1) Pairing Rules And Common Sense.
I didn’t have a uni boyfriend simply becos I didn’t want one. Apart from the now infamous pairing rule being made and unforced, I simply didn’t want to. You see, It’s one thing to swear off dating, it’s another thing entirely to ensure that precisely no one even gets a chance to ask you out on a first date. It’s not that I wasn’t pretty or desirable, it’s that I took myself off the proverbial menu completely. In other words I intentionally sabotaged my dating prospects by just purposefully hiding.
My strategy to achieving this goal was simple I already lowkey knew that I was only allowing myself to believe that I still loved an ex because it helped my agenda to stay out of trouble. Him being far away enough not to be any trouble to the plan was only a bonus. For those who don’t know, my university had something called “pairing rules” which were basically regulations guiding all dating activities at school.
Of course it had the unintended consequence of most people just building fake relationships that very quickly disintegrated right after school ended. It didn’t matter how great a couple was on campus once the artificial environment they had built it in came to an end, so did the relationship they had built. It just seemed logical to me that this was the case so I wasn’t interested in even bothering to pretend build anything and I didn’t want to be distracted either.
Not to mention flaunting these laws around dating could also mean being expelled from school. I didn’t want the added stress and drama, So I just didn’t go out or participate in anything.
I’m not kiding when I say once classes were over I was most likely in my room. Fashion remained a creative outlet for me to express myself but nothing more. Even so I didn’t allow myself to be as dressy as I could have because another set of laws guided dressing could also lead you to get kicked out of school, I don’t what I could writhing the parameters provided.
I figured out that participating in activities was how your popularity grew and being popular in that world meant attention and that quickly led to dating and having distracting associations so I opted out of being visible completely.
I had a plan and a timeframe within which to achieve it so I basically created an avatar to blend in as much as possible and just get to gradation day. My avatar could have very easily been named miss bearly there since all I needed to get to my goal was to blend in and never stand out. That’s it, that’s all I wanted. Graduation day. Being invisible in this phase of my life was what was necessary, so it’s what I became. I explored none of my talents and focused on being as close to invisible as possible. I never kept famous friends and intentionally hid myself from famous guys and it worked.
When the environment you find yourself has loudly decided it wouldn’t allow any “pairing”, well my response is I’m not interested in cultivating any romantic relationship that doesn’t at the very least habour the potential for a life ‘pairing’, Sorry, isn’t that the whole point of dating. Why bother dating if not to find an alignment of purpose with the opposite sex? A.k.a marriage? Honestly, when people say they date for fun, I truly cannot relate cus what’s fun about constantly entangling and detangling from people on a loop? That just sounds more like torture to me.
The simple fact is the policy however well meaning that policy was, it had created a reality conducive only for pretense. Essentially, everyone was just surviving on avatar modes they had created in a bid for self preservation. An avatar that was no longer necessary once one had graduated. The real them could not be displayed in that SIMS-esq world so consequently almost nobody was authentic. Shallow attachments were all the system permitted so that was all that was built which in turn guaranteed dating for the purpose of nothing at all. I decided to opt out of the charade of a wasted experience entirely. In the end it didn’t matter what the offer was, I decided early that precisely no one was worth killing my prospects of getting out of that system unscathed and with the oh so coveted degree in hand. No one.
I have no regrets about my decision because for all of its flaws that policy had its benefits too. It kept me from frivolous romantic attachments and helped me focus on the purpose for which I enrolled. That was the right priority to have at the time and when combined with other school rules I finally learned managing balance and timing. It trained me to not chase attention and be very comfortable having arrows in my quiver without using them because the right time to do so has not yet arrived.
However, in the exact same breath, I must add that we make sure to never permit any person, group or environment the room to permanently damage our abilities to metamorphose into who God has designed us to be WHENEVER HE SAYS THE TIME IS RIGHT.
I’m convinced that I must end this post by urging and reminding you, dear reader to never ever ever be like that famous elephant who forgot his strength and remained stuck on a spot being tied down by a tiny nail which could have easily been lifted if we had simply made a move. Don’t allow yourself be psychologically imprisoned by small obstacles that wield power only because we allow them. We are often much more capable than we dare to give ourselves credit for. Instead, be the kind elephant who only appears stuck to the world outside but knows the whole time as God does, that when it’s time to move, We move.
No Pairing, No Point.
