You Probably Won’t Ever Find Real Love If You’re Doing These 8 Things

Thought.is
Thought.is

1. Focusing the majority of your life on finding someone else to make you happy.

Happiness should be something you create and maintain on your own. It should be a side effect of doing what you love, and surrounding yourself with people that bring the best parts of you to your surface. It sucks to be unhappy, but usually you’re the only person who has the cure to that unhappiness, so cure it.  Because it is much easier for you to do it, than it is for someone else, no matter how hard you find that to believe. And when you finally feel that wonderful feeling everyone else describes as happiness, and you’ve created it entirely on your own, you’ll be more likely to find someone you can enjoy it with.

2. Thinking you know exactly what it is you want.

And not being open-minded when you find something different. A closed mind will close you off to the world, and an opened mind will open you up to it (shocking, I know). It is wonderful to know exactly what you want. It is wonderful to have goals and aspirations and dreams, but often times what we think we want, ends up being entirely different from what we later learn we love. When it comes to partners and relationships, and finding love that’s real, it seems sometimes you find exactly what you’re looking for when you’re completely lost. Because being lost, being so fed up and so tired of traveling down the same road of heartbreak time and time again, in some strange way, makes you not only open to finding a new destination, but it makes you okay with getting lost in the first place.

You’re more likely to look at trying new things as a no-lose situation, because when you have no where else to be, no one else to please, why not? Don’t dismiss the guy who went to school for journalism simply because you tell yourself you want to date the guy in med school. Get lost with the people you never thought you’d find yourself with. Discover what it is you want by taking chances. Take chances on others like you should for yourself, because to find real love you have to not only give chances, but take them.

3. Controlling your actions based on what others will think of you.

Live your life the way you want to live it because you want to live it that way. Finding love is wonderful, but you find it when you’re being true to yourself. Real love, the kind that not only lasts, but endures, is found when the person you find it with loves you for you, not for who you’re trying to be or who you think they want you to be. You don’t find real love while solely trying to please other people, you find it when you’re happy with yourself, when you’re comfortable enough to be yourself without the worry of how others feel about it, of how they feel about you. The person who truly loves you doesn’t always like you, which is exactly why you won’t incessantly monitor your actions around them, because even if they don’t like what you’re doing, they still love you, and they still have a relentless, involuntary sense of care and admiration for you.

4. Controlling your thoughts based on what others will think of you.

Just like you shouldn’t control your actions in accordance with what others think of you in the pursuit of finding love, you shouldn’t control your thoughts for this reason either. Don’t deny your mind of the thoughts you’re thinking, the emotions you’re feeling, and any other weird sensation you’ve got going on up there. That brain is yours and yours alone, and that’s what makes you different from everyone else. When you find real love, the person you find it with will love you for these reasons.

5. Refusing to accept the love that people give you.

There are so many different kinds of love and so many different ways to show it, so accept the variety of love that people do show you because refuting it is more an indication that you don’t love yourself than it is of how others feel about you. You do deserve love, so rather than question, accept it.

6. Accepting love that is less than you deserve.

Never, ever accept a love that is less than you deserve; that is called settling. Settling is the complete opposite of refusing to accept the love that people give you, but it is equally as damaging, and makes you all the less-likely to find a love that’s real.

7. Being the ultimate pessimist.

We all feel sorry for ourselves from time to time, if not on a daily basis, but walking around like the world is out to get you can be a heavy weight to carry. It’s easy to be pessimistic when it comes to love especially in the times of modern dating, but the energy you give off to others has a direct relation to the energy you receive from them. This doesn’t mean you should be someone you’re not, you don’t have to wear bright colors, and shit rainbows if you’re the type of person whose wardrobe is composed entirely of black, and you don’t have to force a perpetual smile even if you do have resting bitch face, but you also don’t have to damn the universe and swear off all men (or any other gender you choose to date). Go ahead and curse every ex that’s ever screwed you over, go ahead and resent the ghosts who never bothered to text back, but do so in a way that allows you to move on and have a new outlook on love. Do so in a way that allows you to recognize real love is out there for you, it’s just a matter of finding it.

8. Worrying so much about what’s next that you can’t enjoy right now.

It sucks when he doesn’t ask to see you again. It sucks when he never calls or texts you back, but it also sucks when you ruin something that has potential because you’re so consumed with the future that you’re blinded to the current moment. Take every date, every kiss, every awkward conversation, for what it is, enjoy the moment and be present while doing so. Stop getting so stuck inside your own head and concerned with what’s going on inside of his, that you can’t show him who you really are, or worse that you can’t see him for who he really is.

You don’t find love on a first date, or second, or third. You won’t see tiny red hearts or stars floating above his head that indicate he’s your soul mate. You never really know if you’ll be with someone forever, because unfortunately you can’t see the future before it happens, you just have to hope that the time you spend getting to know someone is worth it, and if it’s real love, it will always be worth it. Thought Catalog Logo Mark


About the author

Nicole Tarkoff

Writer based in the Philadelphia area. Person who really loves her dog and watching cooking shows. Check out my writing on Thought Catalog and follow me on Facebook! Connect with me and submit your work on Collective World.

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