There are two kinds of love in the world: the kind you feel, and the kind you *think* you feel. It’s interesting how deeply we can fall in love with ideas, and how pervasive our preconceived notions of what’s “right” for us can be. The truth is that sometimes, the best relationships aren’t the ones we’d necessarily choose for ourselves, but the ones that just arise out of nothing but a genuine connection and a whole ‘lotta love. Here, all the reasons why the best love is the kind you never expected to be in:
1. You learn to give and receive love for the sake of it, not because you’re trying to get something out of it, which is largely the case when you date someone who you only think is “so right” for you. You have to foster an authentic connection with someone, you can’t just slide by on the idea that you *should* be right for one another, so you are.
2. It teaches you to feel again. When you fall in love unexpectedly, you’re caught off guard. Your normal defenses aren’t up, and you’re seeking the relationship because you feel it, not because you think you may, hopefully, probably will one day be into it.
3. It reminds you that the whole concept of having a “type” does nothing but hold you back. Sure, everybody can identify patterns within the people they date or are attracted to, but when it comes to believing that you can only happily be with someone who fits a shallow, preconceived notion of what’s “right” for you, you’re only keeping yourself away from real connection.
4. It dismantles your ideas about what love should be, or what your life would look like. And there are few things healthier than having that particular set of beliefs taken down – as we all know, the only constant is change and the only certainty is uncertainty, and if we don’t lean into that, we won’t really arrive anywhere we want to be.
5. You choose them for the right reasons. It’s not because you think they’ll make you look cool or they match up to the “dream” you always had in your mind about who you’d be with. You just dig them, so you love them, and there are few things more honest or beautiful.
6. You can be more true to yourself. If they’re not what you’re looking for, then you won’t feel as pressured to maintain some image of what you assume they’d be looking for, either. You’re just more inclined to really be yourself, and see what happens from there.
7. The best way to fall in love is when you aren’t trying to. It’s a tale as old as time: the opposites that attract, the love that came along when someone least expected it to. You most fall in love when you aren’t trying to find something, because in that openness, you are able to actually give yourself (rather than just want to take an idea of what you think love should be and what it should do for you). 
