"I can't love anyone": what to do if this is about you

If you look around, you get the impression that the world is obsessed with love. On movie screens - melodramas and romantic comedies. On the streets, in parks and cafes, there are couples in love. There are tons of articles on the Internet on how to build relationships and keep them, how to find your soul mate.

A person who has never been in love - or thinks that he was not - may feel that he is "wrong" and categorically does not fit into this loving-centered world. Here are some thoughts to help you look at circumstances from a different angle.

1. Think about what you mean by "love"

Through books and films, we think this is a powerful feeling, unsettling and literally turning our whole life upside down. That these are continuous dramas and tears, butterflies fluttering in the stomach, fiery passions, an obsession that deprives the mind and makes a loved one the center of the Universe. Moreover, according to the laws of the genre, all this fireworks should begin almost immediately after meeting with the same person or that one.

Few people release stories on the big screens about how two people quietly and calmly came together against the background of common interests, got married just as quietly and lived for themselves, without arranging scenes of jealousy and violent partings, without tearing clothes on top of each other in a fit of passion and without rolling concerts under the windows. Although in real life this is exactly how "boring" everything happens.

Psychologists are more than skeptical about crazy passionate love, which is so often romanticized, and believe that this is not love, but a dangerous pathological condition that causes addiction. It is not feelings per se, but a hormonal cocktail of oxytocin, norepinephrine and dopamine that make us seek thrills, commit rash acts and enter into unhealthy relationships. It also provokes what we take for love.

She has many forms and manifestations, and most of them are not at all as vivid as in cinema and literature. Feelings may not come right away - only a third of research participants say they experienced love at first sight. And feelings can be soft and calm.

If in your life there is a person with whom you want to be close and without whom you are sad, it is quite possible - this is love.

I can't fall in love, because I misunderstand what love is

2. Understand the reasons

If you are still sure that you have never loved, and it torments you, you can analyze why this is happening. Here are the main options.

More important things

The times when a family had to be created for survival, fortunately, are over. Now a person's life is not limited to household and children. He can pursue a career, play sports or creativity, learn a variety of things, travel, make friends, socialize and have fun.

For 60% of young Russians, material wealth comes first. Only 5% of respondents named having a permanent partner as a life priority.

If you are primarily busy with work, hobbies or self-development, and love and relationships are not yet very interesting to you, there is nothing strange in this and everything is fine with you. Everyone has their own values.

Fear of intimacy

It can arise from childhood trauma or an unhealthy relationship with a previous partner. As a result, a person associates closeness with pain: rejection, betrayal, the need to “earn” love all the time - and he is simply afraid of a serious relationship, closes down, pushes people away from him. Psychologists call this condition attachment trauma, or counterdependence.

The myth of halves

Someone still believes that somewhere a unique person, destined for him by fate, is wandering and waiting for love at first sight and a complete coincidence of emotions, beliefs, plans. Unfortunately, the story of the halves is just a beautiful fairy tale. The chances of meeting someone who perfectly fits certain criteria is negligible. And while you dream of a dizzying fall in love, you risk not noticing more restrained feelings and missing out on an interesting partner.

Lack of the right person

Happy love stories and dating apps create the dangerous illusion that it's easy to find the right match - just hold out your hand. In fact, this is largely a matter of chance and luck: it is likely that the person you may fall in love with just has not yet appeared in your life.

Mental disorder

If a person is depressed, he is often too depressed to look for a couple, fall in love, build a relationship. If he has a narcissistic disorder, he puts only himself in the center of the world, so that there is no place for anyone else.

If a person has a dissocial personality disorder, he has problems with empathy and it will be difficult for him to love someone.

3. Don't make love too important

There is a stereotype that love is the main thing in life in general and in relationships in particular. It’s bad if it’s not there. There is - great, you can relax, and everything else will follow. A person who sincerely believes in this, but does not experience that very textbook feeling with a capital letter, may feel unhappy. Or even break off relations with a partner, just because they are not filled with sparks, butterflies and other hot passions.

However, in fact, the foundation of a strong and happy relationship is not only, and sometimes not so much love. It also contains other great components:

common interests, views and goals;
mutual respect;
strong personal boundaries;
freedom from stereotypes;
empathy;
attachment;
the ability to communicate without violence and toxicity;
the ability to resolve conflicts calmly and respectfully.

Moreover, it is all this that helps to keep the relationship afloat, when love is somewhat dulled.

Every fifth marriage in Russia is concluded not for love, but for calculation. Sometimes we are talking about cash payments, sometimes about pressure from relatives.

And sometimes the whole point is just to find a person with whom it is good, and to be with him, without waiting for falling in love. And this model absolutely does not make your relationship incomplete and wrong. In addition, no one excludes that over time, feelings will grow between you and your partner, and much stronger and deeper than the notorious love, which is so much talked about.