Forever Alone | Chapter 7: Stories & Skyscrapers (Part 4)
In which I consult with a fictional Board of Directors, download Hinge, go on a date with a hot man, and finally answer the question I posed at the beginning of our tale.
I published Forever Alone: One Introverted Millennial’s Half-Agonizing, Half-Hopeful Journey Through Singledom in 2021 as a 7-part podcast miniseries. I’m re-publishing it here on Substack for the first time in written form! Start reading from the beginning here.
When I told Will about this podcast I was working on, he said he loved it. He’s the type of person who’s attracted to passionate people, and he could tell how much I cared about this. I told him it was funny that I was writing a podcast about singledom while I was in the early stages of dating him. He said, “If all goes well, maybe this can be the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.” I melted a little, then laughed and told him, “Oh don’t worry, I’ve already got an epilogue outlined.”
It would have been a nice bow to tie on this story—girl starts a podcast about singledom and by the time it’s done, surprise!, she’s not single. But that’s not the ending you’re getting—and that’s OK, because the real bow I’m tying on this is more fitting for what’s at the heart of this story.
The true victory is that, after opening myself up to someone who made me giddy and breathless and convinced me that the magic of the Universe was completely real, and then after getting abruptly and deeply disappointed by that same person—I didn’t lose faith. In anything. Not in the Universe, and not in myself.
And it would have been so easy to lose faith. This disappointment was huge in comparison to the post-Scotland letdown that sent me into deep depression three years earlier. It would have been nothing to slip into wondering what it was about me that had driven him away—I wasn’t attractive enough, I was too intense, I had too many needs. I could have ranted and raved at the Universe for making a fool out of me, yet again.
Instead, I said to the Universe,
“Hey, if you can bring me someone as close to what I’m looking for as Will, then I trust you can do even better than him, too. If I got 85% of the way to what I want, the next 15% can’t be that far of a jump, huh?”
And to myself, I said, “There is not a goddamned thing wrong with you. Will was a lot of things you wanted, but he wasn’t ready for someone like you. It doesn’t matter how much you have in common with someone, or how much they say they value the same things you do—passion, communication, growth, honesty—it doesn’t mean much if they’re not capable of walking their talk. And another thing—you’ve wondered so often why you have this incredibly consistent pattern of repelling men out of your orbit. From the guys on Match to the roof guy to the brother-in-law your friend tried to set you up with, to almost every guy on Hinge, and now Will … you’ve sent a lot of guys flying. But that has never meant something was wrong with you. It’s exactly the opposite. It’s because you’re so clear about who you are and what you want. You’re so freaking solid in yourself that if someone isn’t a match to that, they literally cannot stay in your vicinity. They’ll just be flung right out. You went into this thing with Will with a real open heart—you weren’t guarded. Honestly, you might have been too open. But the strength of your conviction did the work for you. Which means you never have to fear that you won’t know when someone’s right or not. If they’re meant to stay, they’ll be able to hang in your orbit, no question.”
I feel for Will. I think back to what he said early on, about wanting to trust that something magical would find him on its own, and to how he met my fear about what it meant to grow old with someone with the idea that maybe he and I just hadn’t found the right person yet. I wonder if he thinks that the problem is that he just needs to find a person who’s even more ideal for him than I was. Someone he’s even more attracted to; who’s into all the same books and shows and movies as I was, and then some; someone he has even greater alignment with on every level. I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m sure there could be a woman out there more suited to Will than I was. But I don’t think that’s the solution. The thing is, it doesn’t matter if the perfect person is standing right in front of you—there is no one and nothing outside of you who can overcome issues you haven’t worked through, yourself. There’s no one who can make you ready for something you aren’t ready for.
Will and I were pretty damn compatible. My very presence in his life was an invitation to uplevel. And he wasn’t ready to accept it. I said in the first chapter that you’ve got to have a high tolerance for truth if you’re going to be around me, because proximity to me will force you to face your crap—your fears, your limiting beliefs, all the stories you’ve been telling yourself that aren’t serving you—and if you’re too afraid or overwhelmed to have your reality shaken up in that way, then yeah, you’re going to end up back in your comfort zone. I hope Will finds love and partnership, of course. But more than that, I hope he reckons with the old fears and patterns that led him to make a choice to walk away—a choice he told me he regretted.
