You’re not just looking for someone to love. You’re looking for someone to choose you.
That’s the part we don’t say out loud. We scroll past engagement photos and “God wrote our love story” captions telling ourselves it’s just cute content—but somewhere deep down, we’re hoping for our own moment. Not necessarily because we’re ready to love someone well but because we want the proof: that we’re lovable, desirable, worthy of commitment. That we’re not falling behind.
It’s easy to mistake that craving for love. But what we’re often chasing is validation. And no matter how good the relationship looks on paper—or on Instagram—validation isn’t something another person can sustainably give.
Psychologists have a term for this: external validation dependency. A 2022 study published in Personality and Individual Differences found that individuals with high levels of validation-seeking behavior tend to experience more emotional dysregulation and lower self-esteem especially in romantic relationships. In other words, if your self-worth hinges on being wanted, you’re likely to struggle once you are.
Faith-based relationship counselor and author Debra Fileta puts it bluntly: “If you’re looking to a relationship to make you feel whole, you’ll always come up empty.” In her book Love in Every Season she writes, “So many people enter relationships not to give love but to get something—security, affirmation, worth. But when you treat love as a transaction you end up emotionally bankrupt.”
Christian culture doesn’t exactly help. In many churches, relationships—especially marriage—are treated as spiritual benchmarks. When you’re partnered up, people assume you’re doing something right. When you’re not, you must be “in a season of waiting,” as if singleness is a temporary problem God eventually solves.
But marriage isn’t a reward for spiritual maturity. And being single isn’t a punishment. Reducing love to a moral progress bar doesn’t just cheapen singleness—it places pressure on relationships to validate your worth. Which they can’t. And shouldn’t.
It’s no surprise that when we approach dating from a place of emptiness, the relationships themselves become strained. Dr. Alexandra Solomon, a licensed clinical psychologist and professor at Northwestern University, notes that “romantic relationships often become a mirror, reflecting back what we believe about ourselves. If we’re unsure of our value, we’ll constantly look to our partner to reassure us. That’s not intimacy—that’s insecurity.”
And insecurity when left unchecked has a way of shape-shifting. It turns romantic gestures into tests. Conflict into panic. Silence into rejection. Instead of connection, we create a performance—trying to be impressive enough, spiritual enough, low-maintenance enough to keep someone interested. That’s not love. That’s survival mode.
The truth is, a relationship can’t fix the fear that you’re not enough. Even the healthiest partner can’t carry the weight of being your self-worth proxy. That’s a burden they were never meant to bear.
So what do you do with the longing? You start by naming it honestly.
Ask yourself: Is this desire for connection—or for confirmation? Am I looking for a relationship or am I looking for someone to prove I’m not falling behind in life?
Because if it’s the latter, the problem isn’t your singleness. It’s the story you’re telling yourself about what singleness means.
You can want a relationship and still take responsibility for your emotional health. You can pray for partnership and still build a life that feels whole in the meantime. You can believe in God’s timing without treating your current season like spiritual purgatory.
Desire isn’t the issue. But desire without self-awareness will leave you chasing love that looks right instead of love that is right.
So maybe the real work isn’t finding someone to choose you. Maybe it’s learning how to stop outsourcing your worth in the first place.
Because the minute you stop needing someone to prove you’re lovable—you’ll be a lot closer to being ready for love. The real kind. The mutual kind. The kind that starts from a place of fullness not fear.
And that kind of love is worth the wait.
