We’ve all heard “You can’t love anyone else until you love yourself” or “No one will love you until you love yourself.” There are many varitions of ”You can’t do (insert ridiculous notion here) until you love yourself," and I think that is complete and utter nonsense. It’s outrageous to make people think that they don’t deserve love if they don’t love themselves.
We all have doubts. We all look in the mirror some days and think “why does my hair do that?” or “why is my smile so weird” or “why can’t I be less awkward?” There are things we want to change, things that we wake up some days and hate. We may love a lot of our characteristics, but they somehow become obscured by the one thing that we don’t.
The attributes we wish to change are factors affecting the way people perceive us. I would wear sweats all day, every day, if I didn’t think I would get strange looks on the sidewalk. I wouldn’t waste time doing my hair if I didn’t want to make a good impression. I’d probably just roll out of bed and walk around like that if I haven’t been single for a couple years.
I don’t hate myself. I hate that my hair puffs basically horizontal unless I straighten it, but I like most of my personality. And that is definitely due to the wonderful people around me who tell me my hair looks good even when it most certainly does not. I’m comfortable in my skin, and I can say that I love the crazy, loud, naive, boisterous self that I am. But sometimes I wonder why anyone else does.
I constantly wonder whether I’m being too loud and annoying people, if people look down on me for not always knowing when a guy is hitting on me or if I’m starting to wear people down with my constant questions and advice-seeking. Sometimes I worry that even if I like those things about myself, no one else will. Sometimes I worry I’ve been single for so long because there’s something wrong with me I just can’t fix.
My friend (who came up with this beautiful title, props girl!) recently went on a date. She is confident absolutely should be--she’s awesome. And jokingly she said that maybe the guy wouldn’t like her because of some of her traits, despite her loving herself. She said these exact words: “I love myself. But why does anyone else?”
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how positively we think of ourselves, we still feel we need validation from others. Qualities that we once loved about ourselves we can begin to resent if we feel others don't enjoy it. We second guess our actions because we wonder if other people like certain qualities in spite of our own love for them.
We should love ourselves despite what others think. A lot of the time other people love our characteristics and we just don't realize it. There will always be people who will criticize us, but those people really, really don’t matter. If you love yourself, other people will too.
Self-love is attractive, but you shouldn’t love yourself so someone will love you or that you can love someone else. You should love yourself so you can walk around sweats if you want, or buy a tub of ice cream and not feel judged or order a whole pizza and answer the door very clearly alone. You should love yourself because it will make you feel better, not for other people’s benefit. You should absolutely love yourself, but don’t think that you aren't worthy of love or happiness if you don't.
