Unpopular beliefs about love guaranteed to keep you happy

“I’m waiting for a guy to come and rescue me, fight with the whole world and keep me safe forever”, said my 30 year old (single AF) girlfriend. She’s been single for quite some time now, being faithful to this one idea in her head that combines the Middle Ages, MMA & holy water in one piece of hunky soul mate material.

I managed to listen to her story of “pure bad luck” and how things didn’t “work out for her” only to find out she’s still living with her parents, in a 2 bedroom apartment at the top floor of an old building, in our childhood neighborhood. She’s still waiting.

I explained that the only misfortune about her life was that she held onto the idea that a prince charming will naturally find her parent’s address and show up at her door, ask permission to park his horse in the living room and proceed to swoop her off her feet and out of her teen bedroom.

A lot of otherwise smart people are stuck in a fantasy just like this one. Nowadays, social media & perfect profiles feed these illusions and keep the misery going, one #relationshipgoals hashtag at a time.

My unpopular opinions about relationships are made to keep you grounded, keep those standards high while giving you a glimpse of how the world works, before & after the happy ending.

• We’re all brainwashed — poems, novels, movies, fairy tales, songs. All of them have programmed our brains to expect magic to happen. Stardust. Signs. Butterflies. Prince charming. Real life doesn’t come with a soundtrack and there will not be angels crying when you have sex.
• We love the idea of love — we have checklists, fantasies, secret wishes that mess with our minds. We end up loving the idea of being in love, of being in a relationship more than the person by our side. Moreover, we love our idea of a partner, and go above and beyond to keep it and inflict it upon our significant other & change him/her, rather than facing the facts, loving what is or choosing something else.
• Everybody fights — it’s normal, healthy & productive if you’re doing it the right way.
• Most people settle — whether it’s their low standards or poor self esteem, trying to please others or fit in, most people will end up being miserable, stuck in a relationship that has nothing to do with their true desires. They get married and have kids because that’s “what you do after college”, or “after a certain age” and get to ask the important questions only after baby no. 2 turns five.
• Cheating is easy — everybody can do it. You don’t need to be rich, smart or attractive. You don’t have to be a player and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re an awful person. Sticking to your initial promise and finding new ways of loving the same person, day after day, now that’s the hard part.
• Soulmates are not real — there’s no one person right for you, you’re not too young, too old to find love. Love is not a finite resource, you didn’t miss the train. You do need to find a special person, whose crazy matches your crazy and work for it.