I’ve got nothing but gratitude for him, though. He proved that it’s possible for Adult Me to meet someone she’s excited about on every level—someone who makes her life force throb. And in not being ready, he reminded me just how critical someone who’s “all in” is to me. In hindsight, I probably rationalized too much with him. It was so easy to do, in the moment. There was always a reasonable explanation—he needed to reschedule our first date for a prior commitment, he was really busy and couldn’t immediately nail down a new day and time, he was prepping for vacation and couldn’t reach out for a couple days after the first date. But I think those were early indicators that he wasn’t ready or right for me, or both. If I hadn’t reached out after the first date, when would I have heard from him? I think I would have, eventually. But it might have taken long enough that the lack of readiness would have been impossible to ignore. Instead, I preempted him, and he liked me enough to rise to the occasion. But in me doing that—getting too into my masculine, to be honest—I didn’t give him the opportunity to demonstrate whether he really had that steady, stable, deeply reliable, knows-what-he-wants-without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt King energy that I’m looking for.
I want a man who wouldn’t ever leave me guessing—who, if given the choice between say, losing a pinkie toe and leaving me wondering how he felt about me for an excessively long period of time—would rather just have one less toe. I want someone who would think it was quite frankly, absurd, that another man harbored any doubt whatsoever that I was worth risk, trouble, or being inconvenienced.
And you want to know why I know it’s possible for a man to display that level of dedication? Because of all those damn stories. We’ve gone wrong if we think, because something is fiction, it’s therefore untrue. A good story is the opposite of a falsehood. It’s a blueprint for a truer, better existence. It teaches you how it’s possible to live, to feel, to treat other people. Mr. Darcy understood the freaking assignment when Lizzie handed him his ass after an abysmal proposal. Han Solo may have been a scoundrel, but he got frozen in carbonite nonetheless. And Patrick got David that business license, just like he said he was going to. None of the men on my Board would approve of any man who didn’t treat me with the same degree of reverence, and if they wouldn’t tolerate it, I’m not about to, either.
You know what else I’m done with? The toxic, frankly cruel notion, that it’s my fault I haven’t gotten what I want. I’m tired of feeling like I haven’t done enough. For so long, I was looking for what else I was supposed to do to fix my singledom. I’ve pored over every area of my life with a fine-toothed comb—career, spirituality, personality, physical health, mental health, finances, energy, dating. I’ve set intentions, meditated, made vision boards, studied my astrological chart, feng shuied my house, written lists and letters and literally burned them. I’ve followed the signs to other continents and I’ve written and read aloud an entire book about my singledom. And you know what? That’s enough. I’m done.
What I’ve been doing is called “over-functioning,” and it’s a hallmark of anxiety. I’ve been acting as if my singledom is my sole responsibility, but it isn’t. In any relationship, there are three things that need to happen before two people can come together: You have to be ready, they have to be ready, and the circumstances have to be right. The only thing you can control is your own readiness, which I’ve done more than enough of. But, as I just learned, you can’t control another person’s readiness. And you also can’t control timing—sometimes certain dominos have to line up before something can happen.
In fact, at this point I’m convinced that 90% of finding love is about timing. You can spend three years on Hinge, meet someone, and attribute it to all of your hours clocked on the app … but if you’d joined a month ago, you’d probably have met them, just the same. You can go out on 25 first dates this year, and meet one person who becomes your husband. And if you’d only gone out on two first dates, the outcome wouldn’t be any different. That’s not to say I don’t believe in two people doing their own personal work and being ready for each other. It’s just that I think we might be giving that far too much credit, and working far too hard, when we could instead sit back, lift a few less fingers, and still cruise right into the same glorious victory.
Do I still worry, though? Do I still have days where I’m deeply afraid that I’m going to end up forever alone? Of course. I never thought I’d be single at 33. Ten years ago I thought I’d be done having kids by now, not alone and unsure of when or if I ever will. I wouldn’t be human if that didn’t get to me sometimes. But … I still believe in a friendly Universe—one where our strongest desires have a purpose. Not a Universe where every hope and dream you’ve poured into it ends in futility. And I still believe in ease. I’ve seen it happen so many times—not just in fiction but in real life, too: When someone meets the right person, it’s effortless. There’s no pushing, forcing, or second-guessing. Which means I can allow myself to feel the fear when it comes up, but I refuse to let it send me into anxious, fretful making things happen mode.
