the thing about love is...

...No-one can do it for you. No-one can tell you how to do it, find it, keep it... it just happens. Sometimes it lasts, sometimes it doesn't.

I'm an avid magazine reader, as most people who know me would be able to tell you. Since the humble age of 9 or 10 when I was reading Dolly or Girlfriend or another such pre-teen magazine that a friend had snuck to school that day. I was transfixed on the pages that told me how love happens, how to find it, how to flirt, etc. Then I became a teenager. Every rule and regulation and idea on how to make conversation, flirt without seeming like some kind of emotionally disturbed invalid or any other advice counted for nothing. After smiling, trying to initiate physical contact (which, by the way, freaks most people out when you try to touch them when you're talking to them) and every other little gem thrown my way, I realised something... it's all fake.

The people who write these articles in any magazine, whether you're 10 or 100, are probably in stable relationships and have forgotten what it's like to pine for someone's attention... OR they're just as clueless as you are. Let me say something, loud and clear, there are no rules on how to fall in love.

When I fell in love with my partner, I wasn't looking for it. I wasn't dolling myself up, going to some kind of meeting place and hoping to find true love. In fact, I was so over the idea of being with anybody (after being screwed around one too many times) that I didn't want to know anyone who wouldn't be a good friend. I met him through a friend. A friend who had a huge thing for him so, in typical female fashion, I dismissed any idea of romantic encounters and carried on with my life. She ended up dating someone else and we ended up planning to meet, purely as friends, to go to the same rock concert.... no-one wants to go to a concert alone, it sucks.

We hung out during the day, got some lunch, went exploring around Sydney (I'd just moved there and he was from Melbourne) and had no expectations of eachother. As it turned out, there was some kind of chemistry there. At literally the last minute before he had to go back interstate, he asked me if I wanted to fight the statistics of long distance dating and have a go. I said yes without blinking. The reason I didn't even have to think was simple- I had so much freedom for those last few days, I had no pressure to behave a certain way or ask what 'we' were or do anything at all except enjoy each moment and work out what was happening later.

We're still together now. We still love eachother and, like most people who live together, we do have arguments about mundane things like housework... but we're also supportive, ambitious about things separate from the relationship and we give each other space. There still aren't many rules for our relationship, except for the obvious "don't sleep with anybody else" and "don't take drugs" (not that either of us do, but just as a constant reminder on how craptastic they really are). I think that the lack of structure, the lack of ideals and goal and rules and everything else before you've even met somebody is pretty much the secret to being happy.

Being single is awesome. You don't have to answer to anybody (except, maybe, your parents or roommates) and you're free to see your friends when you want, male or female, and just generally be selfish and do things that you wouldn't do in someone else's company. Being in a relationship is awesome... but only if you're happy together and both of you are willing to make an equal amount of sacrifices. Don't go out looking for love like you're hunting a baby seal, be selfish for a while longer and don't dismiss someone who does like you if they don't make your ideal list of what a prospective partner should be like. Unless it's something dangerous, obviously. Live each moment without rules and see where you end up, you might enjoy it.