Have you ever stopped to watch a child? They ask for what they want without hesitation. They say "I like you" to a stranger in a supermarket. They cry when they're sad, dance when they're happy, ask for what they want and feel absolutely no shame about it. There's a uninhibited self-expression in that which most of us can barely remember having.

Then life happens. We learn that not everyone responds kindly, that vulnerability can be used against you, that it's safer to appear unbothered even when you're not. By adulthood most of us have built a sophisticated system for protecting ourselves and for the most part it serves us well.

But when it comes to finding a partner, that same instinct starts working against you.

Nobody wants to admit they're actively looking. There's an unspoken rule that the most romantic thing is for love to just arrive on its own, accidentally, without anyone having to try too visibly or want too openly, as if wanting love, and being open about that want, is somehow embarrassing in itself. 

But that feeling isn't really about embarrassment, It's about being seen trying, the possibility that it won't work and that people will know you attempted it. We can just about privately deal with the disappointment of something not working out but the idea of having been visibly in pursuit of something and not getting it, this is what actually stops people.

The thing is, almost everyone feels this. The person who seems completely unbothered by the whole business of finding someone is almost certainly having the same internal conversation you are. Everyone is quietly hoping someone else will go first, will be the one to try the thing that feels a bit too earnest, and all the while everyone waits and nothing moves.

The people who tend to find what they're looking for aren't the ones who were fearless. They're the ones who decided that what they wanted was worth a little discomfort, worth being seen trying.

That tolerance for embarrassment isn't something you either have or you don't. It's something you build, and it usually starts with one small decision to stop letting the fear of how something looks determine whether you do it. This is true of every area of life. Anyone who has built something or pursued something meaningful has had to make peace with the possibility of failure and the exposure that comes with trying. We accept this in multiple areas of our lives,

And yet somehow, in the search for a spouse, we hold ourselves to a different standard.

You were once a child who asked for what you wanted without a second thought perhaps the love you're looking for might be on the other side of doing that one more time.