Nearly 6.8 billion people live on this planet. And with about half being men, it seems reasonable to assume there is a guy out there for every woman. That means all that talk about everyone having a soul mate could, indeed, be true. While I’m pretty sure I may have found my one-in-a-6.8-billion, that doesn’t make the scavenger hunt any easier for everyone else. I’ve been lucky enough to find love. But others, including some particularly close to my heart, are stuck with people who are more invested in the relationship they have with themselves than with any relationship they could ever share with another human being.

Instead of resorting to the typical “he’s just not that into you” motif, let me break this down for you. There’s a profound difference between love that lingers and a love that could be lost:

Love: He looks you in the eyes and tells you he loves you every day.

Lost: He looks you in the eyes to question why you haven’t sent his work uniforms to the dry cleaner’s.

Love: He leaves you messages, just to tell you to have a good day.

Lost: He left you a message to remind you to pick up said work uniforms.

Love: He cooks you dinner when you have a hard day at work.

Lost: He cooked himself Ramen noodles during halftime of an engaging football game but left you the scraps of pizza he ordered last week in the fridge.

Love: He likes “talking things out,” and if you have a concern, you feel comfortable telling him what’s wrong.

Lost: Your only serious conversations consist of whether the two of you will watch “Sportscenter” or “Sex and the City” tonight.

Love: He’ll stop whatever he’s doing to have sex (or “make love”).

Lost: He’ll fit you in as soon as he’s done killing an entire gun squad or saving the world from killer zombies.

Love: He holds your hand in the car.

Lost: He sporadically pulls his emergency break to watch you freak out while simultaneously belting out tunes from Lil Wayne’s latest soundtrack.

Love: He buys you a gift, just because it’s Wednesday.

Lost: He buys you a gift because he did something wrong.

Love: You have tickle fights.

Lost: You have word wars.

I’m not saying that a good relationship has gone bad if a man doesn’t cook for you or if he fails to give you all the love and affection you desire (and this goes for both sexes). After all, different people have different ways of saying “I love you.” But giving 110 percent in a relationship when you’re getting a measly 10 percent in return could indicate that your once-romantic paradise has become more like Paradise Lost.

The truth is, people bring out different things in one another. Some bring out the worst in their significant others, while others bring out the best. And while your ex’s obsession with his Playstation may have driven you absolutely insane, I’m sure he’ll find a woman out there who loves “Call of Duty” just as much as he does, while you’ll find a guy who would rather look at your body than those of unrealistically-proportioned video game avatars.

We sometimes forget just how many fish there actually are in the sea. I’ll be the first to tell you perfection is an unrealistic bar to set in any relationship, but that doesn’t mean that out of the 6.8 billion people lingering around this Earth, we all can’t find someone perfect for us-someone who fits the mold of our lives as well as we do theirs.

So when you find yourself getting only 10 percent, stop and think about what you want and remember what you deserve. You should never settle in any aspect of life, especially when it comes to love. Life is entirely too short to waste it with someone who isn’t your one-in-a-6.8 billion.