Finding Love?
I am 21 and I’m a girl. The thing that I want most is to find love. To have a partner who I can just enjoy time with and laugh with and feel connected to. I want to do things the right way, the Islamic way, but I feel lost. I don’t know how to approach someone and sometimes I feel insecure because I wear a hijab and unlike other girls, I can’t really dress up and mingle in a mixed friends group. That’s just not who I am. Doing things the right way makes me feel like an outcast, it makes me feel inexperienced, and I’m not sure how people do it. I’m a bit scared of the thought of marriage, I just feel like I might not ever find someone. I know I’m young but it feels odd being alone because everyone else around me has someone or is married. If I don’t find someone then I might end up alone. I know that Allah is the best of all planners, but I wish I could directly ask him if I should approach a particular person or no. That would make things clearer. I’ve accepted that if it doesn’t happen in this life, it will in the next. I’ve always been a romance lover tho lol so I just want to experience what it’s like. To like someone and they like you back. To feel loved and wanted. I know that my friends and my family love me, I love them too, but I also wanna experience romantic love and companionship. If I have a crush on someone, or think that someone might have the potential to be suitable for me, would it be wise to approach them?
Response from a “Fatima Counselor”:
Salaam dear sister,
Thank you so much for being so vulnerable. First off, you are not alone in any of these thoughts. If anything they are very natural and expected!
Humans are designed to crave a level of companionship, whether romantic or not. There is no shame in desiring this.
You mentioned feeling alone and insecure in how to move forward in these next steps compared to others your age. I would like to remind you gently that no one often really knows what they are doing. Your lack of experience does not necessarily translate to poor decision making. Rather, it indicates you prefer to stick to your chosen values and that in and of itself is a beautiful and authentic decision to make!
I will also gently suggest that just because everyone around you is married or paired with someone does not mean that you will end up alone. We are all characters in the stories of our lives. Some people have certain characters enter their story in much earlier chapters than others. But that does not mean there is no story. Allah swt is the Greatest of Writers. We all have different plots to our stories. New experiences, chapters and even romance often lie when and where we least expect them. Allah swt always listens and responds on His timeline. Spiritual acts of worship such as dua, dhikr, and prayers such as Isthikhara may be useful for further orienting yourself.
Dear sister, you have every right to want to experience romantic love and companionship. To expand this right, I suggest self reflecting on what values matter to you. Most of all, I recommend continuing to foster a strong and healthy relationship with the person you have known the longest and best: yourself. Fostering qualities you value in others within yourself, seeking out other relationships such as other friendships and experiences etc only enrich you further while you start considering romantic prospects. Continuing the lifelong journey of knowing yourself is important as you simultaneously embark on Islamically finding romantic partnership. Perhaps if you feel comfortable enough, you can also share this with trusted loved ones and if that does not feel safe or you needed other spaces to more deeply discuss and make sense of this topic, consider connecting with a mental health professional.
Your story has just begun! InshaAllah wishing you all the best in making it a life well lived and meaningful for you, whatever that looks like.
With dua,
Sincerely,
Your Sister in Islam,
Fatima “FA”
Response from your friend at Stones to Bridges:
Assalam alaykum my sweet sister,
**Please also be sure to see other supportive comments in the Comments section below**
I appreciate that you decided to write this post as talking about love and relationships can make us feel very vulnerable. It is a natural human emotion to want to feel loved and wanted by others and I know there are many other sisters who feel the exact same way as you. I love that you want to do things the Islamic way and it shows that your heart is in the right place. The fact that you are obeying Allah by covering yourself and not participating in mixed gatherings shows that you really care about your relationship with Allah. This is really important when thinking about marriage as like any relationship in our lives, we need to place our relationship with Allah at the forefront of it. That is the most important connection and something we will have to continuously work on throughout our lives. I really appreciate that you are trying to do so at a young age. The idea of marriage can be very frightening, especially if you’ve never been married and/or had experiences with the opposite gender. Marriage is rizq and ultimately we don’t know when/if Allah has written for us to be married here in this world. I can empathise how you feel about not wanting to be alone, as many of the people I went to school with are now married and having/expecting children. However, with that being said the way that I think of it is that not everyone who is married is in a happy marriage. Marriage is hard work and romance is only a small part of it, it is two imperfect people coming together to make something work. Take this time while you are still single to improve on your relationship with Allah, research and learn about the rights and responsibilities of the husband/wife, watch and read videos/articles on how to have a healthy marriage. Empower yourself with this knowledge as you work on your deen and never give up making dua to find your spouse. Speak with your family, especially your father or whoever is your closest male guardian for their advice and guidance. Alhamduillah, you are still young and maybe your family or you think that you just might not be ready yet. Ask Allah and try your best in your search and never loose hope.
I pray Allah blesses you with a beautiful marriage full of peace and barakah and that from that marriage you are blessed with pious offspring who will be the source of comfort for you here and in the highest level of Jannah, ameen.
Sincerely,
Your sister in faith.
Anonymous
Salam, I pray that this message finds you in a space of clarity and peace. Ah, romantic love. Who doesn’t want that? To meet someone who you can share a special companionship with, someone who understands you deeply and vice versa. To share a unique physical connection, to commit to one another with a deep sense of loyalty for life inshAllah. For someone to run to for comfort when life brings you down and to be a source of comfort for them when they seek you out. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is in fact it’s part of the Sunnah and encouraged to be done through marriage.
