To Love is To Be Understood

I don’t usually engage in dating discourse. I find it tedious, repetitive, and overwhelmingly stupid. But it’s everywhere. You can’t open your phone without being assaulted by someone’s airhead opinion on love, relationships, or “red flags.” The sheer volume of it is insufferable, and the lack of self-awareness is almost impressive. People argue endlessly about what they want, what they deserve, and what others owe them, without stopping to ask if they even understand themselves, let alone anyone else. It’s pathetic.

To be understood, that’s the ultimate test of love. Not compatibility. Not shared interests, not a "good job", not matching love languages or any of the other nonsense people cling to in their desperation. It’s about someone looking at you, seeing everything you are, everything you aren’t, and saying, I understand. Nothing else matters.

But this fundamental truth is completely absent from modern dating discourse. Instead, we get endless swiping, curated bios, and the delusional belief that if you just meet enough people, try hard enough, or optimize yourself enough, you’ll stumble upon love. What a sad lie people tell themselves.

People treat love like a numbers game. Like it’s a statistical inevitability. It’s not. Love isn’t something you can “work” at, and it’s certainly not something you can hack. It’s rare. And most people talking about it don’t even deserve it because they approach it with checklists and entitlement, as if the universe owes them a soulmate just for having a Hinge profile.

If you have a list of what you’re looking for, you’ve already lost. It doesn’t work like that. A checklist is a defense mechanism to avoid vulnerability by reducing another human being to a series of traits. It’s a mockery of what love is supposed to be. If you’re that person, you’re not searching for a partner, you’re searching for an accessory. You don’t deserve love. You deserve to be alone.

For these people, dating has become a grim performance. Coffee dates, dinner reservations, awkward small talk. It’s all laughable. None of it is real. No one actually wants to be there, but they go through the motions because they’re terrified of solitude. Most of these connections amount to nothing more than mutual masturbation. You might as well skip the charade and hire a hooker. At least that’s honest.

Ask yourself this: how many people have you truly wanted to commit to? Not because you were lonely, or because you felt you had to, but because the thought of not being with them felt like a stab to the heart. How many people have actually understood you, not just your quirks or habits, but the full truth of who you are?

If someone doesn’t understand me, I don’t care about them, let alone go on a date with them. Anything less would be a betrayal to the core of who I am. To settle for less than understanding would mean denying my spirit. I would rather walk through life alone than share it with someone who sees me as a collection of traits instead of a whole, contradictory being.

This is why we are inherently drawn to those who seem like us. It’s instinctive. We are all, in some way, looking for ourselves in others. We gravitate toward people who share our flaws. Who reflect our souls back to us. To see yourself in someone else is to feel understood in the most primal way. Primal recognition.

If you’re lucky you might find someone who truly gets you. Someone who doesn’t need you to explain yourself. Someone who doesn’t flinch at your contradictions. If you find that, hold on. Even if it doesn’t last, even if it falls apart, you’ll know you’ve experienced something most people never will.

Because it isn’t guaranteed. How many true connections can you expect in a lifetime? One is already more than enough. Even if it doesn’t last,be grateful that it happened at all. And after that, refuse to accept anything less.

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