Looking For Love Should Be Part Of Your Life But Not Your WHOLE Life

Are you totally obsessed with finding a guy? Are you spending too much of your free time searching for someone to have a relationship yet? This used to be me until I realized I should tone it right down. Here’s why I think it’s bad to put too much effort into finding a relationship.

1. You miss out on all the other amazing things in life. Yes, aspirations are good, but constantly thinking about what you don’t have is pulling focus away from all those areas of your life that are actually kinda great. A relationship is only one part of a happy life. What about your job, your friends, your hobbies, your family? Don’t forget to enjoy the other things that really matter, while you work on the one thing you’re still missing.
2. There’s more to your life than your relationship status (or at least there should be). If the rest of your life could use a bit of a kick to get going, too, then concentrating all your efforts on finding a relationship can actually get in the way of figuring things out. I used to think that finding a relationship would sort out all my problems in life, but surprise! It didn’t. Leaving my crappy job, spending more time with my friends and going back to school to study something I actually care about made me much happier, and therefore a much better person to be in a relationship with.
3. Constantly looking makes you feel like a failure when you don’t find love. I realized I was living in the future and not the present, constantly comparing my situation to what I wanted it to be. For as long as I wasn’t in a relationship, I felt that I was letting myself down and being a lesser person for it. It took me a while to understand that no, there was nothing wrong with me for being single. It’s perfectly OK. I don’t actually need another person to validate my existence as a human being.
4. Desperation isn’ts exy. Nothing makes you less attractive than being desperate to find a match. For one, it means you’re not really seeing the person in front of you for who they really are. All you want is a way out of your current state. It makes the whole dating process needlessly tense and serious from the get-go too.
5. You make bad choices unless you’re happy being on your own. If you want to find someone who’s really right for you, you need to chill out. I wouldn’t trust myself to pick a gourmet restaurant if I were starving. I’d grab the first available meal anywhere. By the same token, I wouldn’t trust myself to pick the love of my life if I were terrified of ending up on my own. Luckily, you need food to live, but you can get by perfectly well without a guy.
6. Thinking a relationship is the most important thing in life takes away your power. When you’re constantly looking, it makes you feel like you’re incapable of existing as a single person. But guess what? You can! Yeah, it’s great to be with someone, but does that mean you can’t survive on your own? The best thing I ever did was learn how to enjoy my own company and my life as a single person.
7. You won’t look back with regret because you neglected the rest of your life. Looking back, I’m quite amazed at how much time I used to spend desperately searching for a relationship. I mean, sure, you do need to put some time and effort in if you want to find someone on a dating site or a dating app. Just going on dates is time-consuming and there’s no way around that. But I was looking outside myself so much, I forgot to look inwards and sort out my own life. Once I took a break and started looking at other aspects of myself and my life that I wasn’t entirely happy with, things just clicked into place for me.
8. You can spend time doing things that are more fun with people you care about. Give me some fun times with my BFFs over a bad date any night of the week! I was going on so many dates, I hardly had any free time to spend with my friends anymore. Why sacrifice guaranteed good times for a potential disaster all the time? Everything in moderation, as they say!
9. The time you spend looking isn’t related to whether or not you’ll find someone. As much as we hate to admit it, finding the right person is about luck as much as anything else. You could go on 1,000 dates and not find anyone you like, then bump into the perfect person on the street. So yes, it helps to be actively looking in all kinds of ways, but the chances of you missing The One, cause you went to see a movie with your friends instead of spending the night browsing dating profiles is frankly pretty slim.
10. Being “that person” makes you boring. Obsessing over relationships, seeing every man in the vicinity as a potential target and constantly moaning about how you hate being alone doesn’t make you good company. Sorry, but it’s true. Find other stuff to talk about occasionally.
11. Burnout is a thing. It’s okay to take a break. Going on too many dates, spending too many nights alone at home swiping left (or right) till your fingers hurt—the struggle is real! You don’t have to constantly be actively looking for a relationship to feel that you’re making the effort. In fact, taking a break every once in a while to just, you know, live your life, is going to make the whole process less painful. Going on a first date when you really can’t be bothered is not doing anyone any favors anyway.