Searching for love to escape ourselves | Hayley Quinn | TEDxUniversityofNevada

Love, sex and dating are often venerated as 'the ultimate goal of life'. However how much of our quest for love is about avoiding being with ourselves? About facing reality? About creating our own direction? And in running away from ourselves in love, do we ultimately avoid the work needed to return to selfhood that will actually bring us happiness.

Hayley Quinn is the UK’s leading Dating Expert and has helped 100,000’s of men and women re-think their love lives.

A graduate in English and Psychoanalysis from UCL Hayley set up her own company as a reaction to encountering the ‘pick up artist’ culture and working as a ghost writer for characters from the New York Times bestseller ‘The Game’.


She’s been a featured expert for numerous international TV shows and has had a Channel 4 Cutting Edge documentary ‘BiCurious Me’ based around her explorations into sexuality and relationships. She has also written for Cosmopolitan, the Independent, the Telegraph and regular provides social experiment vlogs to news sites.

[KamelliaHolms]

"They look like love, they feel like love. But when you open them up, there's nothing loving about them." this hits different

[NLSasuga]

"The strongest drug for a human being, is another human being"

[Anna_Helena]

„Don't try to find your ‚other half‘, try to become ‚a whole’ by yourself.“
Something I recently realized :)

[Rumi-etrn]

"There is nothing outside of yourself, look within. Everything you want is there. You are that." - Rumi

[giftedintrovert]

"knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape" - bell hooks

[Pasguro]

"I was a magnet to chaos, I loved chaos bc when I was in chaos I didn't had to confront myself"....

[SanjalK]

Not just true with people but also with things. We constantly use our smartphones to escape ourselves. Don't we?!

[sherryidibo]

I believe if your family don't shower you with enough love, you will always seek or search love from others. We all need to love ourselves so can people appreciate us.

[saraallison]

Never put your happiness in other people. They will always let you down .

[narimancharkie]

I agree with most of the talk but there is one thing to be kept in mind: you will never stop learning and fixing yourself. you can never reach a time and say "I'm totally fixed right now, I am ready to go out and search for love because I have nothing else do it with myself."
yes love *should not* be an escape from ourselves.
yes we should learn how to be alone with ourselves and actually enjoy our loneliness.
and yes we should fix our inner conflicts and not wait for love or someone else to fix them.
but also we should enter love with the intention of accepting criticism /advice from your partner in order to grow and to be a part of the growth of your partner so you both become better people along the way.

[FruitCapoeira]

"So I find that my dating advice is gradually shrinking down to be essentially: Go meditate, get some therapy, read a book." She is literally so right tho. If your past relationships didn't work out and you're looking for advice before you try dating again, seriously just do those three things first. Take a break and try again later

[willowoodz]

“love shouldn’t be an act of escapism”. finally. i needed to hear this. i think this applies to friendships, too, because it’s also easy to take them for granted bc society often says romance is more important. i’m no longer gonna run. i’m here for me, even if it’s hard

[dinkyskid]

Very true, most people are using others like drugs. I wish you peace and healing

[VasileSurdu]

finally a good talk.. sort your shit out first then you'll be able to meet people left and right because it won't be difficult anymore and you won't care about needing others to fix your life

[Funlife]

I just saw my life in 15min and I am alone in my apartment, not looking for anyone anymore, learning new languages, learning to play guitar, jogging, exercise, cooking by my self cuisine of all around the world, working on my own start up, i usually don’t cry but by listening this 15 min of my own life made me cry alone in my home. Yes life is pretty dramatic and I don’t want more drama in my life.

7 months I am not looking for anyone anymore. I am done with it all chaos in my life.

[hardcoreherbivore]

This is really good advice for some people. After a bad breakup a decade ago I realized the same. I wasn't happy with myself, so I started working on me. Eliminated all harmful addictions, went plant based, got physically fit, found the main causes for my depression, and became financially comfortable. Now, after I've accomplished all that, dating again is more difficult than I thought. Not because I don't have opportunities, but because I see my old self in those people.

[mothermovementa]

"When you can just be, That's real love"

[Athvna]

“I think that sometimes when you’re focusing on that perfect romance, you’re not actually doing the real work to fix the stuff that’s stopping you from becoming happy”

[Camila-yxej]

At 26, enrolled in a phd in the city I love the most, I saw myself crying and begging for a guy I've met on tinder two months before to don't leave me in the weekend to see his friends. I use to thought about him literally every second and couldn't see anything fun or exciting in life if he wasn't involved. Now I see that to think about him all the time and wanting to be with him all the time was actually a form of escapism. When I was thinking about him I didn't have to think about how much I disliked my career, how I hated the house I was living in and how lonely I was in that city. I didn't have to think about the bad relationship I have with my father and my family. At that point I had no interests outside this guy. My future was planned like "I'll be his girlfriend" and that was it. When he was gone, there was nothing in my life anymore that I was interested about, nothing. I had become this needy baby, wanting a babysitter (him) literally 24h a day. Anyways, we cannot put our lives in the hands of just one other person. It's too dangerous. When it was over I had to deal with severe depression for quite some time and even now I see my life without any goal. It's too dangerous people! Never do this!!!

[koridevereaux]

I just got out of a relationship 4 months ago. I never want to feel that weak again. having so much of myself tied up in another person. you give up so many parts of yourself in sacrifice to what you assume love is, but really you're just being treated with decency for the first time, and you mistake good human nature for romantic love. I've seen so many insecurities come up after the rose colored glasses fell off, within myself. I still hurt from time to time, and I remember my ex in the smallest things, a movie, a certain smell, etc... I just feel so out of control of my own emotions some days, and I just allow myself to feel and cry, and then I move on as usual. I refuse to let myself feel that pain again.