If you want to love and be loved.
Some critical advice on finding love for those who feel lost in the era of swiping.
Do you feel alone? I mean, alone-alone — lonely. If you do, then chances are you are part of the growing majority that not only feels this occasionally but chronically as well.
How is that possible?
At this moment in time, we’re the most connected population in human history. Our devices allow us to do all sorts of things and cheaply connect to people on the other side of the world in an instant. Yet we feel more isolated than ever.
Being lonely and being alone are not the same thing, I think that much is clear. But what might not be clear is that the void that’s growing inside of us can cause us to do crazy things — things we’d typically not resort to — to get some attention.
Loneliness is recognised by our brains like any other physical threat, and causes us to preserve ourselves more — this, in turn, allows the ego to grow out of control (I wrote about this a couple of months back). It’s a hard cycle to break out of because the brain perceives acts of others as dangerous and hostile.
Despite being partially to blame on humanity’s eagerness to build a better, more meaningful world, it’s somehow still in our biology to feel lost and lonely at some point in our lives, and that’s perfectly okay.
Another contributor is our desire to fulfil some existential purpose. This notion has been around for pretty much our entire existence.
I spend a lot of my time pondering notions such as these because as someone who dealt with many crises (and I just turned 27, hahaha), I like to reflect on what is happening.
At first, I thought I was broken — that something was wrong with just me. But as time and time again, I kept encountering the same dilemma, I realised that most of us go through similar situations. Hence something is wrong with all of us.
I’m sure that not everyone will agree with me on this one. But I do believe one thing. And this thing is something that we must sooner than later hear so that we can take our blinders off and make time for ourselves and the things and people that truly matter to us.
We’re a bunch of sentient beings that don’t quite feel at home and the very thing we’re missing — a sense of proper connection — is the same thing causing us to push people away.
Interestingly, our brains are ironically wired at the same time to resist this and anything else that’s good for us.
Anyway, I wanted to end this year with a focus on a less dark, yet equally serious topic; love and committed relationships. As it’s a topic that’s very important to my partner, my friends and I, I wanted to take my time and write something worthwhile. Throughout the writing of this article, I got stuck on a topic I’ve been covering lately (ego). And it wasn’t until I got into a discussion with a friend of mine that I could move forward (you know who you are, thank you for your insights).
What you read here might not help you find love — no, that’s not the purpose. My writings, however cynical, have always been about making others feel like they’re not alone, and this one is no exception.
hashtag relationship goals.
#relationshipgoals is still a thing apparently, and the content people share under this hashtag is quite interesting.
All jokes aside though, being in a now eight-year relationship, I get a lot of friends and acquaintances being impressed by the commitment of my partner and I.
Although we indeed consider it so, I cannot say that either of us know what we’re doing. A lot has happened in these eight years — a lot of great memories, but also things we deeply regret. Yet the deeper level of connection we felt when we first met — that feeling of comfort, of knowing each other for a much longer time than our existence, hasn’t withered.
Call it the one, soulmate, twin-flame, or whatever else is out there these days, a relationship like this with someone that just gets us is like magic, and we all want it.
The reason for this is because we need to be distracted from the gnawing void inside. We hate being lonely, so to counteract the feeling it gives us, we go on this wild chase looking for “the elusive happiness” that we can only get from “the one”.
The image of love and relationships we have has been profoundly influenced by Romanticism. It’s plastered all around us in movies, ads, books, etc., and we carry it on a high pedestal. Let’s face it we’re enamoured with the thought of being in love and going home to somebody, more than genuinely loving someone. If we truly did, we’d be behaving differently.
At first glance, there is no problem with this, right? Nothing wrong with wanting a bit of warmth in our souls. But why is it that warmth can’t come from within? We act like being alone is something we should avoid at all costs. Much of this very notion trickles down and is the foundation of the now-famous Singles Day. In a nutshell, a day where you get yourself a consolation prize because you don’t have a significant other. Of course, the idea behind this holiday used to be different, but today, the earlier-mentioned is essentially the gist. And it has singlehandedly become the world’s most popular shopping day.
I grew up hearing that one cannot love someone until they love themselves first. Like many others, I thought that it was bullshit because I could see others in relationships which to me at the time seemed to be great. But as time passed and my appreciation of truth intensified, I noticed that these people were right, but in a superficial sense.
If we, for a moment, took off those glasses and put on a different pair — one that allows us to observe a little closer — we’d see that love is indescribable, unfathomable. The cliché’s people write about it do not do it justice. In fact, one misses the point entirely if they were to put this phenomenon into words.
We don’t know what love is, and it’s much more complex than we can imagine. To hunt it down, especially without knowing who we are, and to approach it like other more logical events, is a waste of time.
Both of the above require ego, a part of us that we’ve grown to trust more and more as our world demands it. But ego, as opposed to what my friend was saying, is not entitlement based on the value someone poses to others — the idea behind that is transactional (I’ll leave you to ponder this). See his opinion, even though valid and also, to a certain extent true, did not cover the main point I wanted to cover.
The ego is our more mundane, contracted selves, that keeps itself busy with trivial matters it cannot in a million years control. The problem is that more often than less, we operate from such a place.
Throughout our days, we have the illusion that we’re in control. But it’s not true.
