What I Wish I Knew About Love

A sample of What I Wish I Knew About Love

What I Wish I Knew About Love

Kirstie Taylor

Thought Catalog Books · thoughtcatalog.com · New York • Los Angeles

Copyright © 2021 Kirstie Taylor. All rights reserved.

Published by Thought Catalog Books, an imprint of the digital magazine Thought Catalog, which is owned and operated by The Thought & Expression Company LLC, an independent media organization based in Brooklyn, New York and Los Angeles, California.

The events, places, and conversations in this book have been recreated from memory. The chronology of events may have been compressed. When necessary, the names and identifying characteristics of individuals and places have been changed to maintain anonymity.

This book was produced by Chris Lavergne and Noelle Beams. Art direction and design by KJ Parish. Special thanks to Bianca Sparacino for creative editorial direction and Isidoros Karamitopoulos for circulation management.

Visit us on the web at thoughtcatalog.com and shopcatalog.com.

Made in the United States of America. ISBN 978-1-949759-30-3

Table of contents

• INTRODUCTION — 5
• RE-WRITING THE SCRIPT ON LOVE — 9
• THE STORIES WE WERE TOLD ABOUT LOVE — 11
• THE FIRST LOVE WE EXPERIENCE IN LIFE — 14
• COMMON BELIEFS ABOUT LOVE, REFRAMED — 19
• LIES SOCIETY TELLS US ABOUT LOVE THAT YOU SHOULD IGNORE — 24
• MOVING PAST HEARTBREAK — 29
• YOU CAN'T MAKE SOMEONE CHOOSE YOU — 31
• LESSONS YOU CAN LEARN FROM ANY BREAKUP — 35
• MOVING ON IS THE BEST REVENGE — 40
• A FEW DIFFICULT TRUTHS ON LOVE — 45
• HOW TO TELL IF YOU'RE WITH THE WRONG PERSON — 49
• WAYS TO CARE FOR YOURSELF AFTER A BREAKUP — 54
• RE-BUILDING YOUR SELF-IDENTITY — 59
• REMINDERS FOR WHEN YOUR HEARTBREAK HURTS TOO MUCH — 64
• LOVE WILL COME IN ITS OWN TIME — 68
• UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF — 75
• SIGNS YOU'VE LOST TOUCH WITH WHO YOU ARE — 77
• CHASING LOVE WILL EXHAUST YOU — 81
• GETTING IN TOUCH WITH YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF — 85
• WHAT ARE BOUNDARIES AND HOW TO CREATE THEM — 90
• SELF-CARE ACTS THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE — 95
• LOVING YOUR LIFE WILL ATTRACT MORE LOVE — 101
• OVERCOMING YOUR INSECURITIES AND FEELING MORE CONFIDENT IN YOURSELF — 104
• WHY TAKING A BREAK FROM DATING COULD BE EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED — 112
• THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN WHEN YOU TAKE A ONE-YEAR BREAK FROM DATING — 117
• LITTLE REMINDERS FOR WHEN YOU FORGET YOUR SELF-WORTH — 121
• FINDING A GREAT PARTNER — 127
• HOW YOUR DATING PATTERNS ARE HOLDING YOU BACK FROM LOVE — 129
• THIS IS WHY I DON'T BELIEVE IN SOULMATES — 135
• LOVE IS MORE THAN ROMANCE — 139
• PIECES OF DATING ADVICE THAT DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD — 143
• FIRST DATE SIGNS THAT SOMEONE WON'T MAKE A GOOD PARTNER — 147
• MAKING FIRST DATES FUN AGAIN — 152
• MIXED SIGNALS ARE A CLEAR SIGNAL — 158
• ACTIONS TO HELP YOU DETERMINE IF YOU'RE SOMEONE'S PRIORITY — 163
• ON WHAT LOVE ISN'T — 169
• THE MOST UNDERRATED QUALITIES THAT MAKE A GREAT PARTNER — 174
• CREATING A LOVING RELATIONSHIP — 181
• YOU DON'T NEED GAMES IN YOUR RELATIONSHIP — 183
• WAYS TO SHOW YOUR PARTNER RESPECT — 187
• TALKING ABOUT YOUR PAST WITH SOMEONE NEW — 192
• THE DOS AND DON'TS OF ARGUING — 196
• TRUSTING YOUR PARTNER WHEN IT FEELS TOO HARD — 202
• WHY INVESTING IN YOURSELF WILL BENEFIT YOUR RELATIONSHIP — 208
• HEALTHY VS. UNHEALTHY COMPROMISE — 216
• QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR PARTNER TO UNDERSTAND THEM ON A DEEPER LEVEL — 220
• WAYS TO FALL EVEN MORE IN LOVE WITH YOUR PARTNER — 224
• LASTING LOVE COMES DOWN TO ONE CHOICE — 230

Introduction

Love (or pain due to a lack of love) is a theme that runs through every person’s life, molding who they are and reframing the way they view the world. Yet no one teaches us about love. We’re expected to know how to swim through it, when most of us can barely tread water.

I decided to write this book because I wish someone had taught me how to swim instead of having to learn the hard way: through broken hearts, late-night texts to my exes, and tear-soaked pillows. There’s no book out there that gives fluff-free advice about the journey of finding a great relationship. Some books focus on the single life, others on dating, and many on relationships. But this book covers all of that. Because having written over five hundred articles on dating, relationships, and self-love, I know a thing or two about this world.

If you’re like I was, feeling like a victim of my love life, rather than in control, then these words on what I’ve learned over the years are for you. May they teach you how to swim.

