Why you should stop looking for love if you really want to be in a relationship

Are you considering letting go of looking for love because you have been trying and trying and trying to get in a relationship and failing?

Are you sick of dating sites and coffee shops and endless conversations with people who definitely aren’t the one for you?

I get it. Looking for love can be exhausting.

But letting go of dating for a while is okay. It doesn’t have to be forever, but sometimes taking a break is the best thing that you can do.

Here are 5 reasons why you should put off dating and looking for love for a while so you can reconnect with yourself:

1. You can give yourself a rest.

Looking for love is exhausting work.

You have to make a dating profile, spend endless time swiping right or left, make tons of small talk with strangers, deal with people stalking you or disappearing, and then ultimately being disappointed when something doesn’t work out.

Who has the time and strength to deal with that?

Letting go of looking for love will give you your life back. It will give you a chance to spend time with friends, exercise, binge watch your favorite show, got to bed early and maybe even read a book!

Imagine what that would feel like, to not spend all of your time in the pursuit of love but to take a break and rest. Pretty amazing right?

2. You can focus on yourself.

It sounds like a cliché, I know. It’s a phrase people use when they have just recently broken up with someone and they want to seem strong.

But focusing on yourself is actually a fundamental part of being a healthy human, especially one in the dating world.

For many, dating means putting yourself on hold. It’s hard to be your authentic selves when you're dating because you always feel like you have to put your best foot forward; to be someone who others would want to be with.

As a result, you may sometimes lose yourself in the process.

You stop doing yoga because you don’t have the time, and you lose touch with how important it is for your sanity.

You stop having girls' nights out with your friends because you want to be free to date and therefore you don’t have people to laugh with or call you out, both of which are super important.

You might neglect work or family or your dog, all in the pursuit of love.

Letting go of looking for love allows you to take some time to refocus on yourself and get to know yourself again. To spend time with people you love, to make a priority the things that keep you sane and to curl up in bed with your puppy, watching your favorite old movies on Netflix.

And then, once we know and love ourselves again, you might be ready to put yourself out into the dating world, having refamiliarized ourselves with how awesome you are.

3. You can think more about what you want in a person.

Have you ever been caught up in the dating process and realized that you might be dating some people for the wrong reasons?

Do you find that perhaps height or pets or distance from your apartment are the criteria on which you are basing your willingness to date someone?

If I asked you right now what you wanted in a person, would any of those three things be the first three items on your list? Probably not.

Imagine if you met a person out there in the world, through a friend or at a bar. If you liked them, if you felt that chemistry, would you know or care about whether they liked dogs or cats or whether or not they lived in New Jersey? Probably not.

So, if you are considering letting go of looking for love, know that it will give you the opportunity to step back and re-assess what is really important to you in a partner.

Make a list of what you want and how your perfect person would make you feel. That way, when you do meet them, you will actually see them, no matter where they live with their cat.

4. You can get used to alone time.

People hate it when I say this, but I do think that it’s really important.

It is essential that if you're going to be in a successful relationship, that you're good at being alone.

I have a friend who, when she first got divorced, found that being alone was the most uncomfortable thing for her. As a result, she frantically looked for love, desperately needing to fill up that empty space left by her ex-husband.

Eventually, she was exhausted by her search and decided to try to take some time off from dating. At first, she was still uncomfortable in her home but, after a time, she got used to it.

She learned that being alone allowed her to truly be herself and to do what she wanted to do. There was no one to take care of or compromise with — it was her way, always. And she liked that.

Learning how to be alone, to not be desperate for the company of another person, changed my friend’s life because with this lack of neediness she became a stronger, more self-confident person who, in turn, attracted stronger, more self-confident guys.

Guys she really liked. And guys who had to prove themselves to be allowed into her space.

So, take some time getting to know yourself and spending time alone. You will be glad you did.

5. Love will find you.

There is a saying  that reads, "Happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it, the more it will evade you, but if you notice the other things around you, it will gently come and sit on your shoulder."

This is true with love as well.

You often pursue love like you're training for a marathon or pushing to get ahead in your career. But love isn’t found like that. Love is found when you're rested and know yourself; when you're happy being alone and have the self-confidence to put your best foot forward.

If you continue your dogged pursuit of love without stopping and noticing the world, you could miss all that is beautiful, including the love of that person you didn’t see because you were swiping left or hyper-focusing on that stunning man down the bar.

So, know that, if you are considering letting go of looking for love, doing so might be just what you need to find your forever person.

Letting go of looking for love is a big step, a leap of faith that in doing so you won’t sabotage your love life forever.

The search for love is a marathon and not a sprint.

It is important that you take your time, nourish yourself and the world, have the self-confidence that love will find you and that, if it doesn’t right away, you'll be OK alone.

Letting go of looking for love doesn’t have to be forever. It’s like pressing the pause button on a song or a TV show — something that you can get back to when you are ready.

So, take a moment. Step back from your pursuit of love. Believe that if you do, you will still find your happily ever after person, just maybe not today. And that’s OK. You will find them someday.