1. Do you think of relationships as something you earn for being “good enough” or something you develop when you’re strong enough to open your heart?

2. What does “love” mean to you? Is it just a good feeling? Is it companionship? Is it comfort? Is it direction for the future?

3. How could you possibly get those things in your life if not through the company and proclamation of undying intimacy from someone you probably don’t even know yet?

4. If the love of your life would reflect all of your unhealed issues, mirror your flaws, and bring your deepest insecurities to light, would you be ready to be in a relationship with them?

5. Do you try to relate to other human beings, or do you try to exert superiority over them? Do you want to connect or do you want to seem impressive? Do you engage in discussion to learn, or to sell someone on your way of thinking so you feel supported and “correct?”

6. Are you thinking about your love life more than you’re actually living it? Have you developed a plan to find the kind of love you think you are so desperately missing?

7. If you were to develop a plan to find that kind of love, what would it look like? What would you need to do? What could you try? Where could you go?

8. Is the prospect of online dating, being set up by friends, and generally putting yourself out there less comfortable than the idea that you could possibly spend the next few years (or longer) by yourself?

9. Are you open about the fact that you’re looking for love? If you’re trying to play it like you’re cool being single, you’re going to miss out on a lot of opportunities to meet friends of friends, simply because they don’t know you’re willing.

10. What makes you happy, aside from affection from other people?

11. If you decided to take control of your relationship destiny today, as opposed to just waiting for it to “happen” when it’s “meant” to, what would you start doing differently?

12. Do you think a great relationship is something you find, or something you develop and strengthen over time?

13. Do you believe that people who are more beautiful, successful, smart, talented or in other ways superior have more love than you ever could?

14. Have you ever taken an honest look at the people around you who have love, and evaluated them on that same scale of attractiveness and intelligence and superiority?

15. If you did that, what would you find?

16. Would it blow your mind to learn that relationships aren’t just nice, they are the stitching that keeps the patchwork of this entire damn world together, and that spending as much time and energy on them as you would anything else that matters would not only be essential, but crucial to you fulfilling your highest purpose as a human being?

17. Would it blow your mind to learn that even people who are surrounded by friends, in seemingly “happy” relationships, with families to return to every holiday and then some are sometimes still cripplingly lonely, because it’s a matter of how you connect, not who you have around?

18. Are you aware of what your needs are in a long-term relationship?

19. Are you willing to advocate for those needs if they aren’t being met, or would you forego doing so for the sake of seeming more likable to your partner?

20. If you find the relationship you’ve been dreaming of, and then it doesn’t work out, what would your game plan be?

21. Would it surprise you to know that the most overlooked key to a happy, healthy relationship is the belief that even if said relationship dissolved, you could still carry on as a functioning, thriving human being?

22. Could it be possible that you’re not alone right now because you’re broken or unlovable, but because there is something profound and divine that you must discover, and it is only knowable through solitude?

23. If you knew that the love of your life was on their way, and that this time in your life was only temporary, what would you do with the nights you have alone? What would you invest your efforts in? Writing your book or scrolling through Facebook? Developing relationships with friends or envying people who have love? Learning to meditate or taking a swig of wine every time you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable?

24. Do you assume other people are doing you a favor by giving you love and spending time with you?

25. Do you ever think about the fact that they likely are just as hungry for love?

26. Do you ever think about what you can *give* to a relationship, as opposed to what you want to take?

27. Are you committed to a lifetime of growing with, and alongside, another human being, or is your mental image of love something that allows, and supports, unconditional acceptance that is, in reality, complacency?

28. Are you willing, or ready, to let go of every preconceived notion you had about how love would come, what it would look like, and what your partner would be like? (You need to.)

29. What are you willing to suffer for in this life? You suffer over your fears, your thoughts, your work… what about the one thing that’s actually worth it? Are you willing to give it your all, fail a few times, and then reach the end (love, commitment) only to find that dating was the walk before the run, the beginning of the real work?

30. Are you ready to let it gut you and help make you the person you were intended to be?