Why wont you love me back?

Have you had a crush on someone, or even your first love, where the person you loved never loved you back and you wished they loved you back, but instead they loved someone else? Relationships tend to be a long chain of people holding hands i.e. a man loves and stretches to hold her hand, while his hand is held by another lady. And the chain continues.

Have you had someone who loves you to death yet you have no feeling for him/her? Instead, you are interested in a different person who doesn’t even notice you.

What is frustrating is, each one of them is wishing that the person they love would hold their hand and love them back but unfortunately its never the case.

Some will end up in the chain wounded but still holding on wishing one day the crush will notice them. Others give up and settle for the available love. For fear of rejection and loneliness.

Let's look at how this occurs, love/relationships lessons are caught not taught. What you grow up watching or witnessing at home models your ideas of love and how its expressed. I grew up seeing my parents support and love each other. Often I found them in the kitchen chatting while one is cooking Stew another is preparing the main dish. I watched movies that shown women as queens and I wished one day my king will come my way.

This shaped my ideas on how marriage love relationship is. Because of how often I observed them it defined a standard of the future partner and characteristics that I admired.

Growing up everyone had a list of things that they desired their dream partners to have. Most of these things were the ones they admired from their parents or the opposite of what they hated.

Have you had people say men marry their mothers? Meaning when men are looking for their wives they use their mother as a template to evaluate a good wife. If your parents are violent you tend to be attracted to calm partners, if your parents are respectful, loving you will tend to admire respectful, loving spouses.

With all these formulates in your mind, whatever you have grown up seeing in your family is the norm. Young people who experienced their parents cheat or drink alcohol and cause drama at home may have no problem trying out themselves what they have witnessed over the years. Though others may hate the behaviour and choose to be the opposite.

A lady who witnessed her mother being beaten in marriage may develop a mentality that women are normally beaten in marriage, and though she may hate being beaten, she may be hesitant to make the decision to move out because she witnessed it as a child and how their mother responded has a great contribution on how she will respond. This is the Power of observation. Love lessons are caught not taught.

Have you tried to date someone who ignored you? How did it feel? Very bad.

This is caused by our upbringing, we unconsciously tend to formulate a list of character traits of the partner that we desire to date. This creates a standard that every person who shows interest is vetted with. Such as Tall, Dark, Hard-some, financially stable etc.. and anyone who doesn’t match is automatically disqualified. At times all this are determined by just observation.

This approach is quite limited because one is disqualified on the basis of someone's else standards, not who they are.

Have you had ladies responses when they are asked why can this relationship work?

They say "It's not about you, just that you’re not my type or you're not the problem I am".

These are excuses give when one is judged based on other people’s standards not who they are or what they have to offer. i.e. monkey being disqualified because it cant swim like a fish.

Let me ask you as a counsellor, how would you feel if you are compared to another person and a judgement is made based on that? This is inhuman, disrespectful and selfish. The best decision is to give the person a chance, learn them and from there make decisions based on who they. And not by comparing them.

Some of the heart wounds people have today, is out of words that were said by someone who compared them or disqualified them out of selfish standards that cause them to have low esteem, feelings of not being good enough and painful heartbreaks. Let's be considerate when relating to people.

If you can't date them, maintain the friendship avoid hurting them. Imagine if someone was to set standards for you in order for them to love you, you’ll have to meet such standards. How would you feel? I know you would like them to love you for who you are not through the standards they have set. Unconditional love is the best real love.

What should I do now that I already have a set list of standards in my mind, and the mentors said don’t settle for anything less?

Any company without quality standards doesn’t run for long, everyone loves good quality. The quality of anything is not determined by sight only but also through testing, don’t judge the book by its cover, to be able to know how good a person is, one may need to first interact with the person with intentions of learning the person not judging him/her against your standards.

Some of these standards concentrate more on the outwards appearances (Is he a handsome man or a beautiful lady) more than character, believes and Values. It's said the beauty of a lady is in her character. And the beauty of a man is in his Values.

Let's evaluate people’s appearances after agreeing with their character, values and beliefs. Looks can be enhanced like using makeup, dressing better, learning pronunciations etc. but teaching character, value and believes is a mission in futility.

I have seen people who married very beautiful ladies who lacked character, this resulted in their divorce.

I have also seen people who married men that are not so good looking (he dressed in all rainbow colours) but had values. When they got help on their dress code their looks changed and now they are everyone’s dream husband. Through this, I learnt beauty should be inside out.

Have you ever asked yourself, what do I have to offer in a relationship other than my many demands?

In a company, before you negotiate for a salary you have to convince the panel, what is it you can offer to better the company. Let bring this analogy is relationships too, that we first check on what we can offer in a relationship rather than what’s my take home. Be an asset, not a liability.