I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve always wanted to find real love.

Although I enjoy my solitude every now and then, I admit that I wouldn’t say no to a lifelong partnership.

I looked for real love in more than one continent. I crossed oceans for people who were potential lovers and overstayed with them in places that could have been my forever home.

The things I have done for real love are incomprehensible. Have I found it though? No, I haven’t.

But I have found something much better.

I have found a real partner who’s genuine and supportive. He’s loving and kind. He’s a great husband and even a greater father. Our relationship is far from being perfect, but we sit with our imperfections and ugly feelings every single day and see how we can make things better.

When I was looking for real love, I always found myself stuck in toxic relationships with people who were not right for me. I attracted partners who were either emotionally unavailable or commitment phobics. For many years, I thought there was something wrong with me. Well, I’m not perfect, but I’m not that bad either.

What was wrong all along was not me; it was what I was looking for. I kept looking for real love without taking into consideration the person with whom I was falling in love.

The “love” felt real; the person didn’t. And so I kept swinging from a destructive relationship to another, without realizing that I was the main cause of my emotional pain.

So stop looking for real love. Look for a real person instead.

Focus on that and I promise you that that will eventually lead to real love.

I don’t blame you for wanting to find real love either. In fact, this is what we hear, see, and read all the time. All the love stories and movies we know revolve around finding that real love—the kind that will sweep you off your feet.

So when we meet someone we put all our focus on that idea. We focus on how they make us feel, especially during the initial stages of falling in love. We sink deeper and deeper into the emotional fulfillment that they induce, without thinking about the more complex things that will unfold throughout the course of the relationship.

Love as a general idea doesn’t equal who someone is. We could fall in love with someone who might not be a good match. They might not be kind or respectful. They might treat us badly. They might have different values or beliefs. Or, simply, they might want different things.

Having said that, relationships and love are two different things though they are interconnected; we can’t have one without the other. We need to understand that if love feels good, it doesn’t mean that the relationship will too.

In our minds, somehow, we have merged love with people and relationships. We think they’re the same thing, but that is exactly why we keep finding ourselves stuck in disconnected partnerships.

Love is a universal feeling. It brings people together and shows us how deep we can open our hearts.

We (people) are the providers of love, and we must be real and genuine and mindful and kind enough to know how to show it.

A relationship is where people practice love. The first two things must be in harmony in order to create real love. If they’re not real, love won’t be real.

So please, start looking for real people. Enjoy the feel-good emotions and the intimacy that will beautifully unfold, but don’t mistake it for a healthy, right-for-you relationship. You need to find real traits that will help your partner to make real decisions, have real conversations, and do the hard, real work on themselves.

The moment you start looking for this is the moment you will find new, different outcomes.

~