Finding love is the one thing that all humans around the world similarly crave. It is something we learn and begin to experience from the moment that we are born. It carries on through our relationship with both family members and friends/acquaintances as children and teenagers and continues until we become adults and are propelled to find a soul mate. However, as much as we all want to love and be loved, it does not usually play out as we wish.
Entering a loving relationship and finding the ideal partner from the over 7 billion people in the world appears to be very easy until you find yourself desperately looking for love. While doing so, many of us drive ourselves crazy while others end up spending their whole life waiting for the perfect person to walk into their life. They do this even though they aren’t sure that it will ever happen, or are in some cases not prepared for it.
Is There a Possibility of Never Finding Love?
A significant number of people go through life without ever finding love or experiencing a loving relationship. This happens more often than you would think and while many might view this as a death sentence, it is not as bad. Being alone does not make one a horrible person as being with someone doesn’t automatically solve all your problems, especially if you end up with the wrong person. People who find themselves bothering about this so much are often reminded that getting into a romantic relationship should not be their peak as human beings.
But even though this is true, no one can understate the benefits of finding romantic love. The most obvious benefit is that it decreases stress and leads to a longer life. Research further suggests that the social and emotional support humans get from a committed relationship can serve as a buffer against stress. There are also many biological benefits that include having lower blood pressure and a stronger immune system.
What Are The Chances of the Average Person Finding Love?
If left entirely to fate, the chance of the average person finding love on any given day is very steep. Celebrity mathematician Rachel Riley and researchers from the University of Bath calculated the odds of falling in love without actively trying to be 1 in 562. This means that for you to be able to find an ideal partner and enter into a loving relationship, there are a few things you need to actively do to improve your odds.
- Participate in extracurricular activities and mingle with those around you
- Talk to people at the gym
- Go for after-work drinks
- Meet colleagues and friends of colleagues
- Sign up to an online dating service
- Attend events where you can meet friends of friends
- Allow family and friends to set you up
The above-listed ways to improve one’s chances of finding love simply suggests that the more you make an effort to meet people, the higher your chances of having romantic success. Some of the ways listed above were found to be more effective than their counterparts. According to the report, there is a 17% chance that you find your significant other through an online dating service. The next best effective way is through meeting colleagues and friends of colleagues after which ranks talking to people at the gym. These two ways carry a 15% ad 11% chance respectively.
What is the Best Age to Find Love?
Different arguments can be made for when it is the best time for someone to fall in love but a huge chunk of people fall in love for the first time between the ages of 15 and 18. These relationships do not usually stand the test of time as teenagers are more enthralled with the fact that they are in love or are loved and do not necessarily know much about what to expect or give in a loving relationship. It is not until they enter their twenties and have gone through periods of being single that many people embark on their first serious/lasting love relationship.
A study conducted by Match.com agrees with this as it reports that the best time to fall in love in your twenties. The website came to this conclusion after interviewing over 2,000 people about their relationship. The exact age between the best ages for men and women, however, differs. According to the research, the average woman finds her life partner at the age of 25, while the average man is more likely to find their soulmate by the time they turn 28.
Reasons Why It Could Be Hard For One To Find Love
1. A False Understanding of Love
While everyone has their own unique perspective on love, not many of these ideas are ideal as most are usually based on what we see in Disney movies and other scripted shows. With such lofty expectations that are fueled by the media, people usually find it hard to find love or stay in a loving relationship.
2. Fear of Commitment
The idea of being loved is great, however, people are not necessarily willing to be exclusive and are often terrified of labels. This is especially so in a day and age where people choose to embrace the hookup culture instead of cultivating love through attention and dedication. Being used to such can hinder one’s chances of finding love.
3. Having High Standards
Different people have different standards that they need to be met by their significant other. Some people who are in desperate need of love find themselves putting up with anyone that comes by just as long as they are in a loving relationship. Others, however, are too picky and are unwilling to settle for anything less than what they want. They have an idea of what their lover should be and are not willing to give anyone a chance, thus hindering their chance of finding love.
4. Unwillingness to Make Effort
Love requires a lot of time, dedication, and effort. Many people know this but are not willing to do what they need to do and would rather break it off because it is easier to walk out on a relationship than to maintain one.
5. The Fear of Getting Hurt
People who have witnessed those that are around them get hurt by someone they love tend to shy away from looking for love at all. These experiences contribute to them having trust issues and insecurities that prevent them from opening up.
