This Is Why You Haven’t Found Love

With Valentine’s Day behind us, this week seemed as good as any to give you a microdose of your Dr. Darcy meds. What follows is, as always, the stuff you’ll only get here.

This is why you can’t find love:

You’re looking for your soulmate. But the notion of a soulmate is bullshit. It’s a fairytale rooted in an idea that the right partner will be easy once you find them. The ying to your yang. Effortless. Or less effort than the rest. The truth is, when you have relationship skills, you can literally make any relationship work. And there is no magical person who will render the hard work of relationships unnecessary. 

You’re chasing an emotion. Love – the love you felt in the beginning – it doesn’t last. It doesn’t last because no emotion lasts. They all ebb and flow. Chasing love is like chasing happiness. Stop viewing either as a noun and embrace them as verbs. They are daily habits. You love through your words, your daily actions, choices and decisions. Love is what you do. And when you do it well, you will have moments of feeling love.

You’re hoping the right partner will dispel your inner sense that there’s something wrong with you. Which no one can do because the thing that you think is wrong with you kinda is…. I mean, only in the sense that we all leave childhood on fractured limbs. None of us are quite right. And aside from being unable to fix this, your intimate partner will feel compelled to underscore your shortcomings because of their need to help you grow. Though, to be sure, it will land as criticism. 

You’re looking for someone who isn’t broken. Which doesn’t exist. See above. 

You try to impress in the beginning. Which would be fine if you’d commit to using that level of self-discipline forever. But you’re hardwired to do it just long enough to enrapture them, expose their neural networks to the chemicals our brains secrete during infatuation, rendering them powerless to walk away once they do see your craziness. A more honest person would lead with their crazy. Which brings me to the final point:

You don’t know yourself. If you did, you’d be equipped to describe all the ways you’re off to a potential partner and perhaps even coach them to meet your needs. But you don’t have the answers. Because no one’s been honest with you. 

Your exes walk away without completing exit surveys. 

Your parents were either blind to your faults, too fragile themselves to tell you, or they hurled the information in such a tactless way that it had no chance of landing on you. 

Your friends, well, they’re just looking to peacefully coexist with you. Plus they get you in small enough doses to tolerate you. 

And your therapist…?  Most of us are lazy AF. We’d rather sit quietly, complacently, waiting for some mystical lightbulb to go off in your head without having to do the work of sparking it. 

But the primary reason we stay quiet is because we, too, are broken and most of us can’t tolerate the discomfort we feel when you’re upset.