Finding Love in a Hopeless Place
How to know which relationships are worth investing in
Up until the age of ten, I thought it was completely normal for dads to sleep on the couch. I didn’t learn about the concept of relational “boundaries” until halfway through college. And I thought a successful relationship was defined as one that didn’t end.
Disney ruined me early on with its picturesque happily-ever-afters where there’s a handsome prince and a beautiful princess and all they have to do to get together is defeat a dragon or an angry town mob. This is love, I thought: beautiful, perfect people finding each other in a hopeless place.
And sometimes that’s just how dating feels — a hopeless, suffocating place, starring a not so beautiful or perfect person. Between the bar scene and the blind dates and the left swipes, it feels like you’re far more likely to be audited by the IRS than to ever achieve the perfect meet-cute.
We begin lowering our standards from knight-in-shining armor to no criminal record and likes dogs. We ask our friends’ boyfriends, “Do you have a brother?” only half-jokingly, if we’re being honest with ourselves. We swear off dating after yet another promising match ghosts us faster than you can say “Let’s-do-this-again-sometime.” We wonder if we will make it out of this wasteland with our hearts intact. Will we ever find the perfect match?
But in all the friendships and romantic relationships I’ve been in, I’ve found the biggest obstacle to happily-ever-after isn’t outside of the relationship — it’s within. The hopeless place is inside of me: it’s my mess, it’s the other person’s mess. And when two messy people come together, it doesn’t make for a perfect fit. If anything, two messy people magnify each other’s messiness.
There is nothing like relationships (familial, romantic, platonic) to make you realize just how flawed you are. Finding love can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack with both hands tied behind my back and the wrong contact prescription–I end up getting poked in the eye a lot and nursing a headache the rest of the day. Love is already messy, and I bring into it an even bigger mess of my beliefs, insecurities, expectations, desires, and habits that distort how I see others and how I see myself.
So in all of this mess, how can we know if we’ve actually found real, healthy love?
The Two Ingredients We Need for Love
Eleven break ups and a whole lot of life later, from watching some of the purest forms of love play out and some of the most twisted “loves” crash and burn and last way too long, here are two non-negotiables when it comes to having a healthy relationship:
1. Commitment (aka “What we all want but are scared to give.”)
Commitment is not a one-time decision — it’s a daily, consistent action. You may commit to give up sugar for the month, but if you woke up the next day and went straight to a donut shop, someone might doubt if you were truly committed.
We have so many relationships built on convenience or passion — we became friends because we have five classes together, we fell madly and wildly in love, we’re family because we share DNA. But if you’ve ever moved and seen close friendships disintegrate, or realized that shared DNA doesn’t necessarily make for a good relationship, or had the painful experience of falling out of love, you’ll know these things aren’t enough.
Commitment says, “At the end of the day, I’m still in this. I am choosing to be in this. And even if circumstances change or you gain twenty pounds or have a really bad day or bad month, I’m still going to be here.” Not just once, but day after day, they choose to be dedicated to the relationship.
And in healthy relationships, both parties are equally committed. I have an internet provider, and our level of commitment to one another is equal. I pay them, they make sure I can binge-watch 30 Rock on the weekends. I would feel a little betrayed if they suddenly stopped providing me with internet, but not if they forgot my birthday or also happened to be providing another girl with access to 30 Rock.
Commitment is a scary word in our culture, because it isn’t easy and comes at a cost. But I think, deep down, we all desire to know that there is someone at the end of the day who won’t walk away, no matter how hard things get. This is a non-negotiable. So if you want commitment and they’re eyeing a donut, it’s probably best to leave them to their empty calories.
2. Vulnerability (aka “I want the ground to open up and swallow me, please.”)
Vulnerability is risky because it means giving someone the ability to hurt you. It is where you let yourself be seen, flaws and all, not knowing how the other person will respond. For me, vulnerability is allowing someone to see the parts of myself that I hate the most — the insecure, the selfish, the ugly–the parts I don’t even have the capacity to love.
Vulnerability is also risky because you are investing–time, emotions, money, effort–without the assurance of a return. It means giving, not to get something in return but out of love for the other. It is putting the well-being of the other person above your own, seeking to honor their needs above your own. The problem with this is I usually only like meeting the needs of others if my needs are met first. But vulnerability means investing and giving and allowing yourself to be seen–no strings attached.
Whether we are aware of it or not, we grow up collecting data about what it takes to be lovable. Be kind. Be beautiful. Be strong. Be independent. Be accommodating. But rather than having to do/say the right things to earn love, the safest and most healing love is that which is freely given.
This doesn’t mean that you let people continue to hurt you in the same ways, over and over again. It also doesn’t mean expecting others to owe you something because you shared a piece of who you are with them. If love is a free exchange, vulnerability isn’t a means to an end — a bargaining chip we use to gain intimacy. It’s an invitation, a door to connection, and we open it knowing that others have the choice to walk through it or not.
We give that invitation knowing that there’s a risk we may not get the connection we long for. But the alternative? No risk, because there’s also no chance for connection. Or as C.S. Lewis so eloquently put it:
“Lock [your heart] up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
Healthy relationships exist when commitment and vulnerability are present in equal measure from both parties. No relationship is perfect. Because we are imperfect and human, we are bound to slip up, to be selfish, to make mistakes, to fail each other. That’s why the best relationships, the most rewarding ones, will take a lot of work to keep these two ingredients in balance. But when you find it, it’s magic.
The Magic of a Good Relationship
The best relationships leave you better than before.
This isn’t the “Man, I wish he would stop wearing socks with his flip flops” kind of change, or changing any of the long list of things we find annoying about the other person. I believe love does change people for the better, but true change never comes from the other person demanding it. It’s only when we have the security of knowing we are loved in spite of our imperfections–only when you can let go of who you think you need to be for people to love you)–that you start becoming who you actually are.
In a healthy relationship, the best parts of you get magnified, and the rougher edges get smoothed out. You change, not superficially, but in the deepest sense — you become a little less selfish, wiser, kinder, more hopeful, more aware of your passions and purpose and place in this world.
Healthy relationships multiply your capacity to love others.
They don’t leave you drained with no energy to give to anyone else or demand all of your focus and attention. They don’t leave you more insecure about who you are and what you have to offer. The healthiest relationships are the ones that give you energy and hope and purpose that you want to share with others around you. They don’t just exist for the pleasure of the people in the relationship, but they are about a shared purpose, vision, or passion.
Have you ever been around a healthy relationship? It isn’t one where you point to the couple making out in the corner and sigh, “Wow — they’re so into each other. I love that.” The healthiest relationships are the ones you’re in the trenches with — the people you want to be around, the couple that invites you into their lives, the homes where you feel comfortable just showing up, the love that becomes a safe place to be— even for their single friends.
This is the magic of a healthy relationship — it doesn’t just transform the people in it, but it transforms the hopeless places around it, leaving it a place that is a little more loving, a little less weary, and a little more hopeful for the people who come into contact with it.
So don’t settle. Though the nights may be lonely and muscle memory already has you drafting a text to your ex, hang tight. If someone says they’re all in but their actions tell you otherwise, don’t sell yourself short. If you’re laying down all your cards and someone has theirs close to their chest, double-check you’re playing the same game.
And remember that there’s more love to be found than romantic love. So when you feel like all of it — the world, you, your fourth round on Tinder— might be completely hopeless, ask the love that is already waiting in your life to show up with a pint of ice cream and a reminder that the best relationships are worth waiting for.
