This is complete bonk:
The truth is the exact opposite. Love is the best fuel to propel you to incredible victories. There’s nothing like falling in love to give you a qualitative leap in every aspect of your life.
Both N and I were a complete mess on every level the day before we met. But our passion for each other propelled the kind of growth in all areas that would have never happened otherwise.
Clarissa's Blog 
On every level.
We make each other’s lives better, more stable, less stupid.
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People create mental obstacles before trying to open themselves up to a possibility of love. I need to find a better job, a need a better wardrobe, I need to lose weight, I need to solve every problem to be ready for consumption as a fresh and clean product. This is fundamentally wrong because nobody can be new, shiny and problem-free forever. If he can only love you at your best, how will he love you postpartum, aging or failing at something?
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It is easier to keep to routines, do the dumb things you gotta do to have a good life (like exercise, cook healthy food, do well at your job even when it’s irritating, etc)… if you’ve already ditched the anxiety of “Does X like me? Am I good enough?” OK, check, done. Now we can get on with life because we always have a safe, stable, reassuring, comfortable home base to return to.
There’s this weird idea that, you find love and if it’s unconditional you’ll “let yourself go” and turn into a fat unemployed slob because why bother… and that seems to be *more* likely if you start with the assumption that nobody will like you unless you are perfect, or that you have to uphold unnaturally (to you at least) high standards in order to maximize the desirability rating of the potential partners you can attract… well, yeah, if you were making a fulltime job out of masking who you really are, you’re definitely going to be exhausted and turn back into a dumpster fire after you get what you think you wanted out of it (status! attention! novelty!), probably the first time you hit a real resource-draining crisis. Don’t do that!
Meanwhile, settling down all committed with someone who actually likes you (when you’re not pretending to be a moviestar)… now you’ve chucked a huge source of uncertainty and stress out of your life, and you have room to grow into a better version of yourself, instead of continually shoehorning yourself into a warped set of external standards.
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So true. Life gets so much better once you are coupled up definitively.
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Maybe?
Love, deep romantic love, deep love from becoming a parent, any kind of love that transforms you, makes you more of what you are, for good or ill.
Love is reagent, you are substrate.
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That’s true. Adversity, as well, really reveals who you are deep inside. I always tell my students that when bad shit happens – as it invariably will in every life – you will get to meet the real you. It might be a good surprise. Or it might be the opposite.
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Love is not planned, it just happens. I walked over to help too many boxes, she gave me the hairy eyeball (where a girl shyly look up to see if you had noticed her), and that was that, kilig. Guys suddenly develop a responsibility to somebody else.
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Waiting until you are perfect to date is a great way to stay single until you die.
My only caveat would be that if someone consistently finds themselves in unhealthy relationships, they need to figure out what’s causing that.
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Absolutely. If that happens, step away from dating and do the activity with imagining the perfect relationship in detail that I described yesterday.
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