25 Signs You're Ready For A Relationship

The first and most important relationship you'll ever have throughout life is with yourself. How you feel about and care for your own mind, body and spirit sets the stage for all relationships outside yourself—with your partner, family, friends and co-workers. From psychological, spiritual and practical perspectives, it's pretty clear that if you don't love yourself, it's in turn harder to give and receive love.

We asked the YourTango Experts to clue us into the signs, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that reveal someone loves himself or herself enough to sustain a relationship. The point is not that you need to fulfill all the points on this list (no one is that perfect!), but that you can use this list to inspire you and the ones you love to increase love from the place where it starts—within. Never Too Late: How One Couple Learned To Love In Their 30s

Here are 25 signs you're ready to share and accept love:

1. You attract a like-minded partner. When you're in the energy of self love and acceptance, it's easy to magnetically attract a like-minded partner who not only loves himself/herself but is available, interested, and ready for healthy, happy, whole love.
- Lisa Steadman

2. You complete yourself. You know you are ready for a relationship when you don't need a relationship to feel happy and worthy, when you want a relationship to share your love rather than to get love, when loving yourself and sharing your love is more important to you than having control over getting love. When you want a relationship to deepen your growth rather than to fill your emptiness, you are ready.
- Margaret Paul

3. You won’t settle for conditional love. Men and women are ready for love when they realize they deserve to receive unconditional love from a partner.
- Nicole Johnson

4. There's nothing "wrong" with you. The only person who can complete you is you. The way to do that is to realize that there is nothing wrong with you; you are not broken, you don't need to be fixed. The truth of love is found in self-acceptance, and in shining the light of love on those dark places inside of us.
- Matthew & Orna Walters

5. You don't seek constant distraction. You're not afraid to be alone—and in silence, even. You like spending time alone and don't need the television to be on or the phone to be glued to your head. You can be with just yourself.
- Christine Arylo