When it comes to dating, and ultimately falling head over heels in love, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture. One bad date followed by another, or one break up followed by another can really get you feeling negative about this whole love thing. It makes dating feel like a chore, like yet another item to check off on our to-do list. When the going gets tough, and you want to declare that you'll be happily single forever because this dating stuff is for the birds, it's important to remember one crucial thing about love.
Love doesn't make any sense.
I'm sure you're thinking and this is a good thing?! It absolutely is! Have you ever met someone online who you're sure is a perfect match for you? They tick all the right boxes on your must have list and you're sure that when you meet in person you'll ride off into the sunset. He or she is your perfect match, it's written right there!
Except, no.
Although it definitely can turn out that way, more often than not when you do meet up for a real life date you soon realize that there just isn't anything there, no chemistry, no spark, nada zip zero and you're left disappointed that you had no connection whatsoever, and wondering what you did wrong.
Nothing! You did nothing wrong. No matter how many personality quizzes you take, or how detailed your online dating profile, or how much your interests line up with someone else's, love just doesn't work that way.
It seriously makes no sense.
And that's a good thing. It's a good thing that love doesn't play by our rules or fit into the guidelines some dude in a suit pulled out of the air when building an online dating site he's probably never even used. It's a good thing that no matter how much data they pull from your profile, they'll never know exactly what kind of person you truly need. It's a good thing that we don't fall in love and marry people just because our profiles are compatible or we both binge watch the same shows on Netflix, both studied psychology in University and have a few mutual Facebook friends.
That would be really, really boring.
I'm sure some of you are reading thinking that boring sounds better than single at this point, but if you're looking for true love versus just a change in your relationship status, isn't it worth the wait to meet someone who not only is compatible digitally but also provides things that no data analyst could ever measure? Things like the butterflies in your stomach when you catch their eye, the excitement that builds before your third date. How you can talk forever about everything and nothing all at once, for hours, and never get (you guessed it!) bored. How he or she exposes you to new things and adventures and challenges you in a way that someone super "compatible" for you never could.
Love doesn't make sense. Love isn't supposed to. Love is here to catch you off guard, surprise the heck out of you, to show up when you aren't expecting it and make a mess of things. Love's job is to challenge you, make you a better person, sustain you through difficult times. Love is here to leave you shaking your head in awe, wondering how on earth you ended up with the person you did, because it doesn't make any sense...yet you wouldn't have it any other way. Love makes the wrong person all of a sudden, right.
Letting go of the expectation that love and dating and all of it should make sense is the single most important thing you can do to not only make your dating life more successful, but also more enjoyable. Keeping your mind and your heart open to love's possibilities means you aren't constrained to dating people who only fit your mold on paper or on a screen. It means that when it comes to love, your options are endless, and who wouldn't want that?