Relationships

Experts Say You Should Be Happy Being Forever Alone If You Want To Find Love

by Jamie LeeLo

Ever experience that thing when you're home for Thanksgiving, and an older relative tells you, "You can't love someone until you truly love yourself"?

Turns out, Aunt Joan from the Midwest has a point.

Though we might all know this to be true on some instinctual level, The School of Life released a video explaining why it is so important to find fulfillment in being single first (and potentially in being forever alone) in order to find true love.

The gist? Desperate is not a good look on any of us, honey:

The video explains that as we go through life, there's much more pressure to find a partner when we get older. Friends of ours who are already coupled up are more likely to begin leaving us out of plans, as hanging out with single people reminds them of missed opportunities.

Talk about passive aggressive.

The video further explained that when being in a relationship becomes more important than finding the right person, human beings make rash decisions and end up in unfulfilled or flat-out BAD relationships.

The School of Life explained,

We have to be utterly at peace with the prospect of many years of solitude in order to have any chance of forming a good relationship, or we'll love no longer being single rather more than we love the partner who spared us being so.

Additionally, back in the old days when it was much more common for marriage to be the only track to sex, people jumped into monogamy and spousal roles for all the wrong reasons.

Fortunately, we've since been a bit more sexually liberated as a society, allowing us to choose sexual partners — outside of marriage — for any number of reasons.

Unfortunately, despite all of the tools and resources we have to help us meet people these days, like dating apps, finding quality companionship AND quality sex can sometimes seem harder to come by than ever.

That is partially due to our habit of looking for someone "good enough" to fill the void, but who is not right for us in totality.

When being in a relationship becomes more important than finding the right person, human beings make rash decisions and end up in unfulfilled or flat-out BAD relationships.

The video continued,

Only when we can make sure that being single is as potentially as secure, warm and fulfilling as being in a couple will we know that people are choosing to pair up for the right reasons. It's time to liberate companionship from the shackles of coupledom.

So when we're at peace with our single lives, we'll ultimately pick our partners based on true compatibility and NOT out of the fear of dying alone, as we'll already be content in our lives as they are.

Also, HOT TIP: Pets and plants make, like, GREAT friends if you're in a pinch and need companionship. Just saying.

Citations: Being Happy Single Is the Best Predictor For Future Relationship Satisfaction (Medical Daily)