Looking for love is a quest that fuels endless drama, fills Amazon’s order queue, and funds dating service executives’ retirement accounts.

The drama plays out online, through texts and on Facebook.

Valentine’s Day drove a hornet’s nest of fury my way when I went on the NBC15 news to suggest (gasp!), most people have the quest backwards, and self-love comes first.

Valerie wrote to admonish me:  “LOVE IS ABOUT GIVING, NOT RECEIVING!” she yelled (yes, those are her caps).

“What are you going to give, if you can’t fill your own needs?” I asked.

“I understand self-love,” Adelaine wrote, “But I know I shouldn’t get too full of myself.”

“I bet the world would simply stop turning on its axis if that happened, Adelaine.“

“I have heard that concept of loving yourself first a hundred times, and it is just baloney,” Cindy told me.  “I mean, what does that mean anyway?”

Cindy, I’m writing this blog for you.  And I will tell you what it means.

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