It’s hard for you to find love because you’re honest. You wear your heart on your sleeve and you don’t know how to hide your feelings, play hard to get or play games, which makes people think you’re either too needy or something must be terribly wrong with you.

It’s hard for you to find love because you’re craving the old, sweet and pure romance. The one you heard your grandparents talk about, the one you read in novels, the one you saw in black and white movies. You’re looking for romance in a generation that ruined it.

It’s hard for you to find love because you still hope and believe that your ex will come back. You believe in second chances and comebacks and resolutions. You believe that people can’t just fall out of love with each other forever, that eventually they’ll come around, that eventually they’ll reunite and sometimes this keeps you holding on to a past that’s no longer good for you.

It’s hard for you to find love because you’ve been heartbroken more than you’ve been loved. You don’t trust easily anymore, you’re too guarded, you’re afraid of opening up again to someone and they leave. You don’t know how to believe people anymore when they tell you they like you or that they care about you, you think they’re just pretending, you think they’re not being genuine and you subconsciously compare anyone to the ones who broke your heart.

It’s hard for you to find love when you’re secretly giving up on it. You can’t be positive when everyone around is suffering because of a girl or a boy. You’re not fearless anymore because every time you put yourself out there and chased love, it disappointed you and left you broken. You can’t believe that you’re the exception to the rule anymore because this mentality brought more heartbreak than love.

It’s hard for you to find love because you found more safety in your loneliness. You like knowing that you don’t have to deal with anyone who could be lying to you or cheating on you or about to break your heart. You like having the upper hand. You like knowing that you’re not in a position where someone else is in control of your happiness or your emotions. You like staying away from it all so no one calls you crazy, needy, insecure, desperate or whatever label people give you when you’re in love. You like knowing that no on else will make you feel like you’re not good enough or someone else is more worthy of their time and affection.

It’s hard for you to find love when you don’t know what you’re looking for. You have an idea of it in your head but you’ve never lived it. You never felt it. It was always short-lived. It was always fake. It was always temporary. You don’t know forever. You don’t know unconditional love. You don’t know what love is and sometimes it feels like you’re searching for something that might not even exist anymore.

Rania Naim is a poet and author of the new book All The Words I Should Have Said, available here.