What if you never find love?

Is this an impossible conversation?

Yeah, probably, because love, love, love.

We ache for it.

We'll give anything for it.

Yes, you and me sometimes, I guess.

But we're gonna have this conversation today, okay?

ARGHHHHHHH

Hiya, I just wanted to ask you, what

if you never find love?

That's a really deep question.

It's very hard to answer, but it's a

question that often crosses my mind, actually.

I feel like life is a bit useless

without love.

But if I didn't have to find love

and I just have to live without it,

then I guess my next thing is just

bettering myself every day, innit?

That's it.

You know, if you find it, you find

it.

And if you don't, it's not meant to

be.

Never really thought about it, but just focus

on my goals.

At one point in my life, I'd love

to have a family and stuff.

When I was young, I was raised up

in a family that they only gave me

a lot of wealth, but there's really few

amount of love.

So I got diagnosed with medium level of

anxiety.

I think it was more about not having

enough love.

I think I'm the kind of person who

need love to maintain my function.

I got an email a little while back

and I could feel the deep yearning in

it, the deep desperation.

This heartbreak, rising desperation.

This person didn't sound like they lacked self

-love.

It seemed they had friends and a sense

of purpose.

They weren't asking me to save them.

They just wanted to know how they could

rid themselves of this haunting desire.

This desire that consistently disappointed them.

The desire to love and be loved by

a romantic partner.

Now, hold up, okay?

Is this the part where I try to

convince you that finding romance or finding your

person or the one isn't all that it's

cranked up to be?

Or that all these other beautiful and equally

necessary forms of love can take its place,

friendship, creativity, spiritual connections, community.

No, listen, three things.

One, I already vomited an essay deconstructing our

obsession with the concept of the one, duh.

Two, I'm not here to lie to you,

okay?

And three, I don't wanna trick you out

of your longing.

I want us to honor it.

And to do that, we must first address

the myth, the legend.

From tiny human hood, we imbibe stories, fairy

tales, movies, songs, casual conversations, cultural expectations that

point to one larger than life conclusion.

Romantic love is the crowning achievement of human

life.

The pinnacle of belonging.

The thing that makes it all make sense.

So it's no surprise that a chunk of

us live our entire lives measuring our worth

by our proximity to romance.

Even when we have deep friendships, even when

we have creative fulfillment, career fulfillment, self-knowledge

and joy, we feel like something essential is

missing.

Like something is wrong with our lives.

We don't see singlehood as a valid state

of being, but as an incomplete one.

But you know what's funny?

The one thing we have failed to acknowledge

over and over again is reality.

Reality.

Yes, love is incredibly beautiful, but being coupled

doesn't innately erase your loneliness or fix your

story.

It just gives you another flawed, complicated human

being who you get to try to live

it out with.

And that trying and failing is what we

call heartbreak.

Okay?

Have you ever wondered why most romantic movies

and love stories end on a high note?

When everybody's kissing under the stars and dancing

under the lights and then riding into the

sunset into the ether and is happy ever

after.

That's because relationships are a constant negotiation between

fantasy and reality.

Between who people imagine they'll be together and

who they actually are together.

You don't get to see the mess.

And this is what makes the myth dangerous.

Dangerous.

Okay?

And most of us aren't searching for love.

We are looking for a specific story about

it.

Pearl, shut up.

Shut your mouth.

I know what I want.

I want real love.

Okay?

I'm on your side.

If you want a relationship, if you want

a romantic relationship, pretending you don't want it

is not gonna help you.

Trying to get rid of the feeling is

only going to cause you more pain.

But at the same time, chasing it like

it is everything is also making you miserable.

Your desire is not the problem.

It's human.

It's valid.

It's universal.

Quite frankly, you're not that special.

Okay?

You're not that special in this desire.

A lot of us want love.

It shouldn't have to haunt you.

It shouldn't have to take over your entire

existence.

It shouldn't torment you.

I think I found out why though.

Trust me, bro.

Now, the answer lies in your management plan.

Okay?

Think of it this way.

Let's say you were suddenly diagnosed with a

chronic condition.

So you get this new diagnosis.

There's no cure in sight.

But knowing the pace of technology, knowing how

medical advancement works, there might be one in

five years, 30 years, or never.

Who knows?

Of course, you're gonna be sad, mad, and

bad.

You're gonna be distraught, angry.

You know all the adjectives.

You're gonna feel all these feelings.

But chances are, you are gonna want to

know what next.

What can I do to manage my relationship

with this condition so that it doesn't completely

take me out of my life?

Yes, it will be there.

And it might suck a lot, but is

there something I can do to get to

a place where I can still find happiness

and enjoyment in my life?

And there, there my love is the shit.

You are suddenly inviting curiosity amidst the fear.

What next?

That is the question.

What if I never find love becomes if

I don't find love, what then?

What kind of person will I be?

What kind of life will I still choose

to create?

Oh, it's not about your desire.

It's about how you hold it.

Step one.

Mourn.

You know that I am a massive fan

of grieving.

A huge fan.

And I know it's cliche.

I know, but stay with me.

There's a picture of a life you have

in your head, where you are supposed to

be, what is supposed to be happening right

now okay?

Grieve that fantasy, that imagined timeline.

Maybe you thought that by now you'll have

two kids somewhere, I don't know.

You would have traveled the world with your

lover.

Maybe this, maybe that, maybe that film you

watched as a kid is still in your

mind.

Darling, grieve it.

And know this is not a pity party.

This is about respect, about acknowledging your own

humanity, the weight of your desire.

You can't transcend what you refuse to feel,

what you refuse to tell the truth about.

The vision of love you want hasn't come.

So cry about it, rage about it, write

about it, chat about it, exercise about it,

do whatever you need to do about it

so that you can create space to inhabit

the life which you actually have.

