You can stay a single guy and be focused on campus

Shortly after joining campus, it dawned on me that I was odd. I was odd because everybody else, especially my classmates and roommates had someone out there, who came to see them, to go for a walk, and much curdling not lacking.

Almost all had girlfriends, and I was conspicuously lacking out. When the pressure was too much to bear, I mustered some guts and walked up to a young beautiful lady’s cubicle for an tête-à-tête.

My intentions were to talk her into conviction that we should team up and be boyfriend and girlfriend. The vis-à-vis we had changed my view of the whole dating thing, especially on campus.

“Listen, Steve,” she started. “You are so good yet I cannot accept your proposal for now. You see, you do not have to feel bad, odd and out of place for being single. You can use the time you have alone to do something that will improve your life, and that of others. For example, if you can write, write. Read widely. Think ahead,’’ she said.

Well, it is almost three years now, but the situation in which I was back then is still alive and well among most campus youngsters today. The pressure to be among the rest, to conform and look like the rest has engulfed comrades so much that it is eating into their study time.

This very reality is brought out vividly in almost daily status updates on peoples’ WhatsApp-as memes and jokes. For example, the latest that I saw read stated that boys are so much used to being turned down that they keep on moving from one girl to another, with hope of winning one.

But it does not have to be that way. Social media has made it a ‘crime' for a millennial to be single. The world around you will hardly see a reason why you cannot go from a campus lawn to another embracing every Tom, Dick and Harry. The fellow comrades will not really understand why you don’t smoke, why you don’t rave and so forth.

You can always choose to live a life that you deem best, including leading a solo life in dating matters. Use that precious time that you could have used with a certain ‘Dear’ somewhere to hone your skills in your trade. Discover yourself. Engage in more useful on and off school activities.

If you can get an internship while in school and still manage it, throw yourself in. Connect. Network with the whom -in –the- know in your field. Stop pitying yourself because you are single. After all you won’t die. Live in the hope that better days are coming, and that like attracts like. Someday, you will attract your type, at the most appropriate time of course.

Well, l followed the advice and I am writing.