Do you find love when you stop looking? Why?

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only if you are a woman, nothing is free in life unless you are a woman

Imo that is sh***y advice, but I agree with some of the explanations above.

Outrider, it only takes one person to change your perspective and you are probably better off finding a deep thinking introvert like yourself.

It's possible to find love, regardless if you're looking for it or not. However, looking for it increases the likelyhood of finding it, provided you're not desperate.

it will depends on mindset of other person if he/she good impression about you and want to continue relationship with you means they start loving you after you stop looking.

If you're a woman, then sure, you can find "love" at any time, regardless of whether or not you're actually looking for it. If you're a man though, and you choose to stop taking an active approach in the dating game, your chances of finding love will be reduced from slim to none.

On a serious note, don't put too much stuck in those catch-phrases and old sayings. Most of them were invented by women, and really don't apply to you unless you're a woman yourself.

A lot depends on what you mean by "looking" and also what you mean by "love." People could mean vastly different things by these kinds of comments, and what some people call love might not be what the kind of love you would really want for yourself. Or you may not want love yet, maybe you want experience, which is okay.

I thought this advice about how you should "stop looking" is usually given from to females, by other females, to shame them for doing ANYTHING to actively seek a partner. I'm surprised to hear that this advice is also given to guys. As others said, males are generally expected to do most of the asking and pursuing, so things tend to be very different for guys.

In my own experience, the "love" I have found when I wasn't looking for it wasn't really love at all. It was just pursuit, and/or infatuation that came along unexpectedly...and if there had been any potential for genuine love to emerge out of it, it was pretty well destroyed by the way I was approached and the way I felt like it was being pushed on me when I was NOT looking for it.

(I'm reacting to the thread title's embedded question - I haven't read anything else in the thread.)

I have only been in one "official" relationship and one "unofficial" relationship.

Due to my experiences, I refuse to believe you "find" love. Love isn't something to be lost or found. Lust is pretty easy to "find" but I believe that love grows on a foundation of friendship and it has to constantly be tended so that it doesn't atrophy away.

I believe the concept of "finding love" is a dangerous one because it suggests that love just happens instantly on a random day. It doesn't. Lust does.

Update:

To my surprise, I did find love when I 'stopped' looking.

And, yes, it does depend on what you mean by 'stop looking'.

I definitely 'stopped looking' by my own definition/standards of what 'looking' is.

So, what happened?

I developed a crush, and, usually I pursue my crushes by trying to 'play the game' - follow all the dating rules and conventions and jumping through fire hoops to get to know them before asking them out.

This time I chose to spend more time around them, hang out with them, get to know them, etc. but I was ignoring my feelings for them, was more focused on just 'living' my life, and less concerned if they didn't feel the same.

I was, what I call 'enjoying the ride' - spending time around them, enjoying it, but not actually pursuing them in 'that way'.

I kept telling myself that I'm 'not looking for a relationship' right now...

Well, they still figured it out, even if I didn't express my feelings in any way (no flirting, etc.) and, turns out things were mutual, and I now have a girlfriend.

That's my story...I'm not sure if things could work out any better or worse if other people stopped looking for love, but geez...it ACTUALLY WORKED... O_O

^^^
Of course "not-looking" can potentially work if you're in a common situation in which you're regularly around the person anyways(i.e. job, school, etc)

How were you in that situation btw?

I learned a simple lesson when I was about 25: if you seem desperate, you will get NOWHERE.

I stopped "looking"--and the girls started coming to ME.

Advice: "you find love when you stop looking" = the polite form of "I don't know how the hell to help you, I don't give a f**k, just shut the f**k up"

I happen to believe that when one stops actively seeking a girlfriend, one has a better chance of getting a girlfriend.

It's not "shut the f**k up."