You Don't Need A Relationship To Define You.

You heard me right. 

It seems like we live in a world that is just hungry for love. We're hungry for the feeling of knowing that someone's yours, to hold and to love no matter what happens to them. It's exciting to have someone to go see the lame movies that you like, buy you flowers when they pick you up, and to have a life with. However, newsflash. 

You don't need a relationship to do those things.

What I really don't get is that couple pictures get a lot of likes on the social networking site, but when it comes to posts about things like peace, then we fall short. Sure, love is something that is worth celebrating, but when we put too much empathy on solely having someone to be with, to change your name to someone else's, you lose sight of what's really important. In addition to that, when you don't have a significant other or anyone in the picture for that matter, you're pretty much feeling like crap because everyone around you, it seems like, has a relationship in their lives.

And that has got to stop. 

Relationships shouldn't define the person. Accomplishments, personality, taste of music, and all of those kinds of things should. Relationships are the things that we strive to have, more than a career, or more than even money. What does all that matter if we can't spend the holidays snuggled up with a husband? 

I believe that you don't need a relationship to be happy. I don't hate men, but I am independent. I don't take someone's crap for fear of being alone. I don't want to blend into a 'we', I want to blend into something that 'me, and him'. I believe that there's more than falling in love and finding the perfect man. Is that something that has gone out the window?

I've watched this on Sex and the City. You can never have it all. You either pick a man or you pick a career. Well, screw that. I think that you can have it all. Sure, you make sacrifices for relationships. But you should make them not because you want to keep them, but rather the relationship is a healthy combination of mutual respect. I say that sometimes it's going to be hard. 

I see some people's social media profile, and I am bombarded with a constant update on their relationship or why they love their boyfriend 'so much.' I get that you love them, otherwise you wouldn't be with them. However, I don't need to be reminded of this every time I scroll through my newsfeed. I wonder about what happened to the 'me' in the relationship. I see girls in unhealthy relationships, when they have everything in the world going for them, and they are so depressed because they are addicted to what their boyfriends are giving them. 

I refuse to leave my obituary to be about how I was some man's devoted wife who did whatever he said blindly. I want to be the wife who adopts two or three children from underprivileged countries. I want to have a successful career as a journalist. I want friends, even after I say my 'I dos.' I want a life that is more than just being someone's honey. I refuse to let a relationship become the definition of me.