SINGLE AND SEARCHING?

Single and looking for love?

While there are always obstacles to meeting the right person, these tips can help you find lasting love and build a healthy, worthwhile relationship.

Obstacles to finding love

Are you single and looking for love? Are you finding it hard to meet the right person? When you’re having trouble finding a love connection, it’s all too easy to become discouraged or buy into the destructive myths out there about dating and relationships.

Life as a single person offers many rewards, such as being free to pursue your own hobbies and interests, learning how to enjoy your own company, and appreciating the quiet moments of solitude. However, if you’re ready to share your life with someone and want to build a lasting, worthwhile relationship, life as a single person can also seem frustrating.

For many of us, our emotional baggage can make finding the right romantic partner a difficult journey. Perhaps you grew up in a household where there was no role model of a solid, healthy relationship and you doubt that such a thing even exists. Or maybe your dating history consists only of brief flings and you don’t know how to make a relationship last. You could be attracted to the wrong type of person or keep making the same bad choices over and over, due to an unresolved issue from your past in your heart. Or maybe you’re not putting yourself in the best environments to meet the right person, or that when you do, you don’t feel confident enough.

Whatever the case may be, you can overcome your obstacles. Even if you’ve been burned repeatedly or have a poor track record when it comes to dating, these tips can help put you on the path to finding a healthy, loving relationship that lasts.

What is a healthy relationship?

Every relationship is unique, and people come together for many different reasons. However, there are also some characteristics that most healthy relationships have in common, such as mutual respect, trust, and honesty. In a strong, healthy relationship you also:

Maintain a meaningful emotional connection with each other. You each make the other feel loved and emotionally fulfilled.

Are able respectfully disagree. You need to feel safe to express things that bother you without fear of retaliation, and be able to resolve conflict without humiliation, degradation, or insisting on being right.

Keep outside relationships and interests alive. To stimulate and enrich your romantic relationship, it’s important to sustain your own identity outside of the relationship, preserve connections with family and friends, and maintain your hobbies and interests.

Communicate openly and honestly. Good communication is a key part of any relationship. When both people know what they want from the relationship and feel comfortable expressing their needs, fears, and desires, it can increase trust and strengthen the bond between you.

Reassess your misconceptions about dating and relationships

The first step to finding love is to reassess some of the misconceptions about dating and relationships that may be preventing you from finding lasting love.

COMMON MYTHS ABOUT DATING AND LOOKING FOR LOVE

Myth: I can only be happy and fulfilled if I’m in a relationship or It’s better to have a bad relationship than no relationship.

Fact: While there are health benefits that come with being in a solid relationship, many people can be just as happy and fulfilled without being part of a couple. Despite the stigma in some social circles that accompanies being single, it’s important not to enter a relationship just to “fit in.” Being alone and being lonely are not the same thing. And nothing is as unhealthy and dispiriting as being in a bad relationship.

Myth: If I don’t feel an instant attraction to someone, it’s not a relationship worth pursuing.

Fact: This is an important myth to dispel, especially if you have a history of making inappropriate choices. Instant sexual attraction and lasting love do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. Emotions can change and deepen over time, and friends sometimes become lovers—if you give those relationships a chance to develop.

Myth: Women have different emotions than men.

Fact: Women and men feel similar things but sometimes express their feelings differently, often according to society’s conventions. But both men and women experience the same core emotions such as sadness, anger, fear, and joy.

Myth: True love is constant or Physical attraction fades over time.

Fact: Love is rarely static, but that doesn’t mean love or physical attraction is doomed to fade over time. As we age, both men and women have fewer sexual hormones, but emotion often influences passion more than hormones, and sexual passion can become stronger over time.

Myth: I’ll be able to change the things I don’t like about someone.

Fact: You can’t change anyone. People only change if and when they want to change.

Myth: I didn’t feel close to my parents, so intimacy is always going to be uncomfortable for me.

Fact: It’s never too late to change any pattern of behavior. Over time, and with enough effort, you can change the way you think, feel, and act.

Myth: Disagreements always create problems in a relationship.

Fact: Conflict doesn’t have to be negative or destructive. With the right resolution skills, conflict can also provide an opportunity for growth in a relationship.