Yes; but you may not be ready for a romantic relationship
Whether you know it or not, whether you feel it or not, you are absolutely worthy of love.
But that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to romance.
Our obsession with romantic relationships is a little scary. We can have rich, full personal lives where we spend lots of time with family and friends who love us dearly, and yet still feel like we fall short simply because we’re single.
It’s as if we rely strictly on romantic relationships to validate our worthiness, and that’s ridiculous. There is so much more to us than relationship status.
It’s especially weird when you consider that romance is a relatively new concept in human history: for centuries, “love” and relationships as we know them didn’t really exist, and certainly didn’t lead to something as important as marriage.
A great illustration of this point can be seen in the well-known “rebound” effect after a break-up: eager to reaffirm worthiness of love after a split, many of us jump into a new relationship (or something resembling one). This eases the transition of ending a romantic relationship, and for many who felt or feel unloved because of whatever led to the breakup, a rebound provides a balm.
Another thing that’s well-known? The high failure rates of these rebound connections.
It’s hard to have a true connection with someone when the main motivation for being together is validation. You are valid, regardless of relationship status. Being with someone (or not) doesn’t alter your validity.
If you’re not ready to believe that, that’s okay — but it is worth looking into, worth more than prolonging this state of mind by burying oneself in getting to know someone else.
This is what comes to mind when I think of the saying, “you have to love yourself before you can love someone else.” If you don’t already know that you’re worthy of love, including self love — if the title of this article caught your attention because you ask it of yourself — then loving someone else, while possible, just isn’t the same.
Once you know that you’re worthy of love, and once you love yourself because of that, the well of love that you pull from to offer others is endless. Meet people in the same boat as you, and you can have some truly magical friendships and relationships.
Sometimes, things can happen to make us feel unworthy. Some of us have had a sense of unworthiness planted in us at such a young age, that we grew up internalizing it and can feel like it’s impossible to shake.
But it isn’t. Learning to love yourself isn’t easy, but it is possible. If it’s something you struggle with, then when you’re ready, I hope you take a look into starting that journey.