Last April, I went on my first successful date with a guy, and when I got home that night, I went on Instagram for a few minutes in an attempt to wind down. This was my first mistake, considering that going on Instagram and seeing everyone living their best lives while mine looks nothing like theirs gives me general anxiety on a good day.

On this particular day though, I opened up my feed to the news that yet another one of my classmates from high school got engaged.

As if that news didn’t sting enough — considering that I had been on my first date with a guy in three years — there was a carousel of photos in which my former classmate and her boyfriend/now fiance are strolling through a park in New York, looking like models. And commenting an obligatory “congratulations” couldn’t take away from the fact that I was alone in my pajamas, having yet to be kissed and with a pimple on my scalp.

If I were the drinking type, I would have probably poured myself a hearty glass of wine and watched my favorite movie to cry to — “A Walk to Remember” — like all the female protagonists in rom-coms do when they’re obsessing over their peers on social media and questioning all of their life choices. Instead, I do it stone-cold sober, which I think might be more damaging because there’s nothing to dull the harsh words that flood my mind, specifically, regarding how inadequate and far behind my peers I am.

Now, I know that you’re probably thinking, especially those of you who know me outside of this column, “Joanna, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You have so much going for you. Not everyone goes at the same pace, and you’re just on your own path.”

And I would acknowledge that that perspective is valid, but it’s hard to remind myself of that when I did not have the formative experiences that most of my peers had more than 10 years ago. Furthermore, it wasn’t my conscious decision to not be on the same path as my peers. It feels, most days, like it was a decision that was made for me.

The truth is I’ve always been extremely hard on myself, and considering that when I was a child, I thought I would be married and living in Boston at 25. I can’t help but think that my younger self would be severely disappointed in the person I am now.

Several months ago one of my best friends sent me a screenshot of a post by the first boy I ever had a serious crush on and loved — fully unrequited — announcing that he and his wife are having a baby. It hurt a lot to see this, not as much as when I found out about his engagement and I had to unfollow him on Instagram after not sleeping the night I found out, but it still hurt.

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While he’s still unaware of my feelings for him, and probably wouldn’t care if he did know, part of my teenage heart will always belong to him. It does hurt more though, because he was the first to make me feel self-conscious about my condition and he’s getting the American fairy tale, while I feel the incessant need to cling to any guy who’s remotely OK with my situation because he might be the last one to be.

And going down that path makes bile burn the back of my throat because there’s something deeply unsettling about being a bystander to all of these milestones when I, at one point, would have given anything to have experienced those milestones with him.

I do know deep down that his not being interested in me was a blessing in disguise. Because, in reality, he was a jerk, and he and I would never have worked out. But seeing these posts does make me question what I’m doing with my life.

These feelings of inadequacy aren’t just limited to Instagram, either; opening up LinkedIn produces a similar, if not more intense, feeling. I cannot count the number of times I have opened the app to try to look for a job/do some networking to find that one or another of my peers has gotten a job for which I applied.

This fact doesn’t make me any less happy for my peers because, as I’ve acknowledged, getting into the publishing industry is really rough. So it is something to be celebrated when anyone I know gets their foot in the door. But it still leaves me wondering when it’s going to be my turn, and I’m learning to accept that those two thoughts can exist at the same time.

The thing that I think hurts the most about comparing myself to others is having an inkling of the feeling that others seem to stumble upon so easily, but never feeling like I was able to grasp it. For instance, I went on multiple dates with this guy last spring who I was so compatible with it was scary, and I envisioned a future with him when he would only get physically yanked out of my life as unexpectedly as he was brought into it; or getting an interview and hearing back from the hiring manager only to not get the job.

There was a moment in time, a few months ago, when everything I have ever wanted seemed like it could actually happen for me — mainly because he had been in my life, and for the first time in a really long time I didn’t feel completely alone. I do understand that my path is unclear right now because I am still picking up the pieces, and putting myself back together.

I know that this journey not being easy will make me value it when a guy actually treasures me. It’s just hard to see the forest for the trees right now, and makes me question if me wanting to experience love is just a fantasy, in itself.

Gazette columnist Joanna Buoniconti is a freelance writer and editor. She is currently pursuing her master’s at Emerson College. She can be reached at columnist@gazettenet.com.