Last time I wrote this column, I gave up on finding love. I vowed to stop looking for Mr. Right because all life seemed to throw me was a bunch of Mr. Right Now’s and a couple of Mr. Not-So-Perfect’s. After giving up on my avid search for true love, I realized the best things in life come when you least expect them. It was one of the many lessons I learned over the past two years. In this time period, I have had my spats with betrayal, infidelity and deceit. But in encountering these tribulations, I learned a thing or two about relationships:

 The only thing that can heal a broken heart is time. And by that, I mean in time you will wake up and realize how much better off you are without certain people in your life. Then you will find someone who appreciates you for who you are, in all your luminous splendor.

 It is never okay to merely be accepted in a relationship. People accept jury duty. If you’re not the girl, don’t make him the guy.

 You should spend the same amount of time talking in bed as you spend having sex in bed. And no, talking during sex doesn’t count. Let’s face it-if the thought of lying down after sex and having a competent conversation makes you flinch, you’re in lust, not in love. On a similar note, a relationship dominated by verbal communication without any physical connection can also be doomed to fail.

 “Hanging out” with your ex, in any form of the phrase, is not okay-especially when you’re dating someone else. If you’re that desperate for companionship, perhaps you should rethink your current relationship status.

 Perfection is an impossible standard to meet in any relationship. Love isn’t perfect, and neither are people. Mr. Perfect is just a cruel illusion imbedded in our brains as children when we’re read fairy tales about Prince Charmings and magical frogs. The best we can hope for is to find someone that makes our crazy, hectic world seem slightly less chaotic because they exist in it.

And perhaps the best lesson I learned is that love finds you during the most unexpected circumstances.

He could be the guy you went to school with-the one whose name you never knew. You could have passed him obliviously on the way to class or to the office everyday, never knowing he was more than just another guy in another hallway. Or he could be the guy serving with you in your best friend’s wedding. Or the man who delivers you flowers (ironically from Mr. Not-So-Perfect, which would make for an interesting story one day).

Get rid of the dating Web site subscriptions and the self-help books, and then, and only then, will Mr. Unexpected surface, in the time and place fate intended him to. Little did I know just how quickly love would find me once I quit searching for it. And when that happened, it hit me without mercy.

He had something about him I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The French call it a certain “je ne sais quoi,” meaning “I know not what.” And that couldn’t be truer because the only thing I knew about this guy was his name and that I would fall in love with him.

That’s right. I hadn’t even spoken two words to this guy, nor did I know where he was from, what he did for a living or his age. Yet somehow, like a bright, flashing sign directing me to my fate, my gut feeling told me this guy would write the next chapter in my life. It was as if God tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “That’s him.