11 Things I Realized About Relationships Because of Ted Mosby (How I Met Your Mother)

If you haven't discovered the awesomeness of the iflix app yet, then it's time to get on it. In a nutshell, iflix is this app that you can download to watch a ton of movies and TV series for less than Php150 a month. I'll write more about it another time.

The point of this article is that I was finally able to watch How I Met Your Mother from start to finish within less than a month, thanks to iflix. I had originally stopped watching the show after Barney and Robin started dating coz naive, pregnant, hope-filled me thought: "Fuck no. She belongs with Ted."

After I broke up with the babydaddy, though, and lived my life better, I realised that life doesn't work like a fairytale and gave the show another go. Obviously, I got super hooked and, funnily enough, I ended up hating the ending - the ending that naive, pregnant, hope-filled me wanted back in 2009.

Anyway, a lot of people aren't fond of Ted in HIMYM, and naive, pregnant, hope-filled me wasn't, either, but watching it with older (and I'd like to think wiser) eyes, Ted has become my favorite character. Here are 11 things he made me realize during my almost-one-month HIMYM binge on iflix:

11 Things I Realized About Relationships Because of Ted Mosby

11. We all deserve to be happy.

Whenever my friends are torn between staying with someone and breaking up with someone, I always tell them this: if they aren't happy most of the time, then it's time to either change something or move on. Everybody deserves happiness. Why stay with someone who doesn't at least try to make you happy 24/7? Life's too short to not be happy most of the time.

10. We all deserve the truth.

No matter how much that truth might hurt, it's always, always better to know than not to know. You know how other people always say it's better not to know and to blissfully live life thinking everything is perfect? That's bullshit. Don't listen to that shit. If someone's been lying to you about their family life or their education or if someone's been cheating on you behind your back, you deserve to know every single detail until people's mouths bleed telling you the truth and their ears bleed from hearing you cry. Love cannot exist without honesty. The same goes with friendships. If your friends have been hiding that shit from you, they're not your friends.

9. It's important to believe in yourself.

It doesn't matter what other people say about you or how much confidence you've lost because of repeated heartbreaks in the past, as long as you believe in yourself, everything will be a-okay. :)

8. It's perfectly okay to be weird.

This used to be a major problem of mine. Whenever someone called me weird, I'd cringe and start hiding my weirdness in a shell. Then, with the next guy that I would meet, I'd not be weird anymore and then I'd be called boring. It was a vicious cycle. Fortunately, Ted taught me that it's okay to just be myself - weirdness and all. It's okay to have a coin collection, to wear red boots because you think you're pulling them off even though you're not, to watch Star Wars religiously and to believe in true love and destiny. If someone doesn't accept you for who you are, then they're probably not right for you.

7. There's nothing wrong with putting all of your effort into things.

We've heard it from our friends: they smirk, they roll their eyes, they even LOL in your face sometimes. You go and do something for someone that you love and they call you stupid or exagg. Ted did a fucking rain dance, guys. Nothing can be more 'stupid' or exagg than that.

6. There's nothing wrong with putting your heart out there:

Let me tell you now: not everybody is going to love you the way you love them. In fact, most people won't. You can love someone with as much love as you can give, but that person could still cheat on you or break your heart in some other way. But that's okay. That doesn't mean you need to start loving people less. It just means that you know how to truly love. And there's no crime in that.

5. It's okay to be angry after a heartbreak.

On that note, not everybody is going to feel pain as deeply as you do, either. Nor is everybody going to understand your anger. Fuck them, though. Just because they don't understand you doesn't mean that you can't go on an anger rampage and hurt them with your words. Go ahead. Make them feel bad. They probably deserve it.

4. We don't need to date people to be happy.

This might sound sad, but don't knock it til you've tried it. Instead of putting all of your attention, time and effort into a significant other, try going out with your friends or your family more. Start a new hobby. Fall in love with music. Fall in love with work. Volunteer. Get a pet. I have fictional boyfriends to help me get through lonely times. Again: don't knock it.

3. We all go through some sort of rut.

You've had it. It may have happened one day while going through Facebook and seeing all of your friends getting married and having kids and it suddenly hit you that you're still dating different guys or have been dating the same guy for years without a proper commitment to marry. You start looking at everyone else's relationships and realize you've been going through the same motions your entire life. Sure, the guys change every now and then, but still: you're in a rut. You haven't moved up the ladder, so to speak. It's okay. It's not really a rut. You're just bored. Trust me. Take a barre3 class or buy even more shoes. Then, stop vicariously living through people on Facebook and remind yourself of all of the awesome things in your life. It doesn't even have to be a relationship. It can be you and your own awesomeness. You'll get over it in a few days.

2. We all make stupid mistakes, no matter what our friends say.

I'm a firm believer in making mistakes. People will always tell you when something is a mistake and most of the time, they'll be right. However, I also know that if we listen to those people, we'll forever wonder about the what if's… which is why it's always better to just make the mistakes and learn from them yourself.

1. We all have a soulmate and a love of our life.

Obviously, T.M. was T.M.'s soulmate. By personal definition, I believe that soulmates are the people that the universe brings together by twists of fate. The love of our lives? They're the ones we keep fighting to have even though the universe tells us we can't have them. They're the ones who still haunt our dreams after all those years and whose arms, if given the chance, we'd easily run back into. Soulmates trump love of lives in my book. And I'd like to believe Ted preferred his soulmate, too. Fate just works in a funny manner sometimes.

Watch the complete seasons of How I Met Your Mother on iflix. I'm currently binge-watching Once Upon a Time. Join me in my binge-watching madness? :)