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You know what’s funny? Finding romance in unexpected places. Well, I guess it’s not “funny” per se, but it definitely is ironic.

No, you know what’s funny? If you remember a couple blog posts back, I wrote about being single and how I didn’t want to date around. I titled that post “#1” because I was expecting to make it into a series of posts about why being a single girl in today’s modern age is pretty annoying because everyone expects you to find love. But… now things are different. In a good way of course, but things are different. Because I fell for someone.

So I’ve pretty much put myself out there in all my writing. If you’ve been with me in the beginning, you know I’ll tell you guys pretty much anything you want to know about me. The life of a blogger, ya know? So let’s just gossip for a few minutes because… well, why the hell not.

This came out of nowhere. Well, I guess I can’t really say out of NOWHERE… If I look at it objectively, this definitely has been building up over time. We’re friends. He was always someone I saw as just another friend. But one magical moment, everything changed. We realized there was something between us that we couldn’t ignore, and we just let our feelings steer our course. It’s beautiful, but ridiculously frightening. Not knowing where we’re going and what will become of us is terrifying, but thrilling at the same time. Isn’t it funny what feelings can do to your brain? Forget drugs – I have a natural fcking high.

I’ve been reading a lot lately since I finally graduated from college (YAY!) and I started rereading Romeo and Juliet. It’s literally been almost five years since I picked up that book, but I couldn’t help but want to reread it. I was watching an episode of Daria, and it was the episode where all the teachers go on strike so Daria had to become a substitute teacher for a bit. She subbed a freshmen English class and tested them on Romeo and Juliet. For some reason, based SOLELY on that part of the episode, I felt compelled to pick up the book and reread it.

Shakespeare is a genius. I’m pretty sure you knew that without me having to say it. The fact that his literature is recycled over and over in pop culture is proof that whatever he created was always brilliant. There’s one part of Romeo and Juliet that I’ve always remembered – and it’s this part that gave me so much insight into the current state of my love life.

It’s the famous scene where Romeo is wooing Juliet from her balcony. Juliet basically tells Romeo to abandon his name and run away with her. She says, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other word would smell just as sweet.” This line is so simple, yet makes SO much sense. Did anyone else read that part and go “HOLY FUCK. Mindblown. Thanks Shakespeare.” No? Because I just did. Shakespeare pretty much gave me a brain orgasm. A braingasm.

Because it’s TRUE! Relationships nowadays are so different than what they were 50 years ago. There’s so many types of relationships that not everything has a title. You see, me and this boy are dating, but we’re not in a relationship. For a little bit, I was confused as fck about that. I kept thinking, we do everything a normal couple does, so why can’t we have the title? But then everything made sense when I remembered that line from Romeo and Juliet. WHAT’S IN A NAME?!

A title is just a title. We just add weight to it in order to make it significant. There’s plenty of couples nowadays who don’t believe in marriage but they consider themselves as life-long partners. As with the dating scene, there’s plenty of couples out there that date, but not date. It may seem complicated in theory, but to each couple, it makes perfect sense. As long as both people’s needs are being met in the “relationship,” then who the fck cares about a title? Because when it comes down to it, only they know how each other feels. It doesn’t matter if no one else understands… what matters is that they’re happy and they understand.

I’ve always been an advocate for non-traditional… in every sense of the word. But I have to admit, even I got caught up in the black and white of the dating world. I was upset and confused because me and the boy didn’t have a title. But now that I’ve come to realize that because the title carries no meaning (unless we give it one), we don’t need to be constrained by society’s “rules” on how we should act in those specific roles of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.”

Of course we want it to happen someday, but we won’t know until we cross that bridge. So until then, I don’t mind him being “the boy.”