Lessons for the Loveless
By: Krishen Samuel
Tags: Dating, Singles, Lifestyle, LGBTQ, Love

Lessons for the Loveless

Pitfalls that may prevent us from finding love

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

Sometimes, I feel as though I will remain single for the duration of my lifetime.

I certainly would love to find love. But the older I get, it seems as evasive as keeping a perfectly formed snowflake on the palm of my warm hand.

I keep mulling over some of the thought-processes that have resulted in not yet finding love and how I could possibly work on changing them. This exercise is rather unromantic at best — and demotivating at worst — but it does encourage some reflexivity regarding how I continue to trip myself up when it comes to my pursuit of love.

Here are my top 5 thought-processes…

Photo by Ben Rosett on Unsplash

1. I believe that Mr. Right actually exists.

He doesn’t.

(I told you this list could be unromantic)

My first major obstacle is that I cling to the notion that somewhere out in the world is an individual who will perfectly fit the contours of my personality, accept my idiosyncracies and celebrate my whackiness with great fervor. And of course, I will do the same for him.

Evidently, I grew up on a steady diet of Sleepless in Seattle and Notting Hill.

Real life explorations would suggest something somewhat different to this idealized version of a love partner. Instead of the perfect partner who is already completely formed to my exact specifications and waiting to be found, there will be a real person who is bruised, un-actualized and who also happens to be looking for love.

Mr. Right will only become Mr. Right through my interaction with him as he learns to love me and I as learn to love him.

Therefore, Mr. Right doesn’t exist; he is created.

2. I believe that I have to be Mr. Right for someone else.

I don’t.

Following on from thought-process №1, if my ideal partner comes into being through his interactions with me, it stands to reason that I do not need to be the ideal partner to begin with either.

This relieves a fair amount of pressure as it would be practically impossible to be the right person for any number of unknown people.

And this is precisely what single people have to deal with all the time: questioning our self-worth and how we measure up in relation to potential partners.

I guess that the lesson here is that I don’t have to have all my shit together when it comes to embarking upon finding love.

3. I believe that finding love should be serendipitous and effortless.

It might not be: a little effort and some planning go a long way.

I strongly harbor the belief that things that are meant to be happen easily, without much effort and that love is one of those things.

However, here the evidence seems to point in the other direction. Of course, finding love could be effortless but it doesn’t necessarily mean that this is always the case (it rarely is).

In reality, most individuals put in a concerted effort: many hours of swiping away on Tinder, feeling awkward in bars, countless bad dates and enduring some wrong relationships before finding love.

Finding love probably works much the same way other things in life do: it requires focused intention and effort.

4. I believe that there is a ‘perfect time’ to find a perfect love.

There isn’t.

While timing matters, there isn’t necessarily a perfect time to fall in love. When exactly would it be? In the Springtime when flowers are in bloom? When Mercury isn’t in retrograde?

All facetiousness aside, most people (myself included) usually mean a ‘perfect time’ in their life to fall in love — a time when they’re not dealing with countless other life challenges. A time when the planets metaphorically align in order to produce a love match.

This would be highly convenient but it simply doesn’t accord with how life generally works. A large part of adulting requires balancing multiple commitments. Thus, falling in love would have to somehow fit into the schedule of your life. This would probably make for a healthier relationship in any event: life goes on after falling in love and although your relationship may take a priority spot, there will still be other commitments.

In order to increase the probability of finding love, any day of the year would need to be a possibility.

5. I believe that if you want something badly enough, it’s bound to happen eventually.

It isn’t (at least, not without some of the effort mentioned under Thought Process №3).

While there is something to be said for being in the right state of mind and aiming to attract people and circumstances into our lives, desire or wanting has to translate into concrete action at some point. If merely wanting something resulted in a desired endpoint, we would have fewer unfulfilled people in the world.

Wanting also seems to imply not having or a sense of desperation. Neither of these are particularly conducive to finding love. Instead, wanting needs to extend to doing in order to create something tangible.

When it comes to finding love, many of us stubbornly cling to and identify with our feelings of being unfulfilled in the hope that the Universe will pay attention and meet this need. And then we silently begrudge those for whom finding love has been so easy while it is continually out of our reach.

This particular belief has tripped me up for a long time. But I’ve come to learn that it is the combination of wanting and doing that tends to create results. And while there are those of us who have had little (or no) luck in finding love, becoming overly-identified with this fact will not change it.