“You just know.”

We hear this phrase our whole lives. We hear it from our parents — “I just knew he was the one.” We hear it from our friends — “I saw her and I just knew.”

Accordingly, many of us spend a lot of our time waiting around, having meaningless flings, or not giving anyone the time of day until we “just know.” Maybe we even put tremendous effort into meeting “the one,” the person that we “just know” is it, but it doesn’t seem to matter, does it?

On the contrary, it seems like for us, you know, real-live-actual people — we always “just don’t know.”

It almost never seems 100%. Many of the people I’ve spoken with about this aren’t even sure that “the one” is even a thing anymore.

And first of all, let’s face it: there isn’t just one person out there for each of us. Statistically speaking, that would be ludicrous.

Seven years ago, I moved from upstate New York to Atlanta. I truly believe I will meet someone here that might be my life partner. But had I chosen to move to Charlotte instead, or Austin, or Chicago, or Seattle, or Los Angeles — okay maybe not Los Angeles — but just about anywhere else, I would believe the same.

I wouldn’t be sitting there like “Dammit, ‘the one’ must be in Atlanta!” I’m sure I’d find an extremely compatible, long-term partner in any one of those cities. This doesn’t even mention the rest of the world, but I think you get the point.

So why does it seem like none of us “just know?” Why is this feeling so relatable?

Is “you just know” bullshit? Is it in the same category as new parents telling you about how wonderful being a parent is? Is it just that thing that you say to explain why you’ve done what you’ve done? Or can you really meet someone and “just know?” Is that a realistic feeling to expect and wait on? And should we be dismissing opportunities that don’t feel like “just knowing?” How do we know we “just know” or not?

Questions like these may be difficult, but they also show how important this theory is to explore. So, with a grain of salt — because I’m astoundingly single — here is what they don’t tell you about “you just know.”

I don’t think that the idea of “you just know” would be a thing if real people weren’t experiencing it.

Unless there’s some handbook you get that requires you to say it — I don't know, dropped off by some sort of stork, maybe like a stork-intern for the baby delivery gig — it’s definitely a thing.

Also, I’ve had people I trust with my life tell me that this was how they felt. They wouldn’t lie to me about something so serious.

And to me, it seems completely rational and plausible to have a gut-wrenching feeling that says, “oh boy… she could be the one.” I think that feeling is often correlated with falling in love.

And I think I’ve felt that.

Which brings me to my next point:

I also think I’ve been wrong.

Because clearly that didn’t work out. But had it actually worked out — which it could have for any number of reasons — I would definitely be sitting here telling my friends “Yeah bruh, I mean, one day you’ll meet someone and… you just know.”

But it’s similar, conceptually, to the gambler telling you about that one absolutely impossible scenario where he just had a gut feeling to put it all on black, and he won big. The odds were not in his favor at all. They never were. But he doesn’t tell you about all of the other times he had that same gut feeling and lost. It’s not worth mentioning. And it’s not worth mentioning because that’s how gambling is supposed to go. That’s how it typically happens for everyone.

But that one time that you’re right — and you only need one time — perhaps you just knew.

One of my favorite parallels to draw here is how difficult it is to identify the age in which you’re currently living. For example, the artists in the Renaissance weren’t walking around like “WE’RE IN THE RENAISSANCE, HOLY F*CK, LOOK AT ALL THIS ART AND SHIT!”

They just kept painting. And inventing. And discovering. And living. Brilliance and glory require a bit of living in the moment.

You can’t be walking around wondering why you haven’t felt that feeling yet. You can’t be thinking about your past and wondering if you felt it before and thinking maybe you missed it. You can’t be an anxious mess about the future and expect to meet the person of your dreams.

You have to be there. You have to show up.

This is most likely the phase that many of us get stuck in for a very long time. And we simply don’t realize that we’re making progress. But I believe this is a critical step in actually experiencing “just knowing.”

You have to learn to identify when a relationship is just — flat out — not it.

If you can’t do that, then how do you expect to know when someone is “the one?” It’s much easier to know when someone isn’t “the one,” let’s put it that way.

