Love Actually Happens When You're MOST Expecting It
Of all the bad, horrible, no good dating advice that permeates in the greater zeitgeist, shoved down our throats since the first moment we whispered we had a crush in the general direction of someone older, wiser, and a whole lot more cool, the one piece that grates along the ridges of my bones, reminiscent of someone piercing my brain with a burning steel rod is this:
"It'll happen when you least expect it!"
(It's almost as bad as being told "he’s being mean to you because he likes you" while you're spitting out wood chips, dripping tears and snot, and grasping for your dignity after Brad Whatshisface called you a "bucktooth beaver" in front of the entire third grade. But that's a full-blown, pinot-required rant for another day.)
TLDR? Most advice to finding the Love of Your Life and not hating the dating process is a pile of Baloney Sandwich (BS for short).
I've been chronically, karmically achingly, Netflix-account-sharing-with-my-mom single for most of my adult life.
I've suffered through more first dates than questionable late night Uber rides (we're talking a total of 90+ awkward appetizer orders while mentally calculating if I can fake a migraine or run to the bathroom to smoke signal my bestie for a fake emergency).
Wrong humans. Horrendous conversationalists who could put a caffeinated squirrel into an 87-year coma.
Dates ranging from “meh, forgettable" to "did he really just recount his first therapy session and the story of his 'psycho' ex smashing a candlestick over his head??? catastrophic.”
But like a delusional contestant on a dating show who CANNOT read the signs, I strong-armed my way through the romantic hellscape, desperately believing my Great Love Story was just one profound piece of advice away.
"Just stop looking so hard!" everyone chirped at me every time I dared to share the #datingstrugglebus I was riding.
"Lower your expectations!" advised my uncle over chocolate sundaes. “Be more open-minded! You gotta give people a shot!” touted my friends over vino. "The moment you stop obsessing is when The One will magically appear!" promised my first intuitive coach who.
Apparently, I just needed to stop trying so hard. Redundantly, I just needed to expect it less to somehow miraculously arrive at that mythical moment.
But, if I’m being honest with y’all, I wanted it SOOOOO badly. 16th century, Pride and Prejudice level yearning. And every failed date I suffered through threatened to confirm my worst fears: “my Great Love Story doesn’t exist” and “I’m too broken to ever find it.”
The contradictory and honestly hope-destroying advice everyone’s given and I’ve taken and believed? It’s cost me approx. 2873 hours of sleep, 2 olympic size pool’s worth of tears, 7 concert tickets, a pair of sweatpants, and most rage-inducing, my trust in myself.
I was expecting love because I wanted love. Isn’t that the whole point?
How exactly is one supposed to simultaneously search for love while pretending they’re not searching for love? Should I wear a blindfold on dates (not in the fun way)? Develop selective amnesia? Adopt an alter ego named Michelle? Lobotomize the "hope" section of my brain?
My mind wouldn’t stop screaming, “MAKE IT MAKE SENSE!” My expectations reflected my deepest values and the future I wanted more than anything to create. Squashing them like unwanted bugs felt reminiscent of vanquishing my soul to Mordor.
Translation? Antithetical to intentional dating and torturous to my lived existence.
No wonder I gave up on dating the third Wednesday after every equinox and solstice.
Not a single piece of advice offered me the real simple answer: I needed to trust myself, follow my passions and interests, and treat dating as an opportunity to become more of my favorite version of myself.
I needed to trust my intuition. But by listening to other people and not myself, I was actively ignoring it. Intuition is the only way to navigate The Great Unknown that is this rock floating in the void of space and turn it into a daily existence that feels like utter freedom and joy.
Telling someone to "it’ll happen when you least expect it" is like telling someone to "stop thinking about pink elephants"—instantly creating a stampede of Bing Bongs through your brain.
The advice to just “stop expecting love” creates a toxic shame loop of nauseating self-abandonment, hyper-criticality, and single-minded focus on your flaws and failures.
Believing that your desire for love is the very thing blocking it from appearing in your life is gaslighting thinly veiled as well-intentioned advice.
No one knows to 15085% certainty how you’re going to meet your person or what one final act will make them abracadabra into your life.
Listen up because this is crucial: Dating is an intuitive process of self-discovery.
Like the rest of life, it should be fun! As I’ve discovered, the more you trust yourself and your intuition, the easier dating to find The One becomes.
Instead of trudging dates convinced you're broken, unlovable, and possibly cursed by a vengeful witch in a past life, maybe… just maybe, it’s time to start giving yourself permission to want what you want. Loudly. Boldly. Confidently. Courageously. Audaciously.
Doing so has changed my dating life from desperate love skeptic to vibrant soul-mate magnet.
I haven’t been on the dating apps in approx. 10 months and have been on five absolutely excellent first dates with fascinating and alluring humans I met in the wild. Each person, more and more and more aligned, each date intuitively clarifying, and I’ve become more and more vibrant, myself, and alive.
After years of hiccup-crying into my pillow, performing desperate love spell from sketchy corners of Reddit, and praying to every deity that dared to listen, I’ve finally cracked the code:
Love absolutely happens when you expect it, because you want it, because you know your life is infused with it—just not from every random person who buys you a mediocre cup of coffee.
