When you’re a die hard hopeless romantic, finally being with ‘your person’ is a life goal.
For most of my life I swooned at romcoms and looked forward to the day my love life mirrored the things I read or watched. Lines like, “You’re my best friend.” shot right through my sappy heart.
There’s nothing wrong with being a romantic.
But the danger comes when you forget the romcoms are made to be sold. And that these stories are crafted to keep you entertained until you finish them.
For the longest time, I saw these fictional relationships as ‘goals’.
But when you forget that you’re basing your beliefs about love on fiction, don’t be surprised if the reality of your love life never measures up.
The following are 3 beliefs that could be keeping you single:
1. “If it happens, it happens.”
Movies love to play up the fantasy of suddenly meeting someone in a coffee shop or at a bar and magically hitting it up.
And hopeless romantics eat this up, fantasizing about the day they just happen to ‘bump into’ the love of their life.
While it isn’t impossible for your love story to start like a Nicholas Sparks book, if you decide to leave the fate of your love life to chance, you may end up waiting forever.
The reality is, many of the things we want in life require intention and dedicated action to manifest.
We don’t want to think about our love lives this way. But being in alignment with what we want is key. You’ll never be able to get on a bus, if you don’t position yourself where it passes.
What to do:
I remember once ranting to my tutor about my singleness and what she said to me years ago, has stuck with me till this day, “How will you ever meet someone when you lack exposure?” And she meant this literally.
My consistent circle at the time was school and home with no where else in between.
Sometimes you’re simply not interested in anyone in your ‘most frequently visited places’, which is fine. The best thing to do is mix up your routine. I remember meeting my college romance not in any of my classrooms but in another circle of people, A.K.A my extra-curricular group.
When it comes to love, we don’t like to think about the intentional effort we need to put in. It’s much more ‘romantic’ to think of our life as events that will eventually lead to giving us what we want.
Leaving your love life to chance can be a beautiful thing if it happens. But that’s an incredibly risky approach for something that may never happen.
Imagine applying that same logic to all the areas of your life. Do you let ‘chance’ dictate whether you get that job you want or not? Would you let ‘destiny’ decide whether you graduate on time or not? Of course not.
When it comes to these other areas in our lives, we understand that we need to put in the effort to get what we ultimately want. We can choose to have the same pro-active approach for our love lives.
2. “I’ll just know.”
This belief blocks out potential romance and can cloud your judgment into jumping into relationships prematurely.
In my last relationship, I foolishly thought that maybe he was the one. I jumped into a relationship barely knowing the guy because I ‘just knew’ since everything ‘felt so right’.
After that relationship crumbled in a month, I’ve learned that sure you can instantly know if you like a person (anyone can be charming at first). But really knowing a person –if they’re really a fit for you, only reveals itself after much more time spent with them.
You’ll never ‘just know’ after a few dates if someone is the one for you, because it is human nature to put our best foot forward. Especially when we like someone, but our best version isn’t 100% all of who we are.
And when we choose someone based on the image of themselves they want us to see, we can’t say for sure that we love them because we’ve yet to see the entire picture.
We can love their commercial, but experiencing their whole movie takes time.
What to do:
Don’t assume you know someone is for you after a couple great dates. And be open to second dates with someone who shows potential.
While your gut shouldn’t be completely ignored, it also shouldn’t be the ultimate judge either.
“Good things take time.” is a great quote to keep in mind when dating.
A few incredible dates could be a firework that will soon fizzle out. And dates that need a few rounds to warm up, may be setting the foundation for a fireplace that’ll keep you warm for months, if not years, to come.
Let more time spent with a person be the real judge of whether you pursue a relationship with them or not.
3. They Have to be MY image of Love
When you’re too fixated on what something should look like, it could blind you from what’s incredible right under your nose.
For many die hard hopeless romantics there’s a fantasy of being ‘in love with your best friend’. The person who makes you happy all the time and who ‘gets’ you. The person you go on adventures with and who you want to bone at the same time too.
Often in this pursuit of someone who fits this exact description, we say no to any other possibility.
Before getting together with my boyfriend, I held back for the longest time because in my mind, we weren’t this picture perfect image of ‘laughing and being happy all the time’.
I was so fixated on the fantasy that I only ever focused on the times that our relationship didn’t mirror everything I saw or read.
But by finally stepping back from the fairy tale image sold to me of “love”, I was able to see the entire picture of us — which actually did have those happy laughter filled times than I wanted and so much more.
I realized that all along what we had was real love, which includes both the ups and downs.
What to do:
I’m not suggesting you settle. But the key is knowing if what you want is based on fiction.
If you’re unable to tell the difference, you may be on the search for your ‘perfect match’ forever.
What we forget when we base ideal relationship on fictional couples who hit it off right away and the ‘spark’ between them is so clear, is that often this is just the first stage of what could become love. It is not real love itself, it is infatuation.
What the feel good movies and books don’t show us is what happens after the credits roll or when the book ends, when the couple really gets to know each other — after a lot of time.
We don’t see if it turns out their values don’t line up. We don’t see if one has anger issues that only spring up until a year or 2 after. We don’t see if the person they’re inlove with is actually a rebound. Or if the reality of a real relationship — problems and all, scares one of the two away.
We are only shown the best parts where the couple is looking at each other through rose tinted glasses. The stage where everything is new and exciting. The period where their best selves are on full display.
When we think that that ‘picture perfect best friend couple’ is all that we want and we accept nothing less, we don’t realize that our definition of love is only skin deep.
Real love, goes beyond the feel good times. It is when the high of infatuation fades away and what is left is two people still choosing and wanting to be with each other, flaws and all.
Bottom Line
Real love, isn’t worth leaving to chance when nothing is guaranteed in this life. Where the only thing certain, is the effort we put towards what we want.
And we can’t just know how beautiful a seed will blossom, if we don’t give it the time to grow. Real love, is rarely what we see in our favorite romcoms or books.
To have a shot at real love, be sure that the choices you make and the beliefs you hold, are not rooted in fiction.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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Photo credit: Joanna Nix-Walkup on Unsplash