This semester has been quite the journey, a metamorphosis of sorts. As a senior, I had to pull together a whole new life. All my closest friends were older than me and had graduated; my best friend moved three hours away to go to PT school. 
But scarier than facing this semester without her was facing it single. 
You see, until June, I was engaged. Yeah, I was one of those girls – the sorority girl finding it necessary to put a ring on it before graduation.
Growing up, I had always wanted to fit in just a little bit too much, sacrificing what I really wanted just to do whatever the “correct,” “proper” or “cool” thing was.
Somehow, probably sometime during one of the hundreds of rom-coms I watched, I got into my head the ultimate “it” thing was to meet someone, fall in love and get married.
It took almost getting married to realize I couldn’t sacrifice what I wanted just to walk down the “right” path of life.
What made it hardest was my fiancé really was a good guy; he just wasn’t right for me.
He had fallen victim to the trap society and I had set.
I’m not the only girl out there who has thought this way. People joke about girls getting their “Mrs.” degree, but the need to get married is so strong in people they will make sacrifices just to get one.
My point here isn’t to prove people in their 20s are too young to get married. If you truly love someone and know without a doubt you want to spend the rest of your life with them, you should not wait.
However, if you do in fact graduate single, life will go on. If you are in a relationship now because you’re afraid of being alone, I promise, you won’t be.
People on this campus, your classmates and peers, are so varied that you will find a group of friends. If you put yourself out there, it’s not that hard to make friends. Trust me, I’m a very shy person, and even I have managed to find friends.
This summer, I took part in  a summer abroad trip and sat next to a girl, who was on the trip with me, on a two-hour plane ride from Memphis to Detroit without much more than minimal small talk.
I’m sure at the time, she thought I was the weirdest most anti-social person ever.
Now, almost five months later, she’s one of my closest friends. If we can get over my shyness, no matter who you are, you will meet friends.
Being single definitely has its benefits. I have met more people in the past six months than I had in the entire year before that. I have done a lot more than sitting on my couch watching TV, but most importantly, I’ve had fun. I’ve lived those fantastically hilarious stories that I know I will retell over and over again. Laughing just as hard the hundredth time as I did the first.
Even if you are in a very happy committed relationship, even if you know you are not settling, listen to me when I say make sure none of your friends fall into this mode.
Trust me, the more “settled down” friends a girl has, the more likely she will feel the need to follow suit, and a simple true phrase from a close friend can save her.
Sometimes, you don’t know you are making a mistake until you’re told. It took my childhood friend, pointing out the obvious for me to realize it. Also, knowing having a least one person’s support made everything else a little bit easier.
As my intermediate fiction professor likes to quote, Chris Rock once said “People say life’s short. It’s not; it’s long, and it’s really long if you’re with the wrong person.”