When Love Gets It Done

It's that time of the year again. First you get the post-Christmas blues in January, and then you feel as though love is being shoved down your throat in February.

And this feeling of frustration isn't just by single people, who are sick of the social hype that somehow because they don't have a partner they are incomplete or lonely, or unfulfilled. But they probably feel more anti-love sentiment than most over the consumerism and pretentiousness we wrap around love around this time of the year. Worse still, the older you get the more pressurised you feel to find someone to be a "normal" member of your community. Well-meaning friends are always trying to introduce you to someone. Blind dates are a dime a dozen. Somehow, it feels like you've been stuck in a loop to find a partner to authenticate who you are.

In this day and age it certainly needs a strong mindset to be able to persuade people you're happily single, and those of us who would choose to remain single by choice are frowned upon as being "strange". So, what happens? In our rush to conform to these unnatural societal norms, we make bad decisions. We make the wrong choices. We enter bad relationships.

Never shop on an empty stomach, my mother used to say. But isn't this how we run into bad relationships? Everyone else you know has someone, and subconsciously you feel "left out", right? So, why not make do? Okay, so you weren't sure about that person you met before (you know the one), and you let him or her slip out of your life because they didn't fit the "ideal" you had your head. But now with the clock ticking, you realise that the "ideal person" you're waiting for might never come, so you grab with both hands the next person to come your way.

It's the desperate act of a drowning person. You grab and you hold on, and you do everything to please a person who is so wrong for you, but you just can't see it. Although it's not love you're blinded by, it's fear. Your friends think you've gone crazy, but you don't care. Besides, they've all got someone, and you need that, too.

Thus, when February rolls along, you want to feel happy and secure that at least this Valentine's Day you won't be alone. You'll be able to celebrate with all the rest of the lovers across the Western world, right? So, you wait for the day with hope that your special person will either propose, offer to take their online dating profile down, or say "I love you" for the first time. Because you're still chasing ideals.

So what, if you've had to streamline those ideals a little. So, you've chosen to forego a few of your principles, here and there. To overlook a few of their faults. To acquiesce to a few of their demands, which in another life you'd have stuck two fingers up at. So what, if you're with the kind of person now you wouldn't have even looked twice at when you were younger? You've matured, right? You know what you want now. It's the relationship you're in. You ignore the fact that your friends are beginning to complain that they no longer know who you are. Isn't love meant to change you?

Yet, as Valentine's Day nears - and the first high rush of meeting someone new dips - you find yourself pushing these thoughts further and further away. Because you've been told being single is wrong, and you're tired of all the first date sex you've notched under your belt. Tired of feeling guilty, used and unhappy - and as dirty as a stranger's bed sheet. Best to stick with what you got now, right? Best to just make do.

Only you deserve better. And so does the person you're with. You both do. Neither of you is the enemy here. The idealistic images that were pushed into your head were the enemy. Because you never got to know yourself first. Your true self. To see whether the "ideal person" you had daydreamed about for so long was really what YOU wanted, or simply what you'd been told all your life you needed. Did you ever ask yourself if the ideals in your head were your own or from another person's imagination - from things you saw in film or on television, or superimposed on you by the conventions of your peers, religion or society?

Unhappy with your love life, did you ever first try to love yourself - to link up with your authentic self and discover just what it was you REALLY wanted in a partner? Maybe you shouldn't fall in love with the idea of a person instead of the actual person. Maybe you shouldn't disregard everything a woman or a man says they want, and pretend you're their one and only. Maybe you should get your head out of the clouds long enough to see reality.

If not, then you forgot the first lesson of true love. That love is worth waiting for, and it will come when the time is right. Love waits until you've evolved enough to recognise it. Love waits until you truly believe you deserve it. Until then, will you keep accepting anything less? Or take the less travelled "hard route" of enjoying your single life?

Make no mistake, getting in touch with your authentic self is a mission of love in itself. It takes some serious single time to restore you to your true nature. This all-important "me" time requires a lot from you. To break from first date sex and speed dating, and to put all your effort into first loving yourself instead. This means discarding your ego, improving your outlook, and getting your brain, body and soul in peak condition to love another person. THIS is the right time not to care about what anyone else thinks, because on the matters of the heart, what matters is YOUR heart!

Eventually, you'll discover that your friends will be complaining again just how much you've changed - but in a good way! They won't snub you for being single. Quite the opposite, they'll want you around all the time, because you'll have given up feeling or acting like the gooseberry. You'll be generating the positive out of every negative. For you'll always be the life and soul of the party when you're an active party in your life and soul.

Valentine's Day at Mickie Kent • Celebrate the Love • Love For More Than One Day • Being Single On Valentine's Day • You Have a Right to Real Love • How To Be a Healthy Valentine

And instead of finding yourself in an unhealthy relationship, locked in an environment toxic to both partners, you'll discover that sometimes being a healthy valentine means being a single one. Because now you know that being single isn't an evil - it's a transition. An opportunity. A springboard. Back to you. So, if you're in a relationship, sometimes ending it before Valentine's Day isn't being cruel, it's being kind - to all concerned. It might even be the breather you need to discover whether you're made to be twinned with each other. Then you can use the month of love for its real purpose - to help you see who you really are and release you from the fear that keeps getting love stuck in your throat.

Now, you can truly re-evaluate all the "possibles" you have met down the line, working as a team with your authentic self. Maybe there's one you skipped over because they didn't match your previous, unrealistic ideals (the ones that weren't yours anyway), before desperation had set in. If so, isn't it time to take the bull by the horns? You've stopped running away from yourself, so, now, stop running away from true love. Go tell them how you feel. Honestly, simply, sincerely - without expecting anything in return. Because THIS is the right time to compromise, when you know what's right for you.

Because if it's true love, the hard work will be worth the return. And because it's never too late to act, when the regret of inaction will always be greater. Or maybe you've yet to meet the right person. At least now you know what you're looking for - which anyone coming from the heart will know anyway. And I promise you, once you learn to trust your heart, you'll never look back - in regret or in anger.

Once you put your trust in true love, you'll discover that when you need something doing right, love will get it done.

Yearly and always yours in love,