analyze and dissect, and if you tried to open the covers to my "best-selling romance" you'd only find empty pages. But, if you open the cover to the story of my life, you will not find a single page that is not filled with happiness.You will not read a single sentence that laments any lack of love.

Instead you'll find the story of a girl comfortable on her own, a girl who loves watching movies by herself with her skin pressed so tight against a blanket that she can't tell where it stops and she begins and going out on the streets, dressed to the nines with a lipstick smile and a spring in her step, a girl who dances like nobody's watching and doesn't care if anybody does, a girl happy without needing a boy to make her so, a woman who doesn't need to be half of a couple. 

She has smiled every day knowing that she is only all of a single person.

Do I need to date?

No.

Do I want to date?

Hell no!

And then there's the stopping question - would I date if I fell in love?

I don't know. It hasn't happened yet.

Maybe one day I'll be dancing through the streets with my eyes closed and when I open them and see someone watching I'll finally care who it is. Maybe I'll find someone to join me under the covers and instead of my skin and the blanket melting together it'll be my skin and theirs. Maybe I'll write their name in my story and as soon as the ink hits the paper the course of the novel will never be the same, but...

But.

If I ever am part of a couple, I will always be an individual - and one just as happy with, or without, another individual joining me.