I spent most of my high school years on the sidelines watching what seemed like everyone around me fall in love, while I questioned if I was even worthy of it. People say you have to love yourself before loving someone else, but is that really true, or is it just something we tell ourselves to ease the sting of being single?
In a world that feels split between hopeless romantics and hookup culture, I’ve often wondered whether personal growth and healthy relationships can truly coexist, or if that’s just a myth we like to believe.
falling Behind in love
During high school — and even late middle school — I was everything you’d expect a teenager to be. I struggled with a lack of confidence and hesitated to embrace myself. I constantly compared myself to friends and peers who seemed to have everything I didn’t: the grades, the relationship, the looks, the stable family.
Living in a time so dominated by social media only made matters worse. I felt like I was always falling behind, especially when it came to romantic relationships. I used to wonder whether something was wrong with me. But at the same time, did I really want a relationship, or was I trying to prove I was worthy of being loved?
All these insecurities followed me into my first situationship, if you could even call it that, which ended badly. I spent so much time in my head, wondering whether I was doing the right thing or if there was any real attraction at all. Part of me questioned whether I was forcing something to say I wasn’t alone. Eventually, it all fell apart.
After that, I decided to focus on myself and my own personal goals for the rest of high school. That choice became a turning point.
What I learned about love and myself
From being suffocated by insecurity, self-doubt, and comparison, to dealing with a painful situationship, my turbulent journey pushed me to start working on myself. I began figuring out what I wanted out of life.
High school can feel like you’re being pressured to conform to whatever might make you seem more popular. It can be scary to step out of line, but I chose to anyway. Surrounding myself with people who let me be myself helped build my confidence and validated my self-worth.
When I least expected it, I entered my first long-term relationship. Looking back, the timing makes sense. Even though I met my boyfriend at a time when it felt like everyone else was talking to or dating someone, I was in the best headspace I’d been in throughout high school, especially as I neared graduation. For the first time, I had really begun embracing my independence — not in a way that shut people out, but in a way that made me feel grounded in myself.
This brings us back to the question: do you really need to love yourself or be fully healed to love someone else?
dating, self-love, and Gen Z
Across social media, there’s constant discourse over whether you need to “love yourself first.” In Emma Chamberlain’s podcast Anything Goes, in the episode “Embracing Being Single,” she discussed that she rarely spent long stretches of time alone because she feared being without affection.
This is something many members of our generation experience, particularly women. For many of us, the idea of being single and lacking affection feels unbearable. Social media doesn’t help, constantly feeding us content that sparks a craving for romantic connection.
This pressure makes us feel like we need to have everything figured out while balancing relationships, school, a social life, and personal growth. However, many of us need to learn how to give ourselves the love we think we’re missing — and find fulfillment in relationships beyond romantic ones, like those with family and friends.
Falling in love and having someone who loves you in a way nobody else does is beautiful, but it isn’t worth tearing the rest of your life apart over if it’s the one thing you feel you’re missing.
takeaways
Self-love and romantic love don’t need to happen in a strict order. They can be messy, overlapping, and still deeply meaningful.
It is possible to be in a healthy relationship while continuing to work on yourself. That’s what relationships are about. Wanting to be the best version of yourself and being with someone who feels the same. Someone who builds you up while you build them up, too.
So no, you don’t need to have it all together to love someone. Sometimes, love itself becomes part of the healing.