Step two, perchance, beloved, are you catastrophizing?

Listen, what if I never find love?

What if no one ever loves me?

What if no one ever finds me?

The way I find them looks at me

the way I look at them.

What if I never find the right person?

Are these really questions about love itself?

Or is it just a cover for your

fear of being unseen, unheld, unimportant, unchosen?

Because my dear, my darling, to tell you

the truth ooo, you're just single now.

I don't know how that suddenly leaps to

I'll die alone.

You don't know that.

Like it's not a proportionate reaction.

It's not a proportionate conclusion.

Life is dynamic.

It's changing every freaking second, everything, everywhere, all

at once.

That you're single today doesn't mean you'll be

in two years.

And by the way, that you're coupled and

partnered today doesn't mean your relationship will survive

this economy.

Am I being a hater? maybe, but

I'm telling the truth.

Okay, with the way this economy is moving,

good luck.

Okay, we don't know.

Unless you have a history of predicting the

future accurately, must be accurate, then I stand

corrected.

But if you don't know what will happen

tomorrow, to the T, I don't wanna hear

it.

We really don't be knowing, brah.

So when your brain or your mind begins

to catastrophize, then you must ask the question,

when I say love, what do I really

mean?

Is it what if I never found safety?

What if no one ever witnesses me?

What if I never get validation?

Sometimes what we actually crave is not a

person.

It's a feeling of being met, being known,

being seen, being understood.

Our minds attach this longing.

Our minds attach the solution to the concept

of the one.

Of course, understanding this is not going to

erase your desire for partnership, I know, I

know.

But it might just help you identify the

areas of your life where you need healing

in.

Because there are so many ways to be

met validated seen held.

If you're losing sleep and waking up in

panic, then you won't find love.

There's an imbalance.

Step three, the game plan.

This is where we make the plan.

And plans are personal.

Sometimes love as we wish it just doesn't

happen.

You know why?

Because it's not an entitlement.

It's not a reward.

It's not proof of anything.

Life is random and stunningly unpredictable.

And this makes it sometimes very, very unfair.

That combo makes it deeply unfair.

It's not uncommon to see the worst of

the worst kind.

And yes, you just thought about somebody, okay?

I'm not alone in this.

We know there are some people who look

at us and we're like, how?

Always in relationships.

That is all the proof you need to

know that you don't have to be healed

enough to be in a relationship.

You don't have to be that great of

a person to be in a relationship.

It's a numbers game.

It's a luck game, random game, game, cities

game, where you live game, values game.

Did you go out on that day game?

It really can be so random sometimes.

So what are you going to do going

forward?

Beyond the waiting, what is your plan B?

Like, in what ways can you participate more

in life?

What art could you make?

What pleasures could you explore?

What senses are yet to awaken within you?

What trips haven't you taken?

What friendships could you deepen?

What career could you build, baby?

What other forms of family and community could

you explore, pursue?

What parts of your city haven't you explored?

Yes, there are endless possibilities for plan B's

and C's and D's and E's and F's

and G's and H's and I's and J's,

yes, J's, and K's.

Who says A always has to be the

best?

Who says it?

A is just a plan.

If it fails, go to B.

You know, we hear this all the time.

People say things like, oh, I found love

when I stopped searching.

I just wasn't looking and love found me.

I think what they're really trying to say,

what they really mean is, I found love

when I started living.

And no, this isn't a guarantee, no.

This isn't a promise of anything.

But since everything changes all the time, just

in case, you know, peradventure, perchance,

love wanders into your life at any given

time.

I hope he finds you living in a

way that makes love recognizable.

When he arrives, I hope that you would

have built a life that he could fit

into.

And you know what's funny?

You know what is funny?

Love always arrives, just not always in the

way we dreamt it to, not in the

forms we often expect.

If you stop narrowing your definition of love,

I promise you, you would see it moving

through your life like water.

You would notice how constantly he moves through

your day, through your body, how much he

exists in your eyes, in your space.

I won't tell you to stop wanting it,

that's crazy.

That's unfair, okay?

But if you never find romantic love, I'll

tell you what will happen.

You'll live, yeah, mm-hmm.

You will live.

You'll build a life so textured, so full

of meaning that it becomes your own great

love story.

Darling, at the end of the day, love

is something you are.

I hope you never forget.

I think that sometimes we put a lot

of pressure on ourselves to find the one,

find a relationship that's gonna magically make us

this whole person.

And we need to kind of think bigger

than that.

I'm a big believer that there's no single

person in your life that completes who you

are as a person.

And sometimes as well, people expect that you're

gonna find love by 20, or if you've

not found love by 30, or suddenly this

misfit that's never gonna find anything.

And I think we need to strip all

that back.

That actually I've met people who are in

their 50s and 60s, like my wonderful mum,

who met the person that she's truly in

love with and her fiance over 50.

And she always thought she'd be a single

mum and never find anyone.

So I really think that there's no pressure.

We're not pints of milk.

We're not gonna expire.

It's a question of time, that's all.

Keep looking, you'll find love.

It's impossible not to find love because we

are literally love.

And I don't feel like it should be

put into one particular thing.

Like people like to put love like with

men or like with relationships.

And I genuinely don't believe that.

Like I go through life like now without

love from a man, but I'm satisfied because

I know I have the love from my

family and my sisters.

And that's what just keeps me going.

And you find love with your friendship, your

female friendships, platonic friendships.

Love is everywhere.

You just have to know that it comes

from you.

I think if you don't find love, you

should turn the love in your heart to

the world outside and the things that you

do.

Cause I found love through fostering dogs.

So my dog really loves me and I

love him.

Might be a different type of love, but

it's still love.

It's up to you if you don't want

to be seen.