I love you. Maybe you need to hear that. If so, allow me to be the one to say it. I love you.

You don’t have to believe me. You don’t have to trust me. You don’t even have to keep reading this; I’m not going to. Just know that someone loves you. Namely, this guy.

You don’t have to do anything to deserve love. There are no criteria to meet. You don’t have to say magic words to receive love that is rightfully yours. You don’t have to chant “I’m special” three times, hug yourself, then affirmatively pat your own backside.

Maybe you mistakenly think love is something you have to work for. Something you have to earn. Maybe you’re a people pleaser, continually trying to win people over so they’ll love you.

But it’s not like that. You don’t have to work to receive love. It’s free. Love is a basic human right. Like water. Or air. Or SEC football broadcasts.

So I don’t know what you’re going through. But I know you’re a human. Just like me. Therefore, I know you need loved to function.

It’s biological. They’ve done studies on it. Love is what makes your cells grow. What makes blood move. What makes a heart beat. This is legit, you can trust me. I’m on the internet.

Moreover—and you know who you are—I know you don’t FEEL any love right now. Which is probably why you’re still reading this poorly written article from some guy you’ve never met in Alabama.

You’re reading because deep down, you want love. But you just can’t seem to find it. Well, you’ve found it here.

So if that’s you, allow me to reiterate. I love you.

I love you if you are a total jerk, and you push away everyone who has ever tried to get close to you. I love you even though you try to destroy yourself with bad habits. I love you though you have wronged decent people. I love you if you are selfish. I love you if your life is a complete wreck.

I love you though you feel different than normal people, and wonder why nobody accepts you. I love you if you see yourself as an outcast.

I love you if you are lying in a nursing home, wondering why your family isn’t coming to visit.

I love you if you are in Federal Correctional Institution in Talladega, and you wonder if anyone remembers you.

Please don’t misunderstand me. This is not a self-help column. I’m not a self-help guy. In fact, as a writer, in my line of work, self-help authors are widely regarded by many of us in the industry to be complete turds.

Self-help authors might be okay writers. But in real life, many of these writers are nothing like their public personas.

For example, I once attended a book event where I watched a famous self-help writer—who writes about kindness and unconditional love—dog cuss her staff because her greenroom air-conditioning thermostat was set to 69 degrees instead of 73 degrees.

Whereupon the author walked onto a stage and spoke to 800 enthusiastic audience members about the importance of kindness in the workplace.

Meanwhile, during her speech, many of us writers were backstage, goofing off, making explosive flatulent noises with our hands and mouths.

At one point—not to brag—but the famous author squatted on stage to pick up a piece of paper, and at that exact moment, a redheaded author from backstage made the loudest gastrointestinal noise with his mouth ever heard on this side of the Mississippi. Eight hundred people laughed. This singular memory has brought me more warmth than most major religions.

So I’m running out of room here. But I hope you understand how much you’re loved. I hope you know that you aren’t alone.

The truth is, there are people out there who have felt the way you feel now. People who have been so low they didn’t want to live anymore. People who didn’t know true love existed. People who, once they found real love, wanted to go around screaming to the whole world that it does exist.

I am one of these people.

And in a little while, believe me, you will be too.