You...Get off my Pillow

I am the voice behind all of Ignighter’s Twitter accounts. There. Now you know my secret. I spend a good portion of my day searching for, and tweeting with, single people. Their tweets generally fall into one of two categories:

A) Being single sucks f***** gonads

B) Man I love bein’ single in the city. No one to check in with. I love having space.

(By the way, these tweets were pulled from Ignighter’s awesome, innovative app Tweetlove. You should check it out. Also by the way, the Rhode Island School of Design’s mascot is a giant penis, aka nad, so that at hockey games, their one and only sport, they can scream “Go nads!”)

Anyway, I never really understood the tweets that celebrate being single because of the benefit of “space.” For me, being in a relationship doesn’t mean giving up independence. I don’t care if my boyfriend talks to other girls. I don’t expect him to check in with me every hour, and I don’t want him to drop his friends to hang out with me 24/7. In fact, I would hate that. The only person on this earth that I can spend more than 6 straight hours with is my sister.

I never understood why guys call their girlfriends the warden, why people run from the phrase “being in a relationship,” why people say they need to be single for a while. I always thought being in a relationship is like being single except you have regular, better sex and someone to make you breakfast in the morning.

But then, all of a sudden, a couple weekends ago, I craved space. Literally. Someone was in my bed, someone whom I have hooked up with on a regular basis for quite some time, and I hated that I couldn’t do my single person sprawl. All I could think was “get off my pillow.” And in the morning, all I could think was “leave.”

I have been hooking up with this person for almost two years. Part of it in a relationship, most of it not. So why now did I want him out of my bed?

I couldn’t help but think of the tweets. Perhaps this is what they meant. Because this person was in my bed, I couldn’t just get up and write this article. I couldn’t hop to the gym or go to the grocery store. I had to wait for him to leave. To give me space. Soon, would I start saying, “I need to be single for a while?”

Then I thought, a year ago, I loved wasting time with this person. I would have lolled in bed until 2 in the afternoon. A year ago, he could have breathed morning breath all in my space, and I wouldn’t have cared. A year ago, I still had feelings for him. They were gone now, a slow and winding process that really just solidified a couple months ago. And I think this is why I wanted him gone, too. I wanted space.

So perhaps desiring “space” doesn’t mean that I’m against a relationship. It just means that I want the right relationship. That I’m getting pickier. Which I think is a good thing. Cuts down on my risk of STDs.

No but seriously, my desire for space, to screen my bed and/or my text message inbox, simply means that I’ve reached a higher level of respect for my body and my time. That it’s going to take more than a pretty face for me to give it away. Perhaps this also explains why I rarely feel initial attraction when I meet someone and have to slough through 30 duds before I find someone I want. Yet another plus for group dating. Increases my odds.

So while you won’t find me running around slamming relationships, proclaiming that I need to be by myself, you will find me taking my time to decide who I want to share my space with. Perhaps when I find him, I’ll tweet about it.

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This post was brought to you by Blair Hickman

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