We’ve all uttered the phrase, “I hate love,” at least once in our lives.

It’s no surprise. Here’s why.

Love can be a double-edged sword. It can make us soar to heights of ecstasy or it can make us fall flat on our face.

And anything in-between. Love can be unpredictable.

LoveLifeLinks.com is all about love.

So why would we take the time to talk about hating love?

Because it’s the hate of love that blocks love from our life.

It’s the angst over love that shuts down the possibility of feeling love.

Maybe we’re seething with anger against a loved one and this makes us believe we hate love altogether.

The universe is literally ripe with reasons to turn our back on love.

So let’s break down 5 reasons you may hate love and provide perspective on what you can do about it.

We want you to love love, again.

5 Reasons you might say “I hate love”

1. You’ve never found love

This is a big one. If you’ve been looking for love your entire life and still haven’t found love, there’s a good chance you’ve concluded, “I hate love.”

Let’s look at this closer.

It doesn’t seem fair that some people get it so easy when it comes to love.

You have a classmate who married their high school sweetheart and they are on their way to living happily ever after. They even have kids on the way.

You came to terms with that as the “exception” and decided to put yourself out there proactively on dating apps.

But alas, all of your dates turn out to be booty calls or free dinners. No one is interested in a love that lasts.

At this point, your bitterness is pretty well rooted.

You decide that maybe you should start attending church again.

“Perhaps there’s a religiously fervent guy or girl also interested in tying the knot sooner rather than later,” you think.

Then you discover that many of those church boys or girls are there for the same reasons as you. They tried partying and swiping, but nothing ever caught.

Essentially, they’re in the same boat. You’re all loafing around looking for love with a dejected smile on your face. At this point, no one really has the confidence to openly approach the chance at love. Everyone is waiting on someone else to make the first move.

So why can’t you find love?

Here are a few possible reasons:

1. Your ideal love doesn’t match the available pool of candidates
2. You’re looking for a deep soulmate connection and refuse to settle for less
3. You’re tired of initiating
4. You’ve simply given up on looking for love

These are all reasonable causes for your new hate relationship with love.

First, no one can refute the divorce rate has sky-rocketed. For this reason, it can seem futile to marry someone who isn’t a very close match to our ideal of love. It can be scary to take a step toward love with someone who you know doesn’t check all your boxes.

Second, some of us refuse to entertain the idea of love, outside of our romantic notion that our soulmate is waiting for us somewhere out there. You’ll find articles on this site that attest to the possibility of a soulmate connection that will change your life forever.

But if you’re waiting for a soulmate, you may miss out on the life of companionship you could have built with a loving partner. To your detriment, you’re wrapped around the axle of romanticism.

Third, sometimes, we’re just completely fed up with opening up first.

We think, “Can’t someone walk up to me and ask for my number?”

Do we always have to initiate?

It can be so discouraging when it feels like we’re the only one capable of starting a conversation. You don’t want to be vulnerable with little to no reciprocation.

So, we get stubborn and refuse to put ourselves out there unless someone else makes the first move. You can imagine what kind of gridlock this causes in the pool of possible love partners.

Lastly, it’s too much work to hope for love. Is it even worth it if someone always takes more love than they give? Indifference eventually leads to our disgust with love. Instead of seeing our lack of love as a gradual progression that we can reverse, we conclude, “I hate love.”

We even make this proclamation to others. But even though your friends commiserate with you, you’re still secretly hoping for love.

2. You found love, but love burned you

Then there are those of us who found love in the past. We were in head over hills. We never thought the love we had, could be broken.

But fate stepped in.

The person you loved discovered they actually loved someone else more than you.

Or maybe you got distracted. So, you threw away a chance at love for a hot fling.

There are times when we love someone but they choose their career or hobby over us.

Ultimately, goals don’t align.

They want children.

We do not.

They prefer to be a stay-at-home mom. We want a dual-income family.

This could be a good thing. Or it could be bad.

Bottom line is, we all have way more access to articles and media online that lead us to believe we should never compromise when it comes to finding and sustaining love.

But those are just the tiny cigarette burns of love.

Some of us discovered our love has a secret family, doesn’t bat on the same team, or has a harem of love interests unbeknownst to our innocent trust that love was enough.

Whether a small burn or an emergency room scald, getting burned by love can make us HATE love deep down, from the bottom of our heart.

3. You’ve never known any happy couples who are in love

O.k. This is a big one. You may have grown up with parents who outright hated each other, or passive aggressively detested their marriage. This, in itself, is enough to make you throw in the towel on love. Much of what we believe as an adult is shaped by our childhood memories and patterns we witnessed growing up.

It could be that you really thought your parents loved each other, but then you innocently discovered one or both of them were having affairs. Bummer. So much for one big happy family.

And it doesn’t just involve what we witnessed of our parents.

We’d dare say that most of what we witnessed growing up doesn’t align to the fairy tales of love we read as a child.

So, how have your observations of love impacted your quest for love?

Many take the route of trying to prove history wrong. They will go great lengths to scale the heights of love.

No matter how many times they get knocked down, they want to prove love’s merit.

Others never even try, because they’ve lost their faith in love based on the example of others.

4. You lost the love of your life

Maybe you were one of the rare individuals who miraculously found your soulmate. You didn’t have to try hard to find love. For some reason, the universe gifted you with a love that no one could deny as genuine.

But somehow, your love was taken from you unexpectedly.

Either through death or uncontrollable circumstances like immigration complications, your flame of love was put out.

Yes, those who’ve never found love suffer greatly. But arguably, there’s no greater pain than finding the love of your life and then losing them.

Sometimes, those who have lost true love will refuse to look for practical love because they intuitively know that nothing will ever compare.

But that doesn’t mean you need to spend the rest of your life alone. Yes, if you choose to be alone, the memory of your soulmate may be enough to nourish you for a lifetime.

Honor the love you had by holding it safely in your heart. Open your heart to love again, even if your new love will never replicate the deepest love you once had.

5. You’re afraid of rejection

No one likes to be turned down. Some of us are better at handling rejection than others.

We may be the tough guy or gal who thinks our great looks are enough to capture love.

Or we might hide our pain so deep inside that we don’t even realize our love life is being stunted by our aloof lack of vulnerability.

Maybe our conclusion is that love doesn’t require disclosure. And that’s true, love should be comfortable with emotional boundaries. However, the level of intimacy we have with a partner is only as strong as our willingness to be vulnerable.

In fact, those who possess an inner strength will not be afraid to share their inner selves with someone, for the chance at love.

Ultimately, we’re afraid of being vulnerable, showing our true selves to someone, because we fear rejection.

You can take a step of bravery knowing that someone’s rejection of you is always a step toward love.

If you never put yourself out there, your chances of finding love will diminish significantly.

Why I hate love – Conclusion

If you, a friend, or a family member has been saying, “I hate love,” this article will hopefully provide some helpful insight. You are not alone. Everyone gets exasperated by the prospects of love at some point in their life. The good news is that once you identify your main problem when it comes to love, you can begin to take steps to love love again.

Take out a pen and paper. Write down the points in this article where you can relate.

Come up with a few action items to reverse your hate for love.

LoveLifeLinks.com hopes you’ll find the strength to fall in love with love again.

Remember, you can feel love anywhere. Anytime. All the time.