Things To Do To Position Yourself For Finding Love
As stated above, one has to be actively looking for love to be able to find a relationship that will be lasting. It is not something one suddenly stumbles upon, although there are rare occasions when this happens. So, to be able to find this loving relationship that is very elusive to many people, there are a few things you have to do, consciously and unconsciously, to be successful.
1. Be Intentional About Finding a Partner
A few people may have said to you in the past that “you would most likely find love when you are least looking for it.” While this may have happened to some, the chances of it happening to you are very little. Relationship experts see this as a bad strategy or even an excuse for being scared to put in the necessary effort. They are not saying that you have to desperate about it, but rather you should know what you are looking for and make sure you leave nothing to chance to find that person.
This includes always having your eyes on your phone instead of trying to mingle with those around you when you do go out. How many times have you been at a bar and have seen people staring at their devices? These actions are counterproductive as you should always be present to notice all the people that are in the room.
2. Don’t Be Preoccupied with Looking for a Soulmate
People tend to look for someone who they can describe as the one instead of trying to find the person that completes them. You are advised to turn your intention inward by getting to know and accepting yourself for who you are first, before exploring outward to find the “missing parts of you”. This way, you are able to know exactly what you want and make a good decision in finding that lasting love relationship.
3. Go Where You Will Find People of Similar Interests
It does not matter if it is a church-related event, volunteer group, social group, or political party event, as long as you are doing something that you like. While engaging in such activities, you will most likely meet somebody of like mind.
4. Engage in Things That You Want To Do
Do things that you want to do and do not follow someone else’s rules and ideas about what you should do. If you do this, you get to live life on your own terms, ie get a job you are really interested in, visit places you want to, and interact with those that interest you. Doing things like this inadvertently puts you close to people with who you have similar interests and increases your chances of finding your soulmate.
5. Avoid Not Being Yourself To Appeal To An Imagined Potential Partner
Many people have found themselves altering the way they behave and do things in general because they think it will make them more attractive to someone out there. This could include a wide variety of things like going to the gym, doing yoga, attending church programs, etc. You should only do these things because you are interested in them and not because you think it will fetch you the lasting love relationship that you are looking for.
A potential partner is interested in the real, authentic, and passionate side of you that will not be present when you are more fixated on doing things that you would not naturally do. Such a person is looking to be with you over a long-term period so there will not be making a decision about your worth based on a superficial aspect of your appearance. This would however not be so if you always be yourself wherever you go.
6. Seek a Partnership Instead of a Romance
When the times get tough in a marriage, what keeps couples going is the fact that they have a partnership. Many are stuck in a fairytale world looking for out-of-the-world romance instead of facing reality head-on. As the author of “How to be Happy Partners: Working it Out Together” said, romance is for dates and you should not look for someone who sweeps you off your feet. You should instead look for someone who likes to give and take, someone who seeks their partner’s opinion and considers it, and who cares about what their partners want.
7. Do Not Hurry Things Up When You Meet Someone
Whenever you meet someone who looks like they check all your boxes, there is no need to engage in any games or try particular seduction techniques. There is also no need to set a particular time frame to achieve a milestone as a successful long-lasting love relationship is not a game and does not expire. The best way to approach this is to allow that connection to develop and grow because If that person is indeed your soul mate, he or she will be into you regardless of anything.
8. Learn To Communicate Properly
The ability to properly and effectively communicate is a life skill that everyone should have. When getting ready to get into a relationship, a long-lasting and loving one as you would hope, one of the first things you should ask yourself is if your communication skills are good enough. You should be able to hold a conversation for more than a few minutes and not get nervous around people you are not familiar with. If these are things that you have problems with, it is best that you work on it beforehand to get yourself ready for a love relationship because the better you are at communicating, the more likely you will be able to get exactly what you want in life.
Conclusion
Love does not discriminate. This famous saying should always be at the back of your head whenever you question your chances of ever finding love. It does not matter if you have been in a series of bad relationships or have been single your whole life as long as you understand that everything can change for the better as soon as you make some simple changes to your life and adopt a better attitude to things.
After this, you must ensure that you make yourself available and put yourself out there to be able to meet people. It is also important for you to note that nobody is perfect and that it might take some time for two people to figure out what they really from a relationship.
