This is a love letter to all my single friends out there who, at this very juncture in their life, don’t see any love in the future. This is for us, the unloved ones, the perpetually single ones, the “why are you single?” ones.

Our generation has romanticised the idea of romance. We are more in love with what we look like on the outside with someone, we are more in love with the fact that we have someone who we think loves us, we are more in love with the idea that we have someone to love, than that person itself. And it is not 100% our fault.

I grew up with romantic-comedies, Disney movies, Backstreet Boys promising they’ll go “Anywhere For You” (which I thought Nick Carter meant me). All these sappy love songs, the ones who can’t find love end up being in love, and the ones who never wanted to be in a relationship always realising they’re wrong at the end of the movie. I blame them for giving us this notion, and also just look at that still from Jerry Maguire. We’re incomplete as a human being unless we find someone else to complete us. Or at least that was the message that I received from a very young age.

But the reality of modern technology is this: an algorithm has literally been created to make our dating lives easier. Don’t like their face? Swipe over them. But in that same way it has given us access to people, it has also given them access to us. How often have you received an unsolicited photo of something you wished you could send their mother? How often have you gotten derogatory remarks based on the colour your skin, your race, or some other superficial things? The fact is modern romance isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just a cheapened version of what we have consumed as children. The expectations we have built in our brains of romance do not meet the realities of dating in the modern world.

So when we finally are in relationships, we compromise, we do everything we can to keep this person, to keep up the happy facade. We try our best to love them do whatever it takes. But deep down inside you feel terrible. Why? Because you’re no longer you. You’ve changed so much of yourself that you now hate yourself. You don’t recognise who or what you are anymore. The idea that one needs another to be completed, that every prince has a princess is cancerous, and it has taken root so deeply in our culture that even me, just earlier last year, easily gave up the life I was living just for this one person who on hindsight, definitely wasn’t worth it.

The solution is pretty simple: love yourself. If you forget about the “you complete me” analogy, and adopt the “I am complete” one instead, perhaps you’ll still be single but at least you have your own back. I’ve received tons of people telling me I should love myself more. But I couldn’t figure out how to do it. And I still don’t. But i’ve stopped subscribing to the belief that only with a partner will I be truly complete. I am now of the belief that I am complete on my own, and if someone doesn’t love 100% of me, then it’s goodbye!

That should be the way everybody feels about themselves. You are not perfect, nobody is. And if someone blames you for falling short of their expectations, tell them that you’ve loved 100% of them, and that you are a person, not the perfect person they fabricated inside of their head. It is not your fault that your real self does not meet the expectations of the idealised you they created in their brains. Love yourself, and hopefully someone will come along and love you for what you are. And even if they don’t, you’ve got your own back 100%.

Here’s sending out some love.