And there’s one more reason I’m done with over-functioning—Me acting like my singledom is all on my shoulders isn’t a good way to practice for future partnership. If I want a King—someone who’s going to step up and be really, truly ready for what I want, then I can’t take try to take on his share of the work and the Universe’s share, too. I’ve got to step back and trust whoever he is, and the Universe at large, to do their part. I’ve got to be a Queen, baby.
Speaking of the Universe, our weird relationship continues on. Late last year, in what’s become my typical style, in that liminal state between sleeping and waking, a strange phrase bubbled up: “Madrigal wool.” When I woke up that morning, I Googled. Maybe “madrigal” was a type of wool? The word was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. But no, a “madrigal” is type of song from the medieval ages, definitely not a type of wool. However, “The Madrigal” was the name of a wool product—a white cashmere wedding shawl—draped over a bride and everything in the photo. And you want to know where “The Madrigal” was made? Scotland, of course.
And a couple months ago, I woke up with a name in my mind: Emma Caulfield. I Googled, and she’s an actress, but not one I’d ever heard of. She’d been in a movie about ten years ago that I’d also never heard of—a rom com called Timer. I clicked on the Wikipedia page … it’s literally about a world where everyone has a wrist implant that counts down to the day the user will meet their soulmate. I read the ending—apparently Emma’s character decides to have her timer removed and just live life, not caring about the results. I mean, Jesus… am I being punked?
I don’t know, but a few weeks ago something interesting did happen. My friend Marissa and I found out that our mutual friend, Amy, and her husband are selling their place in California and moving abroad for a while. You want to know where they decided to go? I don’t need to tell you. But, it’s Scotland, of course. So, unless some issue with COVID pops up, on the day this episode comes out, Marissa and I are a week away from boarding a flight to the UK … so I guess I’m not totally done—with following signs to Scotland, at least. We’ll be there for two weeks, and I’ve already switched my Hinge location to Edinburgh … because why not, right? Like I said, there’s me being ready, my person being ready, and the circumstances being right. I don’t know what this trip is, exactly, but at the very least, it’s an interesting circumstance. And it’ll probably make for a good next chapter of my life story.
You know, I used to feel such shame and embarrassment for how much I wanted my life to be like the stories I’ve loved my whole life. So much so that I tried to have smaller, more reasonable desires, and became the worst version of myself as a result—scared, depressed, anxious, hopeless. The best version of me has always been the one who’s audacious about what I want out of a relationship. And I’m done apologizing for my ambition. We don’t all have the same amount of ambition in every area of life, and that’s OK. Some of us are perfectly content with a small, modest townhouse. Comfortable, safe, not flashy, but warm and homey. Honestly, my career ambitions are probably somewhere in that realm—it matters to me, but it’s not where my big, big dreams have ever lived. But man, I’ve got skyscraper ambitions when it comes to love. And I’m not talking some ugly thing that doesn’t even win skyscraper of the year award in Architectural Digest. It’s gotta be beautiful and impressive and very much larger than life. I think I might have more ambition in love than just about anyone I know.
And I get that that comes with a price. It’s a lot faster, easier, and less complicated to find a comfortable townhome than it is to build a stunning skyscraper. But that has to be OK, because there’s no Plan B. There’s no settling for a townhouse, not for me, not anymore. I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life, and still have the hope of finally getting that skyscraper, than live in a townhouse and know for sure that I’m never getting it.
Is that delusional? Maybe. Is it naive that, in plotting out a decade of my history across seven chapters, I just attempted to force the nonsensical randomness and chaos of life into becoming an actual story—one with an arc and narrative? One where everything that happens serves a purpose and makes sense? One that therefore must, inevitably, like all good stories, have a happy ending? Maybe. But maybe … that’s how it works. You believe so strongly in your version of reality that reality MUST, eventually, match your vision. Maybe, in insisting your life is a story … it is one.
This was Chapter 7: Part 4 of Forever Alone—the final installment of the series! Read on, however, for a special bonus chapter!