7 Myths That Are Ruining Your Chances at Finding Love
These myths serve no other purpose than to belittle other people’s feelings for not matching their own, or being plain self-sabotage. While they may not prevent you from finding love, they might delay it or make you unhappy for trying to fit someone else’s standards rather than your own and finding out you can’t really connect on a romantic level with that type of person.
1. You Must Love Yourself Before You Can Love Others
Don’t get me wrong, loving yourself will in no way be detrimental to finding love. But saying that it’s a requirement? That’s a bit ridiculous. This saying comes from people who do not personally want to deal with an emotionally unstable person on any level. They might not be capable or willing to love someone enough to show them why they are, in fact, loveable. In their mind, if you can’t convince them that you are loveable, in their eyes you actually aren’t. But if you do not love yourself right now, nothing says that you will be unable to in the future… and someone who loves you and sticks with you is going to be the person who is the most capable of convincing you of some aspects of you that you originally thought undesirable or even toxic, to actually be endearing.
2. You Don’t Have to Pursue Love; It Will Find You
Other variations include “You’ll only find love when you stop looking for it” and “Love happens to you when you least expect it”. There is nothing to back up this claim. In fact, I was actively searching for love when I met the love of my life, while she wasn’t pursuing love herself. It was just a matter of circumstances. The truth is, if you actively seek love, you expose yourself more to the world and increase your chances of finding love. Meanwhile, if you don’t pursue it but also don’t close your heart off, you may still find it. If you do close it off, then you have already given up on love and it will be out of your reach to those who are trying to extend their heart to you.
However, by putting yourself out there, you also risk of getting involved into a relationship that might make someone else or yourself think twice about engaging into a new, potentially better one, as many people refuse (and with good reasons) to get romantically involved with someone else they might be attracted to while they are currently in a relationship with someone else.
The best way to approach the situation is simply to keep your heart open and to not rush yourself into a relationship. Take your time! If there is love, your patience will be rewarded.
3. You Are Not “Good Enough”
Sometimes you might think that you don’t deserve someone, because you’re not good enough. Honestly, love really doesn’t care about that crap. In fact, there are plenty of people out there who are extremely successful in most areas of their lives, excluding romantic love, as people just assume that they’re not good enough for them. Yes, some successful people of them will have ridiculously high standards as they are comparing any potential partner to themselves, but others might be far more depressed or desperate about their romantic love situation. We’re all human, and if someone else feels they are superior to you, then yes, you’re likely never going to be “good enough” for them. But if someone only seems superior to you in your eyes, but are humble about themselves, they likely just want to speak to you face to face as equal human beings. Don’t give up on them before trying for both their sake and yours! You don’t even need to be confident! Just be yourself.
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4. Men should be this way & women should be that way
In this day and age, it surprises me to still see people hang on to gender-based beliefs that I would call nothing short of sexist. Yes, expecting men and women to behave in a certain way, including when it comes to romantic love, is sexist. While stereotypes exist for a reason, they certainly do not apply to every man and woman out there.
I will understand if, for you personally, only a stereotypical man or woman would fit your idea of a loveable partner. We all have our preferences and we should respect each others’, without imposing a set of beliefs of what the ideal partner should be. After all, what you desire should have nothing to do with society’s standards or stereotypical standards, but if they match, that’s simply how it is and there is no reason to have it frown upon. If some men enjoy the thought of being the sole financial provider of the family and if some women would much prefer being a stay-at-home mom, that’s fine! Just like there are no issues with couples preferring to have the “gender-roles” reversed or to simply share everything equally as long as it was what each party desires.
5. You Need to Be Happy by Yourself Before Getting into a Relationship
Happiness is an emotion that can be hard to measure, as we might very well not know how happy we can become. Another reason why it can be hard to quantify, is: what if you simply can’t be happy being single?
We humans are very social creatures. Should we really say that people should be happy on their own, without help from the one person who can provide them the most love? Should we also prevent young children from seeing their mothers unless they are happy without their mother? People who are surrounded by the most love are the happiest people on Earth, and there is nothing wrong with that. But saying that someone should not deserve a chance at romantic love because they have not received enough love in the past, is the same as adding salt to the wound.
Of course, there’s also plenty of people who believe a relationship is all they need in order to be happy… which is entirely wrong. While I cannot say what are the root causes of everyone’s lack of happiness, true & lasting happiness can only be reached by improving all areas of one’s life. But one of those areas is love and relationships, and for most people, this also includes romantic love. We all need love. Let’s not forget about that.
6. You Are Too Needy
Needy partners are simply people who need romantic love in their lives. Those who are too needy are those pesky bastards always seeking affection, wanting all that time with you! There is something very wrong with being too needy in a relationship… or so you’ve been told. But all it is is an incompatibility issue, and nothing else. Needy people tend to get emotionally involved with others fairly quickly, usually to a far faster extent than people who would consider themselves independent, which can make them extremely uncomfortable. Someone who is needy should simply find someone else who also is. There is nothing wrong with being needy, unlike what many will try to make you believe.
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7. Waiting for “Love at First Sight”
Love at first sight is likely the most toxic concept held dearly by far too many hopeless romantics. I’m not saying that love at first sight is impossible, but in nearly every case it instead is infatuation at first sight. Infatuation is that emotion that feels like love, but it is born out of excitement, not from genuine feelings for someone else. Love can develop as infatuation fades, but it is a very rare occurrence. What’s more likely to happen is that one or both parties realize that the other is “not the person they fell in love with”, as what they fell in “love” with was not a person, but rather an idea; an illusion.