I Didn't Know I Needed This: The New Rules for Flirting, Feeling, and Finding Yourself—An Unfiltered Relationship Manual with Candid Insights, Embrace the Chaos of Modern Dating

by Eli Rallo

And even if we no longer know each other, I don’t want to unknow the unique feeling that is my first love.

We are like magnets—we gravitate toward the energy we put out ourselves. So to attract a confident, fun, exciting person on a night out, you have to be exuding that same energy.

In my life, I know I’d be okay if I never experienced romantic love in any sort of long-term capacity—because I have enough platonic love to keep me afloat forever.

The reality is, nobody is perceiving you with the intensity you think they might be. I promise you, we are all thinking of ourselves approximately one thousand times more than other people are thinking of

Someone who met me once for a span of three hours and their opinions of me hold no candle to what I know of myself after spending twenty-five years getting to know who I am and who I’d like to be. And all that matters, truly, is not what other people think about me, but what I know about myself.

We can control a lot of things. Our heart isn’t really one of them. Hearts are stubborn. We can’t crate train them or discipline them or scold them—though we try. It’s why we fall in love with people who hurt us or why we cannot seem to let go of the people who don’t deserve us. Because to discipline our heart—to tell it that it’s time to pack our things and go—utterly shatters us.

give your time and energy to a new relationship, but you shouldn’t let yourself slack on the rest of your relationships, your passions, or your life. Your friends are the people who, at the end of the day, will truly always pick up the phone. Your friends are your soulmates, your anchors, and your lifeboats. Don’t lose sight of them.

The end goal should never be forever. Instead, our outlook should be a consistent hope that we learn something, about ourselves and about others, and that each connection we make to another person is a step in the direction toward the goodness we deserve.

Even if you end up with someone until the very end, there’s an end—and love always ends up hurting.

I’ve come to realize that heartbreak is rather beautiful and that I don’t hate it. Heartbreak is complicated and innate in an admirable way. I never understood heartbreak, truly, until I realized that love does not exist without it, much like plants cannot grow without water. It doesn’t make loss hurt less, but resenting heartbreak makes loss hurt more. Accepting it as the other half of the best equation to ever exist will soften a blow you cannot avoid.

So treat your friends like you would the love of your life—because it is when we water our friendships and see them grow that we realize the true meaning of love, and the true meaning of life.