I was obsessed with the idea of love as far back as I could remember. I wanted it from my parents. From my grandmother and my aunt. I wanted it from the boy in my kindergarten class and every friend I made. But you never would’ve met me and thought I had this desire to be loved. I was an independent child who could entertain herself for hours as long as I was outside. I’d find tadpoles to make my pets or trees to climb. I had friends from school and in the neighborhood who I rode bikes with, but I wasn’t that great at becoming close friends with any of them. My need for closeness with other people lived inside me but I didn’t know how to properly express or fulfill it. But from hearing girls talk about their boyfriends as early as elementary school, I figured I could satiate my need for love through a boy. I wanted someone to call my boyfriend and care about me in the ways I saw teenagers at the mall act in their relationships.

My first taste of that kind of affection came in the fourth grade. My mom would take me to skate at the local ice rink with my friends from school and wouldn’t come back to pick me up until sunset. My friends and I had free reign of the rink, along with the other kids from the surrounding schools.

On one particular day, I noticed a boy look at me while I was untying my sneakers. His cheeks became rosy as he walked over and commented that he liked my shoes. His name was Corey and he had a messy head of brunette hair. He was one grade older than me (yes, I liked older men, even in the fourth grade). He came to the rink with a group of three other boys and we combined our friend groups for the day. All of us battled it out at air hockey and challenged each other to see who could get a stuffed tiger at the claw machine (Spoiler: it was me. I’ve always rocked at the claw machine). Then we moved our focus over to the ice rink. A few laps into skating, Corey came up alongside me and smiled. He grabbed my hand and laced his fingers between mine. I was elated. A feeling of electricity pulsed through my body.

At the end of the night, Corey took down my number before his mom picked him up so we could stay in touch. When I got home, I waited anxiously for him to call. I imagined our future together: skating every week at the ice rink. We’d go to movies together and he’d be the boy I had my first kiss with. But days passed, then weeks. The phone didn’t ring once with Corey on the other end. Each time my friends and I went to the skating rink, I’d search for him. But I never saw Corey again. You could say that was my first heartbreak.

Maybe he didn’t feel the electric connection I did, or perhaps he lost the Juicy Fruit gum wrapper he’d written my number on. Either way, Corey ignited in me an intense infatuation with what I thought was love.

I didn’t realize it then, but my idea of how love works was greatly shaped from that experience. I’d fallen into a romantic narrative with a boy I didn’t even know the last name of. That would’ve been cute if I’d left that habit in elementary school, but I carried it well into my adulthood. In fact, a lot of the ways I thought love worked were wrong: from how to give it, to receiving it, to what it even looked like. Reflecting back, it really did feel like I was thrown into the deep end of a pool and faintly heard someone yell, "Good luck!" If there was ever a time to use the term "trial and error," it would be to describe my love life.

And I know I’m not alone in this.

Years of failed relationships, heartbreaks, and a lot of sadness passed before I stopped to question why love felt so painful. I didn’t want to feel like a victim to love anymore, I wanted to be in control. So I took matters into my own hands.

I re-focused my energy from obsessing over trying to make people love me to learning about the subject of love. I’ve read thousands of articles and consumed every ounce of knowledge I could from books. If there’s a case study out there about how love affects our adult lives, I’ve read it. With all of that new-found knowledge, I began applying it to my own life and started seeing massive changes. That’s when

I decided to write about my experiences. Since then, I’ve published over five hundred articles. I’ve discussed relationships and dating on podcasts and in Forbes. My work has been featured in magazines across the nation (including airports, which still blows my mind) and websites my younger self would have only dreamed of being in. It’s safe to say I really do love love. So much so, I made a career from it.

Through everything I learned, I wondered why we’re never taught about love: not in school, by our parents, or in the media (at least in a healthy sense). The only times I’d ever heard of people being educated on relationships was right before marriage or well into one. Essentially, two points in one’s life when it’s a little too late.

That’s why I’m writing these words. They’re for anyone finding themselves in one unhappy relationship after another, struggling with self-esteem, or needs a little help with their dating lives. This book is a culmination of everything about love I wish an older sister or quirky aunt had taught me when I was younger. So, think of me as that older sister or eccentric aunt, wine glass in hand, ready to lay it all out for you.

This book is for anyone who wants to radically change the way they experience love. I’ll tear apart misguided ideas on love we learned as children. You’ll be asked to answer difficult questions to gain a better understanding of why you struggle with love (including self-love). I’ll talk about the best ways to go about finding a partner you deserve. After that, we’ll go through how to create and maintain a healthy relationship.

I hope you benefit from the lessons I’ve learned and let them guide you to having fulfilling romantic relationships, friendships, and self-love anyone is capable of having. I won’t lie to you and say love is easy. This book doesn’t have secret answers to finding your soulmate (which I don’t believe in anyway). But the words you’re about to read will give you hope, understanding, and confidence to move into the world of love. This is what I wish I knew about love.

Part I — Re-writing the script on love

The stories we were told about love

As a child, I was fascinated with Julia Roberts. I’d spend hours plopped in front of my TV, watching Julia be anything from a bridesmaid to a prostitute (though I didn’t know what a prostitute was at that time; I barely knew what Pretty Woman was even about). I felt mesmerized by Julia’s fun-loving attitude and the fact that her style was always on point.

I also loved Disney movies, seeing as I was a 90’s baby who had almost all the Disney VHS tapes. My favorites were The Little Mermaid and Cinderella—mostly because of my obsession with talking animals. I fantasized about the enchanted lands these princesses lived in and felt jealous of all the tiny critter friends that had their backs. When my real-life friends would come over, the first thing I’d suggest we do was reenact the plots from those movies.

At the time, Julia Roberts and talking animals may have been what drew me in, but those movies had one driving theme my five-year-old brain wasn’t capable of recognizing: love. They depicted women whose lives changed forever the moment they fell in love. Since I was young and had nothing to go off of, my tiny

The available excerpt ends here, partway through this chapter.