See, if something were to go differently than what we expect, the behaviour we’d resort to is that of not being in control; we become stressed, reactive, panicky, even paranoid imagining things that haven’t even happened to us.
When it comes to committing to someone, it’s not going to work out if deep down all we want is to conquer and control. I don’t only mean the surface-level stuff like looks, race, intellect, etc. The judgemental aspect of it all — the act itself is the concern. To judge someone, one must have an image of who they are and who they want to associate with. Again, there’s no problem with that initially, but there is when we think we are “deserving” of someone (which is also transactional).
Nowadays, we can visit these virtual human supermarkets, swipe left and right until we see the unicorn that — just on their profile alone — ticks off all the requirements on our list of demands. I’m not trying to mock anyone. Mind you, my partner and I have also met each other online — on Facebook of all places. But to date each other wasn’t even the intent behind our conversations. Back then, we were also concerned about types and other superficialities.
I’m sorry, but nobody is that special to get who they want and be deserving of it. What about the other person’s needs? Do we tick all these person’s demands as well? The other person’s needs are rarely what we think about.
Here’s the thing about our collective toxic mentality about love and commitments; It’s an established fact that we love to give false meaning to things. That we enjoy believing that just because two people have come together, that it means that they’re each other’s “the one” and that it’s a done deal — happily ever after.
There is no such thing; there is no certainty. Not at the beginning, not after years of being together, probably never. And that’s okay because if there’s one thing that this relationship has thought me that I did wrong in my previous one, is that they require vulnerability.
It takes courage..no, genuine confidence to be vulnerable. Perhaps more confidence than what most consider “strong character”. And that confidence is something you build on your own — when you use your alone-time effectively.
My definition of effective might be different, but I know that a lot of people are not comfortable meditating — they find it terrifying. That’s to me, a telltale sign that people don’t spend valuable time by themselves.
I’m not saying isolate yourself, nor am I saying to set yourself up for solitary life. I’m saying stop popping out your veins in frustration. Do yourself a favour, be a giant help to your own overall mental health; stop resisting, be brutally honest with yourself, accept, appreciate, breathe, and say “Okay, I see, what can I do now?”.
We think strength lies in being in control; we couldn’t be more wrong as these are usually external. Pure power and control lie within — one of the most fundamental pillars of the Stoic philosophy.
Rule of thumb for life; keeping yourself busy with things that don’t matter and overthinking them — especially those you cannot control — kills your reality.
And here’s another one because I’m feeling generous.
There’s a general rule to receiving things in life; if you want something, you’ve got to give it first. And it applies to love as well (hence the title).
“The One” doesn’t exist.
I’m sorry to be the bearer of even more bad news, but “the one” doesn’t exist. You might’ve realised that this article was heading this direction, and now that I’ve finally said it, you might be like “Well, you’ve got some explaining to do, Ilsmarie.”.
And explain, I will.
So far, we know that love doesn’t mix well with ego. At best, it’ll get you familiarity, not love. What I mean with familiarity is that people are left hurt as it might take them through some deeply rooted issues they’ve dealt with earlier on in their lives.
No, love takes vulnerability.
We also know that love is the type of phenomenon where, despite challenges, we grow in different areas of our lives in ways that we cannot imagine.
The reason why I started this article the way I did is to emphasise later on (now) that we are indeed inherently alone. We spend our entire lives looking for something that doesn’t exist; a committed relationship that feels like magic with a special somebody that just gets us. Only then we’ll be happy.
Nobody gets us the way we think they do. There’s a common ground we reach in our understanding for each other, and that’s as far as we can get because we’re limited.
This makes our fear of committing to the wrong person, of being incompatible, pointless. Because incompatibility only happens when we give it space and allow it to happen.
In a manner of speaking then, this means that abiding by moral and ethical rules and laws of our society (of course), relationships, in essence, can be with anyone as desire is something that all of us have and is the number one component that is required to keep them alive.
Note, this doesn’t mean desperately putting yourself out there. But the focus is on having enough love, vulnerability, desire and compassion to acknowledge that you’re both not perfect people. That just like individual struggles you put up with in order to achieve something in the long run, that a relationship with someone is in that way, the same. And that you both — if your desire is strong enough — choose each other again and again, regret nothing, despite how one ends up hurting the other.
That’s the type of commitment it sometimes takes and having that sense of compassion for someone that isn’t our family is very tough.
This has to be mutual. Things will become out of balance if one does this noticeably more than the other, and this is probably one of those cases where confidence comes back into the picture.
Not everyone is as they initially appear to be; some are decitful, some lie, and some wait until we’re fully committed to them to start showing us who they really are. Having a strong bond with ourselves can be the determining factor when it comes to deciding whether we’ll keep pushing on or not.
Love is not rocket science — apparently, we already have the latter under our belts — but it’s not incomprehensible either. It is if we keep functioning from our default state of being.
It can be looked for, and that’s what most of us resort to, but the genuine kind is more often found. You’ll know because it feels less forced, less superficial, less lustful.
Power to you if the opposite is what you want. But it might be worth contemplating how well you know yourself and whether this is something you want for the rest of your life.
Of course, you should experiment and not take my word for anything that was said. I’m not a guru; my relationship, as mentioned earlier, is not flawless (and my partner and I continue to learn from each other), so try it at your own risk.
Thanks for reading. Have a nice day and holiday season if the Universe permits! 🖖
