Wardell's and Gayla's Love Zone

“Love yourself first so you know what you deserve.”

Lately I have been meeting people who have been pretty disappointed when it comes to the word “love.”

I have heard the laundry list of woes on romance from being afraid to be alone out of fear of never meeting someone to compromising happiness and settling for second best in a relationship.

Then there are the common questions of, “If not this person then who?” and “When will I meet someone I really love and loves me?” or “How can I love myself?”

How can we find ourselves beyond a romantic relationship, and does a romantic relationship have to define our sense of self?

I feel like it has become this ingrained belief that we need a relationship to define our path and identity and if we don’t have that relationship by a certain time frame in our lives then we have missed the window for that fairy tale ending. We may question if something is wrong with us, and why don’t we have that special someone with kids like “everyone” else does.

Why is it that these ideas have been forced onto us and if we don’t meet these expectations then we are failures in the love/romance department?

By Emily Stroia