Single and Don't Want to Mingle

Entering Miami University as a wide-eyed first-year in September 2020, I had high expectations of finding true love. 

I mean, come on, with Miami’s reputation for matchmaking, how could I not? 

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On every tour and in every admissions conversation, the long-lived tradition of “Miami Mergers” will be brought up without a doubt. The university’s reputation of having a significantly high percentage of alumni marrying each other was a statistic I found hopeful when I decided to enroll.

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If so many people can find love here, why can’t I?

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Now, I am embarking on my senior year at the same place I was determined to find love as a first-year. In the past three years, I have faced the harsh truths of dating in college. And it's not all Miami cracked it up to be. 

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Of Miami’s approximately 236,000 living alumni, 12.6% are Mergers. Every year, the university’s alumni association mails out thousands of Valentine’s Day cards to Mergers to celebrate the love they found with a fellow Miamian. I always imagined one day receiving a Merger Valentine, congratulating me and my husband for finding love in college. 

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This year marked the 50th year that a specially-themed card was sent out to Mergers. Along with valentines, the Miami University Alumni Association has an entire page on its website featuring Miami Merger spotlights, statistics and even a Miami Merger recipe book.

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Despite the hopes that I would find my one true love during my time at Miami, my dating experience in college has been nothing short of, well, … disappointing. 

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For the entirety of my three years at Miami, I have been single. My most serious “situationship” lasted only about a month and a half, and it ended with me walking in on him sleeping with someone else. 

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I definitely dodged a bullet with that one. 

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I’ve met plenty of boys at Miami who piqued my interest, but all have epically failed. Of course, not before they receive a nickname so I can chat about them in public with my friends.

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Tall Skinny Sexy (TSS for short), Rodent (the cheater mentioned earlier), Blue Fish and RJ are just a few. He wouldn’t be a man of interest if he didn’t get a nickname.

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My dating experience in college has left me feeling frustrated. Most guys’ idea of a date is lying on their grimy old couch watching a lame chick flick and hoping they can “get some” by the end of the night. In the past three years, I have only been on three actual dates that don’t involve just “hanging out.” 

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In my first year, I caught strong feelings for my guy best friend. We did everything together — movie nights, going out to eat, shopping at the mall, even visiting each other over breaks. Everyone thought we were dating, but when I finally confessed my feelings to him, he told me he didn’t feel the same way. 

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The rejection was an absolute punch in the gut, and it left me angry and confused. I questioned my worth, wondering what was so wrong with me that he didn’t want to be more than just friends. My dating experiences since haven’t gone up much from there. 

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It seems like society favors couples that find love in high school or college. It’s an unsaid narrative that young love is somehow more special and impressive than finding love later in life. 

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My prefrontal cortex, the decision-making part of the brain, won’t even fully develop until age 25, so why am I expected to choose a lifelong partner as a college student? I can’t even decide what to do with my career, where I want to live after I graduate or what I’ll eat for dinner tonight. 

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How in the world am I going to find “the one” in this gruesome dating pool? 

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Tinder? Hinge? Instagram DMs? A sweaty college bar? A frat basement? Are these really where I am supposed to find my person? 

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Dating apps are debilitating, resulting in empty conversation after empty conversation. Hookup culture is rampant. Everyone who wants a relationship is already in one. Everyone else just wants sex. These thoughts rotate through my brain as I sit at home, scrolling through dating apps while many of my friends are out with their partners. 

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College is a bubble. A bubble that is so misleading compared to what the world outside Oxford is really like. 

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This revelation struck me in the spring of my junior year after I spent the fall of my junior year studying abroad in Luxembourg. Gallivanting around Europe alongside my best girlfriends for four months taught me more about the world and myself than I had ever known before. 

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From thrilling late-night escapades in Barcelona to shooting back shots with charming Greek men in Santorini, it didn’t take long for me to realize that the world has so much more to offer than the nonsense that happens in a college town.

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When I was abroad, I had no desire for a boyfriend. For the first time in college, I was living completely for myself. 

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I felt no pressure to find my person. 

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Escaping the Miami social bubble and meeting people from all over the world opened my eyes to how many people actually exist, how many potential people I have yet to meet in my life and how it would almost be a shame if I only looked to find my person in the confines of Oxford, Ohio. 

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I will be the first to say that being single throughout college has been difficult. I have experienced plenty of mental breakdowns, wondering what is wrong with me, why I am not desirable or why the man I was talking to left my message on “opened.”

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Despite the pressures to find my Merger, I have found something much more important. 

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I found love for myself.

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Instead of pouring all of my love and attention into a significant other, I have committed to growing into the person I hoped to become three years ago. 

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I spent four months of my junior year traveling to 13 countries around Europe. I committed to becoming more in touch with my body by going to workout classes and cooking new, healthy recipes. I go out on several “hot girl walks” a week, jamming out to music blaring through my AirPods. I work tirelessly to achieve my academic and professional goals, and I dedicate time to meeting new people and sustaining relationships with friends and family. 

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I answer “yes" to any opportunity that comes my way where I can get out of my comfort zone and grow.

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Instead of settling for anyone who would give me the time of day, I spend hours reading books and listening to podcasts about dating in your 20s, learning how to be the best version of myself before I be my best self for someone else.

My mom tells me all the time, “You can’t love someone else until you learn to love yourself.” 

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I used to roll my eyes, but now I get it. She’s been right all along. 

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As much as I crave affection and romantic companionship, I would never trade my single years of college. There are so many triumphs of being single in this phase of life. So many experiences that I would have missed out on if I was tied down. 

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I’m OK with not getting a Miami Merger Valentine’s Day card. I would rather discover more about myself, and maybe one day, someone worth it will come along. 

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Someone worth way more than that guy from a frat basement.