You are forcing love to fail.

You don't allow others in. You tried that once or twice, and it simply didn't work out for you. You were left broken-hearted for far too long the last time someone you loved left, and there's no chance that you'd risk all of that again. He wasn't right for you, and sometimes he treated you really poorly, but you were so in love you didn't see it. You thought for sure "this is it", so the day he left, you were left empty and feeling worthless. You are living in the pain of the past, and that is why you are closed off when any other man approaches you with interest. You are forcing love to fail.

You hide behind the jokes that you were "meant to be single forever", and you laugh each time, but the truth is that you really believe you were meant to love. You believe you were meant to love someone, and you were meant to love them hard, for the rest of their life. But it's easier to act like you don't care, isn't it? It's easier to joke about your loneliness than actually admit that it exists. Opening up and explaining your unbearable desire to simply hold someone you care for on a rainy day, or the way your heart longs to share a sunset on the pier with someone who makes you excited for tomorrow. You cover it up. You aren't honest with yourself about your deep craving for love until you are alone in your bed at 2 A.M. without anyone beside you. You are lying when you say you don't want a guy to worry about. You are closed off. You are forcing love to fail.

You give chance after chance to the wrong men. You keep going back to the ones that hurt you, and then you wonder why men don't treat you well. When you keep fishing in the same pond, you're going to keep catching the same fish. You're afraid to try something uncomfortable, so you stick to what you know. You are forcing love to fail.

You overanalyze every relationship you've ever been in. You continue to hold on to relationships that have failed because you were taught in the fairytales that there's always a happy ending. "He might come back someday," you say, but how long makes "someday" too long to wait? Stop waiting. You are worth loving now. Not "someday". Now. You think so hard about every argument that ever surfaced, and you end up convincing yourself each one was all your fault. They weren't your fault. The ending of a relationship that you were invested in was not your fault. All this does is fill your head with more lies about who you are and who you are not, what you are worthy of and what you are not. Don't let a failed relationship define you. Have you ever considered that maybe he wasn't right for you, and God was only protecting you and saving you for someone better? All you are doing is putting yourself down and not giving yourself any credit. You are forcing love to fail.

Be confident in your ability to love freely and openly. Be vulnerable. Say yes to that random guy who wants to take you out on a date. Meet people. Get to know them. Stop "protecting" yourself and start taking risks. Live ferociously, fearlessly, recklessly. Heal yourself, with your own strength, and have faith that love will not fail you. It is people who let us down when we are not strong enough to keep standing -- not love.