Never Have I Ever//Read

As if I haven't raved about this book enough, I'm dedicating a whole post to it. What can I say? When I find something I love I have to share it with the world (or the few people that actually read my blog).

I really can't emphasize enough the hilarious accuracy of this book to my own dating experiences (minus the profanity/alcohol consumption/partying). But, while it is about dating (or not dating) it's just as much about friendship. Which also happens to be VERY important to me. Reading this book was like reading something I'd written about my own experiences written even more beautifully on the printed page. I would absolutely recommend it to any woman or girl that has had any experience dating (or not dating). Honestly this book helped me to see that I'm not alone, that I'm not "the only one," and somehow no matter how difficult - you can still be positive and happy. 

You can purchase it on Amazon here.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

“This is what I have held against boyfriends all my life: that they are the people who steal your best friends away from you piece by piece, and when they give them back (if they ever do), it is only when they have made your best friends sadder and more heartbroken than when they were first taken. Because that's what it looks like, from here. It had to be his fault, because how could someone who is my best friend ever really choose to see me less and less until we see each other almost not at all? This is what I believed: Best friends, if only by virtue of you calling them your "best friend," just don't do that. But they do.” 

“So if, and when, I do fall in love . . . when it happens, it's probably not going to look like anything I've watched on a screen. I'm finally accepting that, and I am - for the most part - excited about it. Falling in love is totally unimaginable to me. I think maybe the best things often are.” 

“I'm not trying to be self-righteous about that, but I am literally the best friend a person could ask for and I am a good listener and anybody who doesn't want to be my friend should take a long, hard look at him/herself and whisper, "What is wrong with me? Why was I born without the capacity to love?” 

“My darling, patient friends tell me that I'm still single only because I'm picky, and because I haven't met the right person yet. This would feel truer if I hadn't been shut down by quite so many wrong people that I, despite my allegedly high standards, chased after.” 

“A person who has spent her life planning her free time based only on herself, and the friends she knows she loves, can't understand this. Why would I want to go out to dinner and a movie with someone I'm not completely crazy about... getting someone else involved means I have to put on a nicer outfit and stress out about the way I look chewing my food. If I'm going to have to consider my chewing face, I only want to do it for someone I think I might be able to really like.” 

“She was saying she was sorry that she couldn't always hang out when I wanted to, but that “when you get a boyfriend,” he becomes the only person you want to spend all your time with. He becomes your best friend, and (this part was not said, but was definitively implied) the only friend that really matters. “You’ll know what I mean, when you get one,” she said. "

Can I just briefly mention how many times I've heard this from my friends, after I confront them from cancelling our plans - last-minute - the fourth time in a row. I mean, I get it. It's hard, he's your number one priority, but really? Yeah it takes effort, but other relationships are important too. Sorry, I'm done complaining. Love you girls. :)

"Her whole life has been spent looking for that in a man, and mine has been spent looking for it in a best friend who doesn't ever date anyone either and can be with me twenty-four hours a day-or at least some slightly tempered, less creepy-sounding version of the same."

"At the very least, I had done what I had come there to do: I got my first kiss done and over with. I felt exactly the same after as I did before, and that's the only part that made me feel bad: that I had let this small and quiet pressure (from nowhere I could even definitively place) get to me, and make me think that there was some need to rush or feel bad about what I had not yet done. It gives the "first" label so much more credit than it is due."

"I am a small minority that gets smaller with every minute, and sometimes that makes me feel very alone. Not even as much because of the being single part, but because there are fewer and fewer of my girlfriends with whom I can identify in that super-specific way all the time."

Me again. I've thought about writing a whole post about this, but I'll just say it here. For a long time, I thought "hey, I've got my best friends, and while I would like to have a seriously awesome relationship with a good man, it's okay that it's not happening right now because I have my friends. I can talk to them about life, spend our time together, and just be happy being single." And then something happened . . . all my friends, one by one started to find significant others to replace their time and efforts, while our relationship moved farther down the priority pole. And that was when I really started to notice that I was alone and that I was actually single. And that's the hard part, not that I'm single, but that my friends are gone too. And you know what, that's really hard.

"My experiences (or, ugh, lack thereof) made me good at being single. They made me sure of who I am and what I want (and don't want) in other people. They made me braver (very slowly and over time), and they made me look for confidence elsewhere. They gave me an extraordinary amount of free time with which to be around for my best friends' bad dating adventures instead. It's never occurred to me to put myself or my friends second to a boyfriend because I've never had the option. After twenty-five years, I'm pretty sure that if I had it, I wouldn't take it. For that, I'm happy."

Ah, isn't this so great?! My strength comes from within myself, not from the validation of a relationship or a boyfriend. I honestly don't think enough people have found that for themselves. Taking on life's changes, as a single individual, with no one to fall back on has made me stronger. And for that, I'm grateful.

Heaney, Katie. Never Have I Ever: My Life (So Far) Without a Date. New York: Grand Central, 2014. Print.