Dee Salmin

And it's almost like I rewired my brain in a way that I was like, oh my God, like...

I actually really love this and there's, like, peace and there's contentment and there's no anxiety and I'm not, like, constantly being ghosted or let down or disappointed.

And at the time, boy sober wasn't a term that had been coined, but I was like, I'm going to be intentionally...

on my own now and just, you know, really make sure that I'm not having sex with, I didn't have sex for a year and a half.

Then I had sex with someone, then I didn't have sex for a year and a half again.

And I just spent so much of that time, like nurturing parts of myself that I hadn't nurtured since I was like, even before teenage years, you know, things that I felt really passionate about and really loved, like drawing and writing and

you know, I spent so much time like just hiking and I went to uni online, even though I was working full time.

And I just, I fell in love with being alone and I fell in love with myself in a way that I, you know, before I had been like, oh, I'm a feminist and, you know, I don't need no man and whatever.

But like none of that was probably truly real.

Like I was still on some level chasing men and

Exactly and I genuinely got to a place where I was like

if I am on my own for the rest of my life, I'm going to love that.

I'm excited by that.

I have no worries or anxieties.

And this is me getting into my like thirties.

Like I have no anxiety around my ticking clock or what if I don't meet the one or X, Y, Z. And a lot of that as well then came from living with my best friend who I call my platonic life partner, Brendan.

And

um and just realizing like wow there's so much intimacy and there's so much depth to our relationship even though it's platonic and a friendship that I have never had from a man and I think that was a real pivotal moment for me realizing like I could do this for the rest of my life like I can find love because love is so important but in other places of my life that doesn't necessarily have to be in this constant state of yearning and wanting it to be a romantic partner

I need to like get it over with in a way.

Well, when you're in that mindset, you set yourself and I see this with my friends and you know, I was and you like, when you're in that mindset, you're not actually thinking about