This step takes a toll. It is a very painful step, and it’s exceptionally discouraging. As a result, it can lead to the belief that there’s no such thing as “just knowing.”

But this is where you have to learn how to be alone.

It’s in this phase that we sometimes spend years making excuses for people — because we felt that feeling and we wanted to be right. We knew the unknowable, right? We wanted to be able to say “I just knew.” We wanted all the love, anxiety, pain, time, effort, happiness, memories, hypotheticals, potentialities, sadness — all the feelings — we wanted them to be worth something. We wanted them not to be for nothing.

And then we find out that we were wrong. But the key discovery is: it doesn’t ever mean that it was for nothing.

It’s in this process that we learn to identify red flags. We learn to identify our values. We learn who we are as individuals. And most of the time, it takes the deepest of heartbreaks, the hardest of challenges, and the roughest terrain to see what you’re made of.

I believe whole-heartedly that relationships are never built on dependency. It’s entirely natural to slowly and incrementally develop different forms of dependency down the road, but dependency in the early stages of a relationship is codependency, and it’s a clear indicator of a void.

If every relationship is an emotional rollercoaster for you, perhaps you should take a look at who’s getting on the ride in the first place. Which is more likely: every single person you meet is toxic ~or~ you have some unresolved emotional trauma?

Will Smith, describing love and happiness, says that “whether or not a person is happy is deeply, and totally, and utterly out of your control.”

He also, at one point, describes a relationship as two individuals going through life together, but as individuals. Individual paths and individual journeys that run side by side because you want them to do so. I’ve always liked this mentality. And if you think about any successful relationship you’re familiar with, it is rarely, if ever, a situation in which one of the members is filling a void.

Which leads us to our final point:

You have to become whole on your own first. And then you have to meet someone who is also whole on their own. Then, and only then, can you really love each other. Otherwise, a relationship is inevitably transactional, and often unsustainable.

This is why love is so difficult. The odds really are astronomical that you would cross paths with someone at the right moment.

It takes significant self-discovery and self-reflection to reach this state of wellbeing — this mentality where you’re good on your own and other people don’t define you or complete you. It can be tough to achieve.

And you can’t fake it either. You can’t do the whole “I’ll show him how independent I am by posting Instagram pictures and stories of me not giving a f*ck and looking really hot and healthy…” blah blah blah.

No — you have to actually do the work. And you have to do it for you.

You have to spend some time learning to cultivate your own happiness. Try new things. Maybe you’ll hate some of them. Develop some routines. Maybe you won’t stick to some of them. But you’ll slowly start to whittle down to the core of who you are, and you’ll learn to love that person.

This concept is so cliche — I know — but I truly believe it’s the most necessary step in the process. And I know that it comes first, because loving yourself will never come from a failed relationship. They’re too painful, too taxing, and too personal. You can learn that it’s something you need to do, but it doesn’t just happen after a harsh breakup.

But once you know who you are, once you’re comfortable being alone, once you honestly know what you deserve and what you want, then you will be capable of meeting someone and “just knowing.”

At this point, you’ll be unshakable.

If someone you’re interested in tells you they aren’t interested in you, it’ll still hurt, sure, but it won’t rock the boat. It doesn’t alter your journey like it used to. And if you’re getting to know someone and realize they aren’t for you, you won’t drag it out anymore, and you won’t spend months making excuses for them.

You’ll just know.

When you’re in this mental state and at this level of self-respect, you become capable of “just knowing.” And this type of person that you’ve become is also noticeably more appealing, by the way, so this only increases your chances of a monumental acquaintance.

It produces a level of confidence that is practically palpable, and it draws people to you because the truth is: none of us know what we’re doing. None of us really know why we’re here. But if you at least know yourself, and you know what’s important to you, and you know what you deserve… it’s really, really attractive. It conveys comfort, reliability, authenticity, steadfastness, and many more desirable relationship qualities.

And someday, someone will see that and they’ll just walk right up to you. And you know what?

“I know,” you’ll say to yourself.

Written by Reid Gan