WYHI: I’m (she/her) about to turn 21 and haven’t had my first kiss. I blame the pandemic.

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From 14 to 19, I kept a five-year journal — the kind where each page has slots to write your thoughts on the same day every year.
And in August every year, on my birthday, I would pose the same question to my future self: Has it happened yet?
The “it” in question was my first kiss. Growing up watching romantic comedies and reading young-adult romance novels (including everything Sarah Dessen ever wrote), I was obsessed with all things related to love. I kept waiting for it to happen — but it just didn’t.
The great teenage romance the media told me I would have is only one of many aspects of being young that I feel as if I’ve failed at.
Now, I’m turning 21 later this summer, and I’m not ready.
When I started college in 2018, I resolved to finally live the experiences everyone else around me was living: dating, hooking up, partying, going on adventures. I accomplished some of what I wanted to, but by my sophomore year, I still felt as if I was behind my peers

But all the time I spent working was time I wasn’t spending going to parties, meeting new people, dating and doing the college thing.
I told myself that I still had time, that I wasn’t even halfway done with college. Then the coronavirus pandemic happened, and I lost a year of what was supposed to be the best years of my life.
I’ve failed at being young, and my upcoming 21st birthday is another painful reminder of that.
I know pop culture tends to over-dramatize the teenage experience. And I know, deep down, that I’m far from the only almost-21-year-old lacking these experiences, including their first kiss. But it often feels as if I’m the only one. Let’s just say Drew Barrymore didn’t adequately prepare me for this.
My generation has been crushed by the pandemic. It’s not easy to go through a pandemic, no matter your age, but young people have been hit especially hard.
At first, we were coddled and comforted. Now, we’re expected to jump back into the world at full force.

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Many young people are still feeling the effects of the pandemic economically, academically, professionally, socially and mentally. It’s not easy to bounce back. I’m one of the lucky ones: I’ve remained economically stable throughout the pandemic, and I haven’t lost any loved ones. I’m taking this year off to do a full-time journalism co-op and live off campus, but I’ll be returning to in-person classes on campus in the beginning of 2022 for my final year of college.
But we’ve all been robbed of pivotal experiences, whether it’s prom, graduation, dating, college parties or first jobs. We’re a year and half behind where we might be otherwise, and many of us feel like impostors.

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