“I always feared there was something wrong with me. You know, because I couldn’t make it [relationships] work. But maybe I’m not supposed to,” Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) explains her decision to stay single in the brilliant last episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. “I’m cookie dough,” she says. “I’m not done baking. I’m not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I’m going to turn out to be.”

After seven seasons of relationships with on-again off-again boyfriends Angel and Spike, show creator Joss Whedon let his heroine ride off into the sunset (or really, run off into the sunset), alone. I remember watching the episode and finding the idea shocking and refreshing. It wasn’t a happily ever after ending, but it also wasn’t a tragic ending; it was completely realistic. The show ends with Buffy at age 22/23, and what girl at that age has relationships all figured out?

I remembered this scene today while I was talking to my friend Rocky* about our friend Veronica’s* current relationship. I was expressing a few things that were bothering me about it, nitpicking at the things that have bothered me when she was in previous relationships and continue to bother me now. Rocky gently reminded me that Veronica doesn’t have it all figured out yet, and she pointed out that neither do I. I’d somehow expected Veronica to learn all that there is to learn about relationships between the one she was in last and the one she is in now, but the only thing that has really changed is that we’re not in college anymore.

We might be in the “real” world now, where when we meet someone we like, there’s nothing standing between us and “forever;” no more summer vacations to force our boyfriends and us apart, no worry about the impending relationship-breaking doom of graduation. Now we’re in the time when people date often for the sole purpose of settling down. But, instead of floating along, it’s like we’re in the deep end of the pool, desperately trying to touch the bottom. There’s no longer anything to hold onto. No obstacles, no problem, right? Not at all. The relationship hang-ups we had in college are still hang-ups; insecurities are still insecurities. Only the setting has changed.

On Buffy, heroes aren’t always righteous and villains aren’t always obvious, love isn’t always loving, and relationships don’t magically get easier as you grow up. Joss Whedon knew that just because Buffy saved the world for the last time and could settle down in a relationship didn’t mean she should, or would be able to.

Why did I find it so compelling when Buffy said she wasn’t done growing up and figuring out relationships, and yet I expected my own flesh-and-blood best friend to have it all figured out? The truth is, now that I am out here, living in this world, things aren’t as cut and dry as I want to believe. People don’t suddenly learn lessons or change their ways. And my best friend’s relationships aren’t going to change just because they should.

After all, there is a lot of work that goes into a perfectly baked cookie.

[*Not their real names. Duh. Who are my friends? Cartoons?]