If you want to find true love, you have to stop trying to fall in love.

Look. Mostly, people are a bit… Rubbish. You know? I’m stating it too strongly. People are awesome, but not when you TRY and fall in love with one of them. You’ll give too many chances. You brainwash yourself into being in love. You’ll lie to yourself about the virtues of your partner, their intent, their character, and you romanticize them just so you can stay in love with them.

You don’t actually believe in love is the problem… So you try and fix the problem by pretending to be in love – as that’s the next best thing.

And believe me when I tell you I am as guilty as sin of this one myself. I have given so many people chances that I could start a small town with just them, and if you count all the women I’ve tried to consider my true friends, we’ll have a bustling metropolis in a couple of lifetimes.

I know all there is to self-brainwashing into falling in love with the one you can have right now rather than waiting for the one(s) you truly want. You know. Mister Right Here rather than Mister Right?

When you finally DO fall in love with someone, you start doubting your own ability to tell the difference. You’ve tattooed yourself a few times with the name of your lover, to convince yourself your love is as permanent as the ink on your skin… But no. It wasn’t.

And you know you’re lying to yourself, too, that’s also so obvious, but when you fall in love, you wonder if you might have done it again… Did you just get yourself wrapped up in another beautiful fantasy…? And that you’re just getting really good at fooling yourself?

Time to change gears. They say “stop looking” but I’m not going to repeat that, as you’re going look. Because you know yourself. I’ll rephrase it.

Make an effort to appreciate being single. It comes with a lot of bonuses. You can do whatever you want whenever you want – except… You know. Cuddle and stuff. (I’m as deep in this bad habit as you are, if not deeper.) You can have sex with whomever you want. That’s a real bonus. You can love them and leave them, and you don’t have to deal with all the relationship stuff.

I wouldn’t DECLARE that you’re not looking, as it is like catnip for people who just want to arm wrestle you into a marriage and you’ll lose that fight, having very little resistance to having relationships with the wrong people anyway…

Give yourself permission to love people without feeling possessive about them. Give yourself permission to feel the joy of another person’s existence, even if they don’t love yours as much as you love theirs. You know, like we love celebrities; the unattainables. We just feel the joy they are awesome. Love the people who you can’t have that same way, without pain… And if you’re lucky, maybe you will wind up with them, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Ourselves.

Feel joy for the fact people like the ones you love exist. And although that will liberate you like nothing, that still won’t be enough to break your habit of settling down with people you feel are more available to you.

Come clean with yourself and your romantic past. Who have you loved for real? Who have you not? I know there are people in your past who you loved. Maybe not forever, but still. But most importantly, admit to yourself that the people you’ve been with have not really been what you wanted them to be, and there are good reasons for why you didn’t fall in love with them. Why your brain didn’t fall in love with them.

Have fun. Flirt, but stop taking things so god damned seriously. Learn to brush serious people off with similar humor: “Oh you know, I just love men/women, a bit of fun, you know?” You can still love the search, you can keep looking, but stop looking for a SERIOUS relationship. Look for fun. If you have more fun with men than women, or vice versa, have fun with them – I mean not sexual fun per se, but just fun. Stop dating and start having fun – don’t limit yourself to non-sexual mashups, but stop being serious. Stop being a romantic. ;p It’s really bad for romance.

Lighten up.

Notice how much work you need to do in order to stay in love with your partner. If it takes work to love them… Maybe they’re not the right person.

If you’re married… To the wrong person… Forgive yourself for leaving. Whatever way you need to do it, life is too short for pretending. Even if the best you can do is to turn polyamorous, do that. And, you can always start having fun with your spouse… At your spouse’s expense, if nothing else works. 😉

Stop being a serious romantic.

Serious romantics never get what they want. They RARELY get what they want.

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