Introduction

Relationships can be very character building. A good one can make you find the beauty in everything but
a bad one can leave you so devastated. A good relationship that ended may leave you feeling remorseful
for a very long time, even the toxic and bad ones can leave you daydreaming about the good moments,
and repeatedly cause you to question what went wrong and afraid to put yourself out there again. But
both good and bad break ups leaves us scanning everyone who approaches us, either judging them by
the hurts of our exs or using those exs as wholesome standards to evaluating them. You can find
happiness if you let yourself live, love and be loved again. Don't be afraid to date again, not every one is
your ex.

Falling in love can be such a beautiful thing, but falling in love with the wrong person can be very ugly.
So before anything else try to have a relationship with yourself. Make yourself your boyfriend or
girlfriend and treat yourself the way you would treat any opposite sex you're in a relationship with.

Why I say this is because many people don't have a clue what love is.

So it's important you love yourself before loving another to see where and how you got it wrong, and if
you're satisfied with your results, then no external drama can break that self love.

What happens if you go loving someone who doesn't even love themselves? Anybody with self love can
handle a relationship but those without can't and it is evident by the way they behave.

But pointing back to the man in the mirror, do you know what love is? Because it is not enough to play
the victim but actually seeing if you're not the predator. Treat yourself the same way you actually
treated your ex and see what actually caused the reactions before the split up. See things not in yours
but in their own lights and be honest with yourself; would you date anybody that did the things you
actually did? Because you may think you were the greatest but look again back to those little wrongs you
justified as "flaws" and measure how often you committed those flaws and their true impacts and be
truly honest with yourself.

Don't go into the next relationship with a vendetta people are nothing but emotional creatures, so if
you're not ready, be mature enough not to harm anyone else in propagating your ill formed opinions.

Why do I want to be loved?

Answering this question can be very vital to sustaining any relationship you are in or are about to go
into. You see love is a beautiful thing. It makes the world more beautiful, it gives pleasantness to our
everyday lives. It's that succor we get out of our stress-filled activities. It's that smile we console
ourselves with as our boss tears us down with their words or our colleagues compete with us on our
personal space. Love truly is beautiful. Love is a happy feeling. It is a delightful thought and a soothing
emotion. Little wonder why many seek after it. So you need to understand and define what love is to
YOU.

Have you done that? Then you've understood why you want to be loved.

To some it is acceptance. To others it is generousity. To some it is being preferred. To others it is Loyalty.

To some it is companionship. To others it is patience. To some it is friendliness. To others it is a void they
need to fill in them. On the 20th of July 2019 around 7pm I alighted from the cab to meet a commotion
at the market junction. I first thought they were witnessing something sordid or an accident, but what I
later discovered was really touching. A young man was screaming at a young lady that he was done
having sex with her, and that he was tired and fed up with the relationship. That she could go to blazes
for all he cared, but the defiant lady was yelling back at the top of her voice, that he wouldn't dare quit
giving her sex and that he should never again dare say the relationship was off for that would be the
very last thing she'll ever take. It was a real fight enough to cause traffic on the motorway. People
hurriedly en masse, some where providing solutions others were separating them. I am glad it didn't
lead to a blood bath. So it is of utmost importance that you know what love means to you, not what
others define the term to generally imply: Is it money or in fact consideration? Is it great sex or in fact
intense connectivity? Is it sharp looks or in fact a sense of accomplishment? Is it constant calls or in fact
the need for clarity and reassurance? What does love mean to you personally. What are the objects
you're going out for that secretly portray the main subject of which you seek? Because I find beautiful
women often married to ugly guys and tall men marrying short ladies despite their earlier sermons.
You'll find a person willing to get married to someone who completely contrasts their ideals in a partner,
and all you hear is that he's understanding or that she's homely. Till today it still boggles me how
Beyoncé got married to Jay-Z, and again how come Jay-Z cheated on Beyoncé? Am glad their
relationship are as strong as ever but the equation still is one of the 9th mystery of the Modern world.

