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There are endless amounts of books claiming they can teach us how to get the man of our dreams. There are literally thousands of self-help books based on the concept of finding love. I’m all for self improvement and being the best person you can possibly be, but when it comes to love and matters of the heart, is that really something that can be taught?
The process of hope when it comes to finding love has become something that we can access at our fingertips. Through apps on our phones, or adding a profile picture and a bio to a dating website that promises you a match – copy and paste has never been more utilised. Now, more than ever, we can network and connect with new people through social media platforms, all at the click of a button. In minutes we can enter ourselves into the muddled, sometimes wonderful, sometimes infuriating world of love online.
Our generation has often been accused of becoming lost in this new ‘hook-up culture’. Because meeting new people has become so accessible there is almost this conveyor belt notion when it comes to dating. We meet potential new love interests as quickly as we are rid of them.
Are you just getting to know each other, dating, casually seeing one another? No one really knows anymore. There is this grey area that many of us get trapped in, but no one is really sure what to label it as. It’s the place where magic is sometimes lost, where hope starts to dwindle and where you find yourself questioning if it will, ever just happen. So, in turn, some seek further guidance.
On the introduction to one of the leading romance self-help books it reads: So often I hear, ‘where are all the good men?’ The problem is that you’re not meeting them, simply because you haven’t given yourself the opportunity to meet them.
As if we don’t, collectively, have enough discrepancies as a gender to fight back against. We now have to fight against the concept that it is also our fault for not being in the right place at the right time.
In the midst of this confusion and having digested too many romantic self-help books where you are advised to either confess your love, or do entirely the opposite and purposely ignore your potential interest in some sort of attempt to gain interest from them, I think now is the most important time to highlight the most key relationship of all: The one with yourself.
As cliché as it may sound: The relationship with yourself will determine the relationship you have with another. If you are content with your own life and every other aspect of your life, then the person who wants to come into your life will have to add to it to make it something you want to invest in. I don’t mean add in a material way – far from it. But add substance, give you something to think about, give you a new perspective or stimulate you intellectually and vice versa.
Love is not something that can be taught. Love is something that can be felt. It will happen when it is supposed to, so in the mean time, just focus on yourself – the most important investment of all.
By Tasha Artwell
