Finding someone who tells you how beautiful you look, someone who promises you that you’re perfect just the way you are, isn’t going to make you feel any better about yourself. If you have low self-confidence, you’re going to shake your head at those comments. You’re not going to believe them. You’re going to think your person is lying to you, that they’re just trying to be nice.

You aren’t going to start loving yourself more, or loving your life more, because you’ve found someone to share it with. You’re still going to have the same problems that you had when you were single.

Your forever person can be there for you, but they cannot save you. They cannot change the way that you feel about the world.

Finding someone to fall asleep beside, someone to grab dinner with, someone to text whenever you’re feeling sad, is always nice — but it isn’t going to magically make your life complete. It isn’t going to fill that empty void that’s been drilled into your soul.

Even if every second you spend with your person makes you feel like you’re walking on air, you can’t be around them all of the time. You can’t follow them everywhere. You can’t cling onto them.

If they are the only reason for your happiness, if you’re miserable again the second they leave the room, the relationship is eventually going to fall apart. Because you’re going to be jealous when they go out with their friends and have fun without you. Because you’re going to feel gutted when they take a little too long to answer a text. Because you’re going to act like life isn’t worth living when you get into the smallest fight.

I hate to break it to you, but finding your forever person isn’t magically going to make you happy. Not in the fulfilling way that you’re meant to be happy.

You have to find happiness on your own. You have to find a hobby that gives you the same butterflies in your stomach as your person does. You have to find a career that makes you excited to get up Monday through Friday morning.

You have to find books that transport you into a world you wish you could experience yourself. You have to find music that makes your pulse throb a little faster. You have to find stupid jokes that make you laugh until you snort.

You have to find concerts and wineries and festivals you’re excited to go to with your friends on weekends. You have to adopt a dog that makes you smile whenever you step through the door or get obsessed with a new show that you count down the days to see.

You have to find little reasons to love life, because the big reasons can disappear in the blink of an eye.

You don’t want one person to be the sole reason for your happiness, because imagine what will happen if they leave. Imagine how hard that will break you. Imagine how difficult it will be to recover from that.

You have to find real, raw happiness on your own. You have to remember that relationships aren’t the only way to earn a smile.

Holly Riordan is the author of Lifeless Souls, available here.