Erin McKelle

There’s nothing worse than taking a pregnancy test when you don’t want to be pregnant.

It’s especially bad when you don’t know who the father is.

Last year, this is the exact situation I found myself in: 23, single, not on contraception, and with a late period. I was nothing short of panicked.

After finding the least expensive test that CVS carried (by the way, can we talk about how expensive pregnancy tests are?!), I went home to find out my fate. After locking myself in the bathroom, I turned the shower on to drown out the noise of my thoughts. I waited five minutes and then peered at the stick, leaning as far away from the sink as possible in case it showed two lines.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw one clear line on the screen.

I quickly tossed the test in the trash, turned off the shower, and hopped in bed with a bottle of cabernet.

That’s exactly the spirit that word should embody: someone who is loud, proud, and an advocate for themselves. Someone who stands out and is bold and beautiful for it. Someone who is unapologetically themselves.

Imagine you just went out with someone that you like, and have been out with a few times, but that you’re still not quite sure where things are heading with. Now, imagine that they call you to ask you if you would like to join them at a birthday party on Saturday, for one of their good friends whom they’d like you to meet. What’s your reaction? Are you jumping at the chance to get closer to their inner circle, already preparing your excuse for why you can’t attend, or do you land somewhere in between?

When you're single and surrounded by engagements and romantic holiday occasions, you need this Singles Guide To Sex & Dating During The Holidays.

I began to see my mental health go completely downhill. This led me to seek out a psychiatrist, who raised an interesting concern: she thought my birth control was messing with my depression. It’s not like I hadn’t been aware of the link between hormonal contraception and depression before, but it never occurred to me that these two personal realities could be connected.

We’ve been telling researchers, doctors, and anyone who will listen that we’re not satisfied with the birth control pill because of its side effects for years, but maybe this latest study from Sweden will make them actually listen.

Just like you might find it difficult to fly while fat, going to the gym can also be a terrible experience to endure while fat. This is one of my favorite points to make when people justify their fatphobia with “I’m just concerned about their health.”

I am a recovering serial dater who is now single and actually enjoying it.

Even though I've suffered from clinical depression ever since I was 15 years old, my depressive episodes have a lot more at stake as I’ve gotten older, especially since I’m dependent on my own productivity in order to survive.

We hear all the time how hookup culture is ruining the lives of young people everywhere, that we're doomed to never marry and to live in sin for the rest of our days. But is the hype around our generation's love of casual sex real? Or are most of us actually settling down after we sow our wild oats?