MY PERSONAL LOVE STORY
Relationships were always important to me, because, call me cheesy but ‘I love love’.
Growing up, I met guys easily and never had a big gap between relationships. I had the hot high school boyfriend, the best friend who became my boyfriend and prom date, the boyfriends in college and the ones after that too.
Things were going well and I totally wasn’t worried. I was living a great life, traveling, building my career and discovering who I was. Settling down in my 20s was not my number one priority but I was on track to getting there…or so I thought.
As a little girl I always thought, I’ll be married by the time I am 30. That seems like a good age. I’ll have my life on track, be well into my career, making tons of money and life will essentially be PERFECT. I mean that’s what it was like in the dozens of movies I watched so why would it be any different in real life?
Living a life of meaning and of depth requires us to step outside of our comfort zones, to challenge our own ideas and create innovative ways to optimize our time on this earth.
Well it turns out it was a lot different. Throughout my 20s I started seeing a lot of my friends pairing off and settling down. While that was all fine and I was happy for them, I started having this sneaking thought - what is wrong with me? Why aren’t I settling down?
I thought I had found ‘The One’ but it turns out that wasn’t true either - which I only found out after uprooting my whole life to move to another continent to a city who’s first language wasn’t English.
So here I am, dealing with another breakup, going to another wedding (without being invited with a plus one I may add - what’s up with that?) horrified when they called the couples to the dance floor and I was left sitting by myself.
I moved to California - my life long dream and thought- this is it - I’m obviously going to find my person here - the universe works in funny ways and didn’t want me to settle down in any of the other places I lived because it knew that’s not what my heart really wanted to be. Sneaky universe.
Much to my dismay - a year later I am still meeting guys who are talking about their chakras, startups or dreams of making it in hollywood (ugh, double ugh and triple ugh) and sick of being ghosted or rejected by guys who I wasn't even into to begin with (how did that even happen?!).
I realized one thing; the common denominator in all of these situation was ME.
So I decided to do something that I had never done before. I let go of the “Sammy Z cool girl’ mentality (what my friends and I coined as my 'pretend I don't really care attitude but I actually do') and took radical responsibility for my actions.
Afterall, if you want different results you have to take different action.
What happened next was beyond what I could have ever imagined. Through the process of getting vulnerable and learning how to get out of my own way I learnt how to navigate being single confidently, look forward to spending time alone, seeing dating as an enjoyable process that became the catalyst for my growth and how to shift my energy to attract my real love with minimal effort.
Samara Zelniker
