The Need To Be: Why Relationships Aren't Everything

I’m 94 percent sure everyone has a friend who says they feel like they need a boyfriend or girlfriend. They’ve moped, complained, blasted loud “lonely” songs, or a combination of the three (which gets really annoying). But what would happen if you staged a “single intervention?” You could pester them endlessly about being more independent and having more self-confidence, or even grab their shoulders and shake their anguish out. All of this would probably come to an end if the lonely person just snapped and yelled “I just know deep down inside of me that I need a relationship!”

While sappy, there is a solid way to overcome this reasoning: logical thinking.

It seems to be engraved in our brains that there is some kind of “absolute dating truth.” Contrary to popular belief, there is no “book of absolutes” we have to obey for anything, especially dating. Feelings of needing a relationship are a result of being told they’re important, or from being around romance too much (or from watching “The Proposal” seventeen too many times). People feel a need for romance because culture puts that idea inside of their heads.

So tell your friend that what they think they need is all dependent on their frame of mind. If only we lived in a world without romance novels, sexual advertising, and movies where Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore get married at the end, didn’t create this “absolute need” for a relationship, then this conflict wouldn’t be there at all.

So is it really something we “just know” we need? Or are people being filled with that idea instead?

We’ll only know for sure once humanity’s almighty “dating bible” is unearthed. Let me know if you ever find it.