I also understand why you feel lost when trying to go about finding the right person. How do we do this in a way that’s Islamically appropriate? What if we never find the right person? What if we end up single for life? Is it ok with Allah to just approach someone we’re interested in?
If you know the story of Khadija (Ra), she actually approached our beloved Prophet Muhammad (p) for marriage, but she did it in a way that was culturally appropriate and acceptable. She sent a friend of hers to deliver the marriage interest proposal to Muhammad, and this friend worked as a temporary envoy between them.
How does that translate in today’s context? If you see a brother who you’re interested in, recruit someone you trust to approach him in a public setting to say something along the lines of, “Salam, I have a friend who is curious to get to know you for the sake of marriage and I’m asking on your behalf if you’re open to that.” And then if he is, to get his email address or social media account. Then, seek the advice of your parents on how they would like to be involved in your getting to know him, and then reach out.
Perhaps your father may want to talk to him before you do. If that’s the case you can reach out to him and ask if he’s comfortable with your father reaching out to him first before you two can begin your correspondence. If for whatever reason you’re unable to have your father involved, ask another trusted Mahram (any male family members who you don’t have to wear hijab around: brothers, uncles, grandfathers).
If he’s uncomfortable with speaking to your Mahram first because it feels like a commitment to do that, remind him that you’re trying to do things in a halal way. If he’s still uncomfortable with that then know this is a red flag and he isn’t actually serious about approaching marriage with transparency.
If there is someone you already have some type of relationship with, such as a classmate or a brother at the MSA who you occasionally exchange words with, there is nothing wrong with continuing to chat with him in a public setting where you both are not alone with each other. The important thing is to eventually be forthright with your intentions if you want to get to know him for the sake of marriage so that your Mahrams can be aware and offer their guidance in this process.
Remember, we often tend to mix culture and religion. There is nothing Islamically wrong with speaking to a brother in a public setting. This is why you wear hijab in the first place, that there is already a public veil between you and other men. So if someone tells you it’s Haram to talk to a brother in a public place, get curious about their cultural norms and see if that’s the place they’re coming from.
If all of this feels too much like an extrovert’s field, then perhaps you can send the person you’re interested in a DM. Be careful with this however, since it mimics a private setting. So be sure you are very clear about your intentions up front and to have your Mahram involved right away.
And finally, to address the fear of never finding the right one and being single forever. This is always a possibility, although a rare one. It is important during this journey to really sit with the idea of being single and what that means for you. If you imagine your life as a single person, do you expect misery ahead? If so, then marriage will not fix that, because this indicates that there is something in your life that is causing you pain that you think marriage will fix.
A common example that I see is girls who struggle with freedom and believe that marriage is their ticket out. Sometimes it truly is a fix and everything goes well alhamdulillah. Other times, it can lead to two problems; marrying the wrong person in a rush to taste freedom, or finding that marriage may have solved the freedom issue, but that freedom leads to you discovering an updated version of yourself who is incompatible with the person you married.
So it’s important to assess for yourself if there’s a specific life issue you’re trying to solve with marriage, and to see if you can solve it in other ways. Always consult Allah.
And this leads to my last point: our understanding of romance. Our Western society absolutely loves romance. Books, movies, and music are centered around this magical explosive moment when we find the one we love. Where it feels that life now has meaning when there once was not (and it’s no coincidence that our spiritually bereft society hails romantic love as the ultimate form of love…some food for thought).
Do you ever notice how most of romantic media centers around the beginning part of the romance story? Because that’s the most exciting and most hopeful part. There is pursuit of each other in spite of obstacles, there is a discovery of each other of developing new experiences with each other. We rarely see romantic content centered around the tired parents who’ve been married for 8 years, or the middle aged couple who have been together for 35 years. Why? Because although the romance doesn’t disappear, it starts to require effort to nurture. It’s no longer an irresistible pull towards the other. The love is still there and strong but it’s not as exciting because it’s steady and predictable.You have to maybe schedule a date or actively participate in spontaneity to keep the romance alive. You have to proactively make room for the romance amidst life’s demands, and that’s just…. boring for the content. It’s not very sexy, and that’s not what grabs our attention.
So to the single young woman who has never experienced romance, she never sees the unwritten chapters about the love story. She only gets the exciting first few chapters and wants that so badly, not necessarily knowing what to expect after the glitter settles.
I recommend you talk to couples who you know have a healthy and loving relationship who have been together for over 2 years and ask them about romance. Ask what the “expectation vs reality” moments were and see what they say. This is not to deter you from pursuing marriage of course but just to manage your expectations about romance.
To conclude, it’s important to remember that at the end of the day it is just you and God alone on the day of judgment. And in this world Allah sends you all sorts of people to share this journey with you. So, in your journey of pursuing the right person, include God in it every step of the way. See this as a journey with you and God together: talk to Him, seek His counsel, ask for His guidance, and start to open your eyes to the signs He sends your way. Purify your intentions. Make your marriage intentions the means to understand Him better, make your marriage intentions of wanting romance to be the means of developing a healthy and loving family dynamic, so that your progeny will be a lineage of people who are mentally healthy and sound and can serve and worship Allah without trauma disrupting their pursuit of Him.
May Allah bless and guide you, and bring you the best spouse for you and your lineage.