5 Things That Happen When You Stop Looking for Love

Are you considering letting go of looking for love because you have been trying and trying and trying to find it and failing?

Are you sick of dating sites and coffee shops and endless conversations with people who definitely aren’t the people for you?

I get it. Looking for love can be exhausting.

I always tell my clients that it’s okay to let go of looking for love. It doesn’t have to be forever, but sometimes taking a break is the best thing that you can do.

Why?

1. You can give yourself a rest.

Looking for love is exhausting work.

You have to make a dating profile, spend endless time swiping right or left, make tons of small talk with strangers, deal with people stalking you or disappearing, and then ultimately being disappointed when something doesn’t work out.

Who has the time and strength to deal with that?

Letting go of looking for love will give you your life back. It will give you a chance to spend time with friends, exercise, binge watch your favorite show, go to bed early, and maybe even read a book!

Imagine what that would feel like to not spend all of your time in the pursuit of love but to take a break and rest. Pretty amazing right?

2. You can focus on yourself.

It sounds like a cliché, I know. It’s a phrase people use when they have just recently broken up with someone and they want to seem strong.

But focusing on yourself is actually a fundamental part of being a healthy human, especially one in the dating world.

For many of us, dating means putting ourselves on hold. It’s hard to be our authentic selves when we are dating because we always feel like we have to put our best foot forward, to be someone who others would want to be with.

As a result, we sometimes lose ourselves in the process.

We stop doing yoga because we don’t have the time and we lose touch with how important it is for our sanity.

We stop having girls’ nights out with our friends because we want to be free to date, and therefore we don’t have people to laugh with or call us on our shit, both of which are super important.

We might neglect work or family or our dog, all in the pursuit of love.

Letting go of looking for love allows us to take some time to refocus on ourselves, to get to know ourselves again. To spend time with people we love, to make a priority the things that keep us sane and to curl up in bed with our puppy, watching our favorite old movies on Netflix.

And then, once we know and love ourselves again, we might be ready to put ourselves out into the dating world, having refamiliarized ourselves with how awesome we are.

3. You can think more about what you want in a person.

Have you ever been caught up in the dating process and realized that you might be dating some people for the wrong reasons?

Do you find that perhaps height or pets or distance from your apartment are the criteria on which you are basing your willingness to date someone?

If I asked you right now what you wanted in a person, would any of those three things be the first three items on your list? Probably not.

Imagine if you met a person out there in the world through a friend or at a bar. If you liked them, if you felt that chemistry, would you know or care about whether they liked dogs or cats or whether or not they lived in New Jersey? Probably not.

So, if you are considering letting go of looking for love, know that it will give you the opportunity to step back and reassess what is really important to you in a partner.

Make a list of what you want and of how your perfect person would make you feel. That way, when you do meet them, you will actually see them, no matter where they live with their cat.

4. You can get used to alone time.

People HATE it when I say this but I do think that it’s really important.

It is essential that, if we are going to be in a successful relationship, that we are good with being alone.

I have a friend who, when she first got divorced, found that being alone was the most uncomfortable thing for her. As a result, she frantically looked for love, desperately needing to fill up that empty space left by her ex-husband.

Eventually she was exhausted by her search and decided to try to take some time off from dating. At first, she was still uncomfortable in her home, but after a time, she got used to it. She learned that being alone allowed her to truly be herself and to do what she wanted to do. There was no one to take care of or compromise with – it was her way, always. And she liked that.

Learning how to be alone, to not be desperate for the company of another person, changed my friend’s life, because with this lack of neediness she became a stronger, more self-confident person who, in turn, attracted stronger, more self-confident guys. Guys she really liked. And guys who had to prove themselves to be allowed into her space.

So, take some time getting to know yourself and spending time alone. You will be glad you did.

5. Love will find you.

There is a saying attributed to Henry David Thoreau that reads, “Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder.”

This is true with love as well.

We often pursue love like we train for a marathon or push to get ahead in our career. But love isn’t found like that. Love is found when we are rested and know ourselves, when we are happy being alone and have the self-confidence to put our best foot forward.

If we continue our dogged pursuit of love without stopping and noticing the world around us, we could miss all that is beautiful, including the love of that person we didn’t see because we were swiping left or hyper focusing on that stunning man down the bar.

So, know that, if you are considering letting go of looking for love, doing so might be just what you need to find your forever person.

Letting go of looking for love is a big step, a leap of faith that, in doing so, ensures you won’t sabotage your love life forever.

The search for love is a marathon and not a sprint.

It is important that we take our time, nourish ourselves and the world, have self confidence that love will find us and that, if it doesn’t right away, we will be okay alone.

Letting go of looking for love doesn’t have to be forever. It’s like pressing the pause button on a song or a TV show – something that you can get back to when you are ready.

So, take a moment. Step back from your pursuit of love. Believe that if you do, you will still find your happily ever after person, just maybe not today. And that’s okay. You will find them someday – I promise.