Being stuck in a love triangle can be stressful. It is an emotional mess. You are either:

1. Pursuing multiple people. 
2. In love with ____, who likes (not you). 
3. The other woman/man. 
4. In a relationship, and in love with another person.

Since I’ve entered the ‘dating decade,’ I’ve never really been able to settle into a comfortable, romantic—100% committed—relationship. You, reader, may take pity on me, but I remain with my head held high, because I am young and I have time. I don’t just fancy a run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter type of partner, but one who is sort of tailored to my preferences. I already hear the snickering from behind your LED screens, but bare with me, because I have a theory that most women think alike. They just refuse to admit it. 

The dating decade is a warzone for anyone looking for love. There are many to choose from, but none completely fulfill us! We’re just left hoping for the artsy, athletic, and Ivy-fucking-League bound boy to notice us before the class clown asks for our hand to the prom. Plus, in all honesty, minus societal pressure, we truly believe that prom is just a way the system makes us high schoolers feel like we are active contributors to the social timeline of the great American teenage culture. Actually, fuck the prom, we’re really just going about our days looking for ‘the one’ to cha cha slide into our lives or DMs or whatever. Anyway, let’s face it, triple threats—artsy, athletic, and musically-inclined individuals—are hard to come by, much less manifest in the body of an adolescent. (Ha, see what I did there. You guys are all awesome, though.) As a result, we are forced to settle for less, or for more than one. To compensate for a triple shot espresso, we fixate our eyes instead on multiple men or women, channeling our hungry souls toward subtle flirtation to draw their interest. We play them, then we drop them. It’s heartbreak after heartbreak, multiple attempts at conditioning ourselves to feel better when we have to pull out the “NEXT!” card. Sometimes, we begin to find ourselves growing more and more emotionally attached to the game. The cycle never ends. A love triangle! 

Some of us want lovers we can’t have. We like the challenge. Turning our backs to the person who fancies us for someone who doesn’t shows our incredibly stubborn nature. Other times, we obsess over someone until they begin showing interest. Then, we take that as a cue to run far away in the other direction. Let me try to put this in context. We meet a good person—he or she is nice, and we kind of begin to like them. The only problem is our incredibly dysfunctional ass that can’t shut up about how much we just LOVE hanging out with our friends of the opposite gender (because, like oh my God, we’re one of those super cool people that can maintain friendships with boys AND girls). We do this in an attempt to prove to the other that we are likable individuals with a penchant for playing hard to get. We bury deep down the truth that we are just trying to prove to ourselves that we are fine on our own. Hence, during this time of frivolous texting and showing off, we give the impression that we just aren’t as invested in them. Finally, when we begin to panic, thinking that they’ve lost interest, we declare in unison: “Fuck love! Let’s go to the club and hit up five other cute guys or girls to show the world that we are worthy.” A problem amongst many and a love triangle! 

Some of us have a preference for men who are attached. It shows us that they are capable of holding onto a relationship, which earns them an additional 15 points on the ‘how attractive are you to me’ scale. No? Tell me with a straight face that you haven’t pictured your head on top of the body of a person’s significant other. You found a cute picture of them on Instagram, and it’s of the guy or girl you used to fancy. Well, the chase is futile most of the time, but sometimes, it nevers eats our conscience when we become the other woman or man. A love triangle! 

Since this is a safe place for all cynics, I proclaim the love fantasy with a lover of my dreams long gone. It seems to me that growing older is a punch in the gut for young dreamers. When I was younger, I hypothesized that there would be plenty of people for me to fall in love with if one didn’t work out. Reality settled in, and that concept vaporized into thin air. As much as dying alone is something I dread, and polygamy out of the question, I realize that for all my complaints, I am just a young girl idealistic to a fault.