1. Realizing that loving and being in
love aren’t the same thing. When two people who are perfect for each
other end up not working out, it’s usually
because one of the two feels that he or she is
no longer in love with the other. Relationships can be incredibly intense in the
beginning — even more so when you’re dating
someone who could potentially be the one. As
the novelty and excitement of it all die down,
however, so do the corresponding emotional
responses we experience. Not feeling your heart flutter when you see
your partner doesn’t mean you’re no longer in
love. It just means you are no longer worried
you may lose him or her. Sadly, this is a
deceiving feeling as you can always lose
anyone at any time. 2. Realizing that finding someone to
love is a lot easier than finding
someone to love you. You can fall in and out of love weekly if your
mind is open to it. Of course, it would be a very
shallow sort of love and surely wouldn’t last,
but nevertheless you would still feel many of
those emotions most closely related to the
phenomenon. The hard part is finding someone to love you in return. A lot of factors come into play when
considering whether or not a person is even
capable of loving you — so many factors that,
in the end, it all comes down to luck. If he or she happens to be in the right place in
life, in the right mindset, then he or she may fall
for you. Such windows are small, however,
and are missed more often than not. 3. Realizing that you’re capable of
treating people horribly. Love brings out the best and worst in people.
When things within our relationships are going
the way we wish them to, we’re the nicest
individuals in the world. But because we put so much on the line, open
ourselves up and put great trust in another
individual, when we feel threatened, we lash
out with horrendous fervor. There is no better person than a person in love
and no more horrible a person than a person
feeling he or she may lose that love. You need
to accept how horrible you can be in order to
realize how much it takes to avoid being that
person. 4. Realizing that your emotions can
play tricks on you. What most people don’t realize until it’s too late
is that our emotions aren’t good indicators of
reality. First, we have the reality that exists
outside of us, that isn’t subjective, but entirely
objective — a reality that exists only in the
physical sense. We then add a second layer to this reality by
perceiving and interpreting what we perceive.
Only then do we experience emotional
responses — but not in response to reality
itself, but in response to our interpretation of it. Feelings are the third, and furthest removed,
layer that make up our personal reality. If we
misperceive, misinterpret or misunderstand
something then our emotions will reflect the
errors we make, not what actually exists. Most relationships fail because of just this —
misinterpreting reality, drawing the wrong
conclusions and then allowing our misleading
emotions to get the better of us. 5. Realizing that although forever is
scary, it can also be comforting. Fear of commitment is a real thing. Every time
we commit, we are simultaneously rejecting all
other possible alternatives; there are always
opportunity costs associated whenever we
make a decision. Most decisions don’t worry us too much as we
feel that we can reverse them if necessary.
When it comes to love, however, most of us
believe that it is or, at the very least ought to
be, forever. Making a decision that you believe you need to
stick to for the rest of your life is scary. What
if you make the wrong decision? What if you’re
going to miss out on something better? These
will always be possibilities — you can’t wrestle
with them because these questions will never go away. Instead, focus on all the positive things that
having a special someone in your life allows
for. The truth is that you are never stuck when
it comes to relationships… unfortunately most
people don’t realize this until they let that
special someone get away. 6. Realizing that missing someone
can hurt indefinitely. Most physical pains are temporary. Emotional
pains, on the other hand, have the ability to last
for decades. They may not be constant, but
they have the ability to resurface again and
again for years to come. All that’s necessary is for one experience, one
thought, one memory to trigger another painful
memory. Because we’re only human, we learn
from experience. The only way to understand
how much it’s possible to miss someone is to
miss that someone that you now know you could spend your life with. You will never miss anyone the way you miss
the one that got away. I can say this with
certainty because if you do manage to find
another special someone to spend your life
with, you’ll sooner die than let him or her slip
away.
