80, single, living with cats.

My biggest fear in life is to die alone surrounded by a multitude of cats who ultimately, one day after feeling severely famished due to no one feeding them, eat me. 
Okay so there's not an inch of truth to that sentence, but let us not brashly overlook that this is a large and somewhat serious issue for a lot of people in life. Numerous people, namely women, actually go as far to planning their future pet situation due to depression of that place in life known as 'Singletown'. Need I remind you that this is a serious issue, guys.

I guess I struggle to understand this fear of loneliness and of being alone. And I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. I went through a break up not so long ago and it was my first "serious" relationship, and so I guess breaking up could be considered a big deal. If I'm honest the relationship was somewhat hit and miss for a long time, and so the break up wasn't a shock to me and, strangely enough, nor did it upset me. Instead of laying around feeling sorry for myself whilst simultaneously watching Bridget Jones's Diary and eating Ben and Jerry's... I got on with my life. There really is a life without being in a relationship. And it's actually a whole lot of fun. 

I'm not saying I'll have this attitude for the whole of my life, and with every man that I meet. Maybe one day once I've met "the one" everything will be different. But right now, as a nineteen year old, I can think of better things to do then cry over a past teenage relationship.

Firstly your old buddy free time reappears. You remember free time, don't you? It can appear at any time of the day, and it's really quite useful. You finally get to do the stuff you want to do, and you can happily be selfish with your time. Indulge yourself in things that make you happy; whether that's making time to see old friends or making cupcakes. Whatever floats your boat. Everybody's different, but it's crazy how you realise how little 'you' time you once gave yourself. 

I think another great factor of being single is how your true friendship bonds strengthen. Boys and girls come and go, but friendships are with you for life and so it really is essential to never drop friends for partners. Suddenly, with no one to fall back on, standing on your own two feet means you have to consciously make the effort to make plans. Now that I'm free to make my own choices, I wonder how I ended up staying in every weekend with just one person. There's a whole world out there to explore, and there's no one better to explore it with than your best friends.

I get that everyone is affected differently by break ups, and that a lot of you may struggle to understand my 'get on with it' approach. But when you look at life in the grand scheme of things... this really is but a blink in the eye. You are going to move on, you are going to be happy and you won't die alone surrounded by cats (although I can't promise about the last point). To prove my point, imagine a world where time didn't heal things... seriously we'd be the most socially inept world possible. All slumped up, crying, scoffing our faces whilst listening to depressing music. It just wouldn't, and doesn't happen.

Life goes on, and so will you :)

Friends today, gone tomorrow

Has it ever dawned on you how easy it is to delete friendships nowadays? You can thank the likes of Facebook for that. Facebook has re-shaped the way we communicate with one another, the way we present ourselves and the meaning of friendship. Once upon a time (way before my day) people would walk to school together, they would write letters and make pretty little intricate friendship bracelets for each other to signify being best friends forever. Oh, how times have changed. Nowadays friendship bracelets are bought online and delivered direct to the friend's address. I guess it's the thought that counts. Writing letters? Why bother spending all that time when you can write in watered down English aka. txt lnguage. Walking to school... whilst... talking to your friends? Nonsense. Pass me the iPod please. Communication just isn't what it used to be, and that's a frightening concept. Children are so engrossed with the internet and games consoles that virtual friends can in fact take the place of real life human friendships. 

So where does Facebook come into this? Facebook and other social networking sites have made it ever so simple and easy to unfriend and block people. I'm partial to trimming my friends list down, I won't lie. The way I see it it's like having the world looking at your own personal photo albums, birthday cards and conversations all at once. You wouldn't let a stranger do it, would you? 

Handy tip: Twitter suggests to me that right now to be 'in vogue' it's better to have more followers than the number you follow. Because that means you're too cool to bother with this friendship malarchy, right?