There are too many men looking for the right lady while neglecting our own development. We think that happiness in life resides in a relationship between us, and Miss Right. It doesn’t. Finding the right woman is important. It can give our lives added meaning, motivation, and an even greater reason to wake up in the morning and hustle – but never think that your success, happiness, or meaning exists in the hands of another. Giving someone else that power – imagined or real – is writing a death sentence decades before you kick the bucket.
A Real Man’s Guide to Love
One of my high school teachers told me something that has shaped the way I look at relationships. He said that, A good marriage isn’t two halves becoming whole; rather, it’s two complete individuals falling in love and joining one another in life.
Before he told me that I always figured I’d find someone who’d make me a complete person, and I them. That’s a dangerous way of looking at love, and an unhealthy one as well. Going in to a relationship, depending on someone else for 50% of your development emotional, spiritually, financially, and mentally, is a shit ton of pressure.
Pressure makes diamonds, or it busts pipes.
That is, if you’re the right people, you’re going to make it and grow in to complete individual’s together – right? Sometimes, yes. Look at all the high school sweethearts that get married. But they can be a different case. Being together so young they’re used to having their own identities outside of a relationship. When we get into a relationship and we’re a bit older, but still incomplete, our identity becomes the relationship.
We put our hopes, dreams, and our meaning of life into this one thing that often busts due to the pressure of two incomplete halves trying to become whole.
Looking for love whilst neglecting becoming a better man (or woman) is lunacy.
1. It puts a lot of pressure on a relationship and on your lady.
2. It leaves us incomplete, often under-developed as men for eternity.
Looking for love can also be a painful road, one that doesn’t, and shouldn’t be taken.
I’m all for taking the hard road, the one less traveled, the one with greater obstacles, trials, and tribulation. But looking for love, pinning all of your wants and hopes on one person is not only unhealthy, but it makes life’s road a shitty one. For one, the woman you’ve dreamt up to be your ideal, doesn’t exist. Thinking that the woman you meet is, will lead to far too many fights and confusion on your part.
It also leaves us waiting, wanting, and weak.
A Real Man Does His Thang
I’m a romantic. I like doing nice things for my lady – when I have one. I like going out of the way to please her, to do something different for her that’ll touch a chord and create a memory. So I can see where you’re coming from when you’re waiting for your dream girl, looking for her, and a tad down if you’ve yet to find her. Believe it or not, I’ve been there.
It’s utterly useless.
Men need a purpose outside of a relationship – a purpose that is even greater than their relationship. We need a mission. A mission that we can dedicate our lives to. Without this mission and purpose, we’re weak.
I don’t know what your mission is, but you need one. Focus on that, and that alone, and let a relationship happen organically. Don’t force it. And for shite’s sake, don’t be that guy following your lady around, holding her hand bag as she works the room. You’re a lapdog, not a boyfriend or a husband. If those words cut you deep, change. That’s no way to live.
We’re men. We’re warriors not cowards. We’re lions, untamed beasts, not kenneled felines calling to our ladies every beacon. Act as such.
You May Never Find Her. And It’s OK.
Men can’t look for love, nor can a woman. Love, if it’s to happen, needs to happen on it’s own. That doesn’t mean you don’t ask a lady out. If you see a beautiful woman, have the balls to go up to her and ask her on a date – if she says no, who cares, worse things have happened, and has yet to happen.
