You Can't Protect Your Heart By Acting Like You Don't Have One
It's okay to care.
WeHeartIt "Be a bad bitch. Don't cry over boys. Do your squats."
This is the mindset single girls are encouraged to have. It's one I sometimes find myself promoting when life is tough and love seems impossible.
Acting like you don't care about anything can be freeing.
It can make the biggest problem seem like a petty inconvenience. It can help you let go of toxic situations and remind you that you always have to do what's best for yourself.
But it's a quick fix, not a long-term solution.
After a bad romantic experience, I think having that girl power, man hating, not giving a flying fuck period to just take a break and find yourself again is absolutely necessary. There are feelings to get out and healing to do, and having that attitude can push you forward in the right direction by not letting you get distracted by romance.
However, it's not an attitude you should keep up forever.
Pretending like we don't want love doesn't make us badass, it makes us bitter.
Love is scary, and once you've had your heart really broken, it can make you want to call off the whole thing altogether. But avoiding it will just keep you in that place of fear, and you'll never get what you really want.
It's almost like there are two stereotypes of single women: The ones who are desperate and want a boyfriend more than anything in the world, and the ones who are "bad bitches" and have no interest in finding a man.
"Effort makes you weak, and fear makes you strong."
How ass-backwards can we get?
We all want relationships. We all want to fall in love. Catching feelings for someone isn't something we should be ashamed of or feel bad about. There has be a happy medium in all this BS.
I think as a society, we've gotten really far away from being authentic. Everything is staged, posed and edited, and being real won't get you any likes.
The first step in the right direction of finding love is being honest. Figuring out what you want, and not be afraid of owning it. Don't avoid romance and pretend like you don't care.
Because the more real you can be, the more likely you are to find something real.