Relationships Won’t Fulfill You If You Don’t Fulfill Yourself First
If you can’t learn to enjoy your life when you are alone, a romantic relationship won’t change that. It might excite you and entertain you for a little while, but ultimately, when the honeymoon ends, you are left right back where you started.
Our culture is rife with toxic messages about romantic relationships being all-consuming, intoxicating, saving us from our lives and ourselves. We are sold the idea that our lives are incomplete until we meet our “other half” as though we are half without a romantic tie to another. We are sold the idea that the happiest day of our life is the one in which we become legally bound to another human, and that we are in this limbo of waiting for our lives to “start” until we meet “the one.”
It’s not just marketing that has us hungry for love. Love is as addictive to our brains as cocaine, and we can choose to approach romance, dating, and relationships with the understanding that we are being influenced by some heavy hormones: namely, vasopressin, adrenaline, oxytocin, and dopamine.
Biologically, this is part of our DNA as it keeps our drive to reproduce and continue as a species strong. As the seeds of lust and attraction are planted, we inevitably create more humans.
