Being a hopeless romantic essentially means that you’re in love with the idea of love. It might manifest differently for different people, but those who are hopeless romantics may have a special fondness for romantic songs and movies. And they may always be on the lookout for romance and often fantasizing about what it will be like for them to find the person of their dreams.

While being this way might seem to make it easier to find love because you’re always looking for it, there are some problems that can come with this approach.

High Expectations for Love

One of those problems is that being a hopeless romantic likely also means that you have very high expectations for love. You may fantasize about the kind of love you read about in books and the kind you see in movies. But few people, if any, will be able to live up to the kinds of expectations that these images of love can create.

When people lose themselves in fantasies about ideal romantic relationships, they may forget about things they may need to consider for real-life romance. For instance, they may forget all the not-so-romantic stuff that goes into maintaining a healthy relationship, preferring instead to focus on writing flowery poetry for their beloved or going on long strolls with them.

Of course, to keep the love in a relationship alive, poetry and long strolls can be helpful. But to enjoy a healthy and successful relationship, you’ll also have to deal with things like managing money properly and being aware that you and your partner may have different needs and expectations for a romantic relationship.

In fantasy land, two people can come together and everything automatically falls into place. Both partners understand each other, communicate without misunderstandings, and enjoy deep and lasting love. But in real life, successful relationships take consistent effort. Hopeless romantics don’t always want to hear that. And when they enter a relationship with someone and find that it’s not the bliss-filled romance they had always envisioned, they may end up disappointed.

Willingness to Settle

People who are hopeless romantics may also be so eager to have romantic love in their life that they fall in love with people or enter relationships with people who aren’t right for them. (Ironic, right? Considering their high standards.) In their mind, though, they see those people as being more than compatible.

As long as they feel some sort of romantic connection to another person, their romantic mind will easily be able to overlook or explain away any red flags or signs of incompatibility. And this can mean they hold onto relationships—even nonreciprocal ones—for much longer than they should.

I can talk about how this has played out in my own life. I’ve experienced a lot of unrequited love over the years. In fact, I find that I’m more familiar with unrequited love than I am with the requited kind. But time and time again I would ignore or explain away obvious signs that the person I was in love with either didn’t reciprocate my feelings or was indifferent about the relationship altogether.

But even though the feelings I had for my crushes weren’t reciprocal, even though they never reached for me the way I reached for them, even though I was there for them in ways they were never there for me, in my mind none of that mattered because I wanted to have romantic love in my life. And I felt a connection, even if it was only one-sided. So, I was willing to settle for people who didn’t love me the way I longed to be loved.

The feelings I had for them were real, though. And those feelings added to the little attention they did give me were all I needed to keep holding on. For hopeless romantics, feeling is the most important thing. But feeling without any consideration for logic or reason can result in unhealthy and unfulfilling relationships.

INFJ Hopeless Romantics

People of the INFJ personality type—I consider myself one—are known to be hopeless romantics. Part of what I believe contributes to this is our tendency to focus on others and forget ourselves. That means it’s easier for us to want to share our love with another person, rather than cultivating more self-love. Self-love is seen as selfish for INFJs, and selfish is a label we would rather avoid.

But there’s another part to it. From a young age, we’re all bombarded with society’s picture of what an ideal life looks like. And that picture almost always involves being in a romantic relationship with someone. While all of us can be heavily influenced by this image, I believe INFJs and other hopeless romantics internalize it even more.

Society doesn’t place emphasis on falling in love with yourself or having a romantic relationship with yourself. This is something we have to stumble upon years later, after we’ve tried society’s model and either had little to no success with it or found it to be unsatisfying.

We INFJs crave depth in all aspects of our lives. So, it only makes sense that we would crave it in our romantic relationships. And society’s emphasis on having a romantic partner plays well into this. But when we place more emphasis on having a partner than on loving ourselves, we’re actually depriving ourselves of the deep love we long for. Because to truly enjoy reciprocal love, you have to first love yourself.

Final Thoughts

I don’t think you have to stop being a hopeless romantic to experience a fulfilling love life. In fact, a hopeless romantic in a healthy relationship may always be looking for ways to keep the romance alive, which is a good thing. They may even try to put a little romance into the more mundane aspects of daily life.

Even so, I believe that loving yourself is a requirement for having a healthy relationship with someone else. This is something INFJs need to work on. And I can imagine that there are many people out there who would benefit from this kind of work, too.

Now it’s your turn. Why do you think being a hopeless romantic can make it harder for people to find love?

~ Ashley C.

P.S. If you’re an INFJ or someone who loves deeply and you would like tips and advice about crushes, unrequited love, and the search for a romantic partner, feel free to join “The INFJ Search for Love” newsletter!