Love With Love Is Paid
Maybe you feel lonely or lonely and you don’t want to be like that. You wish you had a partner, but although you yearn for it with great intensity, something happens and you do not achieve it. You may be tempted to blame luck, or karma, or fate. Or perhaps you succumb to something worse: the idea that you are not someone worth loving.
The matter is not from another world. It does not depend on mysterious forces, nor on factors that are beyond your reach. It is true that chance plays some role in love, but if you dig a little deeper and look at it carefully, it is mainly the forces of the “more here” that conspire against you.
Love with love is paid
The main reason most people do not find a partner is a lack of self-esteem. The equation works like this: how much you love yourself, how much they will love you. It is not possible for another person to love you if you do not love yourself or accept yourself and, without noticing it, you give signs of that contempt to others. Just as you treat yourself, so they will treat you.
The matter is not so simple. It can turn into a vicious cycle: by not finding a partner who loves you, you feel unworthy of love. And since you don’t think you deserve to be loved, you can’t find a partner either. It looks like a tongue twister, but it represents a fairly common reality.
The worst thing is that the lack of self-love also leads to other attitudes that go against yourself. You may not be able to mature enough your concept of love. You may tend to idealize this field of life and then unconsciously have the conviction that a partner is the one who will solve all your problems.
That’s when you only fix your attention on people who score ten in whatever evaluation you give them. The most beautiful, the most successful, the safest. Assuming that these ideal models are not the product of your fantasies, the truth is that those relationships with the quasi idols of the day hardly prosper. That is because you are not really looking for love, but for the emotional benefit of being with someone who moves with sufficiency through life.
Doubts and ambivalence are another reason why you may not find a partner. It is possible that you fear suffering and that is why you want and do not want to. You go back and forth. This sends a confusing and nothing positive message to your prospective prospect.
The myths of the conquest
It is false that the physical is a definitive factor in the love affair. It is a lie inasmuch as there are many outwardly beautiful people, who remain in absolute loneliness. Likewise, many people who are not so graceful or without greater physical attributes manage to form wonderful couples.
What does happen is that carelessness almost never arouses erotic desires in another. And precisely the lack of self-esteem can lead to a certain disinterest in appearance. That you are clean, that you have a pleasant aroma, that you try to use the clothes that best suit you are factors that others will take into account. Your personal presentation sends a message about taking care of yourself.
The same happens with the treatment of others. If you are more concerned with being accepted and valued, than with accepting and valuing, you will hardly find someone who is willing to play your game of selfishness. And if you find it, it may not be a relationship with great potential for growth. There is a basic rule: give to others, whatever you want them to give you. And do it for free, without calculations. As simple as that.
There are no people who “were not born to love”, nor people “marked” by loneliness. What exist are people who have developed the ability and dexterity to bond with others and people who have those attributes only in potential.
If you really want to build a healthy relationship with someone else, you are going to do it. But it will not be fate or the lucky star who does it for you. You are going to have to invest a lot of effort. But don’t forget: it’s worth it.
Image courtesy of Anselm Baumgart.