Love Definitions: What Love Means

But this knowledge isn't complete yet, because basing solely on this won't get you what you're looking
for. You also need to evaluate why others need to be loved too. Now this is the tricky one because even
though Love can be such a beautiful thing, but the misapplication of it can be so devastating.

Every one you see has the potential of either being an angel or the devil when you set priorities of their
wants above their needs. It's not enough to hear, "I love you", you've gotta first establish if the person
understands what they mean from what they say. Because if you tell me you love me, when your
definition of love is sex, while am thinking affection, then I will encourage you towards your definition
of sex through my desire for affection, whereas we're thinking two different things. And we both end up
smashed --not as a result of misunderstanding, but as victims of counter definitions. A good person can
end up a casualty on the field of Love, whereas some other person is reaping roses from that same field.
But to get any lasting results, you really should work on yourself and first and foremost.

Society is filled with self perceived perfect people. Either we're blinded by our self perceived perfection
or aggressive in self defense of our weaknesses. Look inwards, do you have any unresolved past issues?
Because we may deceive ourselves into thinking that we're above those hurts whereas they're shaping
our outlook on reality and others.

In fact these are few ill shaped outlook that spawn out from immaturity that we sometimes quip
without truly contemplating on them :

1. Give love without any expectations: when there is a psychological law stating that to whom much is
given much is expected, yet you hear modern sayings about not expecting much from the other person
even after sacrificing for them?

2. Because you'll always see something bad there, checking their phones is an indication of lack of trust:
Hello? Did you just hear your reasoning? My girl has every right to check my phone and even answer my
calls for that matter, that's because I've got nothing to hide and so does she also.

3. You also hear about stop bringing up the past: My dear nobody actually brings up the past if it isn't
conflicting with the present, so rather than debate on lack of trust, think about how your attitude is
affecting the other person. Let us stop justifying fraudulence calling them human flaws.

4. There's a thin line between love and hate: This statement is erroneous. It's difficult, if not impossible,
to hate whom you once loved. You may be nursing your hurt, you may be mad at them, the love may
fade away after many years, but you cannot truly ever hate anyone you once loved. If that happens,
then it wasn't really love. True love grows from likeness but fades into fondness, but never hatred.

These fallacies can cloud our reasoning, and stop us from having clear goals. While am about working on
yourself, am also about knowing what works and what doesn't. If you're going for a really serious
relationship, and you're working on yourself then I suggest you date the actions but marry the reactions.
To marry someone you're simply passionate about is an offense against your destiny, because destiny is
not all about passion, but also about perseverance (sacrifice), protocol (positioning) and purpose. This
we'll look more into later.

Baggages:
No one is perfect out there but we can try at improving at our flaws.
We've looked at love definitions and how not to get them tangled. Now we're going to look at baggages.
Let me put it this way, there can be good baggages and bad baggages, all though all baggages are
unpleasant.

We all have our own baggages one way or the other. Either from our childhood and how we were raised
or abused, or from our past relationships and/or our predispositions.

The good baggage may be a propensity to misunderstand our emotions and how to express them. For
example, When a cousin of mine was 4yrs old, he had a knack for hitting, biting, slapping and punching
anyone he really liked alot. To the little fella he really liked playing with ya but he needed to be taught
not to hurt others with his happiness. Same also a sex addict may (now this is a big MAY) be thus
predisposed because of how they were raised or abused as a child. Remember we're dealing on the big
MAY here, now maybe they're so because having sex makes them feel loved, cared for, or maybe it gives
them strength to contend with their demons. Now it's a good baggage if they are willing to express
themselves positively and change. But that also can be a very bad baggage if they accept their demons
and becomes one with them. Others may be that the reason why they philander was because of money
or hidden hate. Certain women have troubles asking their men for money or sex, maybe because they
love them and they don't want them feeling inadequate, especially when they've outgrown the
conventional borders for both and don't want to appear materialistic or whorish.

But it all boils down to what they understand by love and expressing it. These folks need first to be
healed inwardly. And if you can't heal them, don't harm them, just leave.