THE LOVE CHRONICLES: PART ONE - SAMANTHA

They say that you only have one great love in your life. When you’re young it's hard to distinguish love from lust. As our bodies get taller and our hormones get wilder, finding ‘the one’ and knowing when you are in love can be very difficult.

Sex and the City is a tv show that we all know and adore and it can be very exciting when we get together with our girlfriends to decide who is the “Carrie” or the “Samantha” of the group. Luckily for the four of us there was no argument when it came to figuring out who each of us were. In fact, the four of us watch the episodes and can see ourselves in their Manolo Blahniks.

Everyone has their own unique experience with this bitter sweet part of life. Learning to love and be loved. Our “Charlotte” has been in a committed relationship for three years, “Carrie” has been from one love to another, “Miranda” has been struggling to get over ‘the one that got away’ and “Samantha” has never been in love. These are our real and honest accounts of young relationships.

As someone who’s never been in love, I’m often told that this is wrong and I have to have been in love at least once, but I haven’t. Keeping in mind I’m only in my late teens and I find it difficult to believe half of the people who say they’ve been in “love” (particularly more than once) actually haven’t. They often just love the idea of love and just think they have experienced it.

It’s honestly taking a lot for me to participate in this post because I feel like as a girl, you’re almost expected to fall in love with every guy who you’re in a relationship with or even have relations with but I just don’t. Lust, yes, I’ve craved the presence of plenty of people in my life, their touch, their kisses, the way they hold my hand differently to anyone else but these are all physical things which any man can give me. I’ve never been the type of girl who can’t wait to get married or has even THOUGHT about getting married. My priorities are purely career focused and I see such things as a distraction.

The difference between love and lust to me is wanting to hear everything about them, wanting to speak to them for hours about their and your dreams, what your schooling life was like, how you grew up and never getting bored of this, even if you hear the story more than once. Love is always looking into each other's eyes, talking about nothing until 3am in the morning, him having dinner made because you told him earlier in the week you’d be home later tonight. Not having to ask him to do anything, him just doing it because, he cares. Knowing that he really listens and always being able to trust him and feel secue. And yes, maybe my expectations are very high but I’d prefer to have one or two big loves than 10 mediocre loves.

I date like a man, I use men for what they have and then move onto the next. If I have no money and want a nice meal, I have absolutely no problem with messaging a man and asking whether they’d like to go out for dinner, knowing that they will say yes, we’ll eat, have conversation, he’ll pay and once we say goodbye, that’s it. Is this wrong of me? Probably, but it’s the world we live in.

After reading what I’ve just written it makes me sound like an awful person, a user and basically a slut (even though this was never implied, some will take this away from the post). I’m none of these things, not even close. I have a lot of love in my life, with my family, my friends, where I live, my career and most importantly myself. At this point I don’t see what a man can give me that all of these things already give me.

Am I a Samantha? God yes. But please tell me… What is wrong with that? Samantha is an independent career woman who like me, has nothing missing from her life that needs to be filled by a man. Some may say that going on a lot of dates with men or sleeping with a lot of men shows that you’re insecure. For me, I think it’s quite the opposite, I think it shows you’re secure enough in your life to not have to run to a man to provide for you. Girls have needs too and if that’s all you need a man for… I think you’re doing pretty damn well.