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"The Single One"
How to Cope When All Your Friends Are Taken...and You're Not!

By Lisa Ackerman

April 2009

Being the "single girl" when all your friends are in relationships can be a challenge. But Freeze has tips to keep your friendships strong and your self-confidence up regardless of your single status! Read on for the single girl's proactive to-do list.

Schedule a weekly Girls' Night. Take the initiative and set up a movie night or a girls' night once a week or so for just you and your girlfriends—without their significant others. If your friends usually spend Friday nights with their boyfriends, for example, make spending Saturday nights with just the girls a new tradition. Whether you head out to the 80s dance or the final clubs together or just spend a few hours hanging out and talking in your dorm rooms, it'll help keep your friendships strong by making sure you guys spend time together without you having to feel like the third (or fifth or seventh!) wheel.

Get back in touch with all your single ladies! Believe it or not, not everyone at Harvard is in a relationship, though it can feel that way at times. It might feel like everyone in your life is taken, but if you look around, you'll probably find some single people to hang out with. Get together with some other single girls that you might not ordinarily hang out with and hit up Senior Bar, check out the frat mixer, or head over to the rager at the Delphic. You might end up with a whole new group of friends! Either way, finding other single people to party with will keep you busy and keep your mind off the fact that you're painfully single.

Take the opportunity to expand your friend group. You don't have to limit it to just your single acquaintances! Mix and mingle with the people your friends are dating—and their friends. Think of it as having a whole new network of people to hang out with. After all, that blocking group of guys your friend's boyfriend is in over in Mather might host some pretty awesome parties. And who knows? You might even meet a new guy yourself!

Put yourself out there. Try changing up where you go on weekends, or even during the week. If you're always going to the same places, you're probably only seeing one group of people! For instance, if you're usually hitting up the final clubs on the weekends, check out a house party, or go to the birthday party of that girl you know from section. Don't be afraid to change it up and go somewhere new—it's one of the best ways to meet a new guy, or just get out of a going-out rut.

Don't date somebody just to be in a relationship. Being single when all your friends are taken can make getting in a relationship with the first guy who comes along seem like a more and more appealing idea. But don't do it! If you're not into a guy, dating him won't make you much happier, and you'll just be selling yourself short. Don't fall into the trap of telling yourself that you'll eventually like him or that you should like him, either. If you have to talk yourself into a relationship, you're with the wrong guy! It might not feel like it now, but it's definitely much better to be single than taken by someone you're not that thrilled about. Also, if you're taken by Mr. Wrong, you might miss Mr. Right!

Remember all the things that make you great. Cheesy, right? But it's also really important! Being the only single girl in your group makes it really easy to start wondering what's wrong with you or to focus on your "flaws" that must make guys dislike you. When you start to critique yourself harshly like that, stop yourself and try to think of five things that you love about yourself. Write them down if you have to, and tape them above your desk. It's a cliché, but finding love really does start with you loving yourself. Don't let being single keep you from remembering what an awesome girl you are!