{"id":1422026,"date":"2025-02-13T15:59:02","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T15:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/?p=1422026"},"modified":"2025-02-13T15:59:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T15:59:34","slug":"hopeless-romantic-love-valentines-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gaytimes.com\/love-sex\/hopeless-romantic-love-valentines-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Is being an (actually) hopeless romantic the best way to find love this Valentine\u2019s Day?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In her column <\/span>DYKE DRAMA<\/b>, GT’s own \u2018sapphic Carrie Bradshaw\u2019 explores what it really takes to find love when you least expect it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

WORDS\u00a0ANYA SCHULMAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>

When I started writing this column a year ago<\/a>, I\u2019d never told anyone I loved them. Which was fine for editorial purposes, because this is a sex and dating column. I wanted love from people who kept me at arm\u2019s length. I thought if love was hard won, it would last. That if love was universally acknowledged as rare because it was coming from someone who didn\u2019t offer it readily, that it would be less likely to fade or disappear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rare love as some sort of karmic reward was something I held out hope for and slowly gave up on. I was disappointed and blindsided over and over again. Friends, acquaintances, and coworkers were surprised to hear I\u2019d never officially been in a relationship (yes, I am in therapy). You know that time tried, certifiably annoying line of \u201cit happening when you least expect it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That is easier said than done. A crush or situationship would fail, and I\u2019d try to least expect it as quickly as the usual grieving process allows, so I could <\/span>finally <\/span><\/i>be completely and utterly taken by surprise with <\/span>actual love<\/span><\/i>, only offered to unsuspecting recipients.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You see, when you are thinking about least expecting it, even if you are throwing yourself into hobbies and work and healing and are not on dating apps anymore\u2026 expectation is still with you. Because doing things to distract or better yourself is rooted in the original hurt. It\u2019s hard to forget. Doesn\u2019t matter if the expectations are wholly your own or society\u2019s or a powerful suggestion from people who make their relationships public online.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Expectation is a sticky shadow. I thought I could will it away, but the only way I ended up least expecting love was being absolutely hopeless. This state of genuine \u201cgiven up\u201d followed a couple years of trying to heal individually (impatiently, with expectations). I made progress, but I was still sad. I still am. Love doesn\u2019t make your trauma go away. But it certainly makes the experience of living with it less lonely.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying this is a universal truth. Point being, when someone tells you love happens when you least expect it, they may be omitting the fact that the easiest way to least expect it is to kind of be in the pits of despair.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I always pictured when-you-least-expect-it as a time closely resembling the \u2018girl who is going to be okay sequence.\u2019 She finds herself in some new passion. Volunteering, running, or ceramics are classic. She throws out her ex\u2019s t-shirt. She locks in at work. She initiates plans with friends or family again. And this is partially true. These things help. But it\u2019s hard to let go of expectation of any kind when it\u2019s connected to the self-improvement we\u2019re told should immediately follow romantic disappointment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not endorsing depression or stress or overwhelm as a way to detach yourself so much from when-you-least-expect-it, that you least expect it <\/span>because<\/span><\/i> your mind is consumed by sadness and leaves no room for anything else. But let\u2019s introduce some nuance to rom-coms, books, magazines, strangers in club bathrooms and on TikTok telling us the moment lonely people find love is when they have given up because they found their own individual happiness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no great moment of enlightenment followed by the reward of romance. I had done enough work to be in decent enough shape to give it a try. But I didn\u2019t think I had because I was still sad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I met the person I\u2019m in love with during one of the worst weeks I have ever had mentally. It still doesn\u2019t feel real. I followed the script first: I deleted the apps except one, pretty much stopped going out, and spent the past year throwing myself into (very queer) line dancing and adult ballet classes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nobody is more surprised than me that it worked. I ended up meeting the first person I\u2019ve ever loved through the hobby I took up to try and literally move through trauma, get some endorphins, and decenter going out as my main source of community: at <\/span>Angela Trimbur\u2019s<\/span><\/a> Dirty Dance Camp.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of me hates that the clich\u00e9 was right. Mostly, I\u2019m relieved I just had to be patient. Still giddy that patience was rewarded with a love story that sounds made up. When I deleted Hinge, it was because the story of meeting someone on there felt mechanical, anti-climatic, and sad. I never wanted to permanently lose hope.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My girlfriend and I actually crossed paths three times before I really took notice. But the day the best relationship of my life began, I almost didn\u2019t get on the bus that took me there. I was so overwhelmed with work I hadn\u2019t slept all week, I\u2019d cried in public almost every day, and spent the entire bus ride on calls in the back, even though I was a bus captain (gay).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My memories of the girl who noticed that I was not wearing a bra with my white tank top due to both queerness and the chaos of the week are fuzzy. I was buried in my laptop for most of the weekend. My friend Caileigh had to tell me to just get myself on the bus when I admitted I wasn\u2019t sure if I could do anything other than collapse on my floor at the end of my week from hell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And that was how the universe caught a skeptical air sign by surprise with zero expectations. I <\/span>had<\/span><\/i> truly given up, I felt hopeless. And you need a little bit of hope to have an expectation you\u2019ll eventually find love.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I do not think hopelessness is the best way to relieve yourself from the pressure of a world that places partnership in equal (often higher) esteem with individual accomplishment. But I want to be honest about the fact that \u201cgiving up on love and dating\u201d ultimately felt really fucking lonely. It took months of disappointment to reach a point of feeling so hurt I didn\u2019t care anymore, I didn\u2019t want partnership. I just wanted to feel better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And that was what finally made me lose hope in ideas of people. It made me lose hope in the same crowds magically being different and crushed dreams of people showing up at airports and my doorstep to apologize. Wanting to be the exception and expectation are cousins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I had to lose hope in the things that had been letting me down all along to create space for something that wouldn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

People tell you this all the time. What seems to be left out of this adage is that when-you-least-expect it might be ugly and messy and tearstained. I guess <\/span>27 Dresses<\/span><\/i> really got it right when Katherine Heigl got a happy ending in part by crashing out and subverting her own expectations in the process.<\/span><\/p>\n

It happening when I least expected it wasn\u2019t immediate. It was thrilling, but unclear at first if anything more than the best meet cute of my life was unfolding. I was still lonely for a while after we met.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went on a vacation with my dear friend Alexandra (aka <\/span>@dykeanotherday<\/span><\/a>) immediately after I met the person I now love, and I felt like I was really supposed to be having certain experiences Alexandra and I shared with a partner. I\u2019d felt this before. That it was impossible to completely enjoy an adult vacation without a girlfriend or romance. I didn\u2019t think or even dare to hope things would work out. She wasn\u2019t my usual type. The part of my brain that really loves Murphy’s Law screamed that was exactly why things worked out. Expectation had left the building.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it weird that you can be on a vacation with one of your best friends but still consider yourself alone because you\u2019re both single? I did have an amazing one night stand, but that\u2019s another story.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One year ago, I endorsed your situationship being your Valentine\u2013\u2013to hell with the risk!\u2013\u2013and overnighted a handcrafted sapphic collage (I host a yearly Naughty Valentine\u2019s crafting party)\u00a0 to a girl in London who never asked me to be her Valentine or sent me a card and made me sob on the floor of my room a couple months later. I stand by this recommendation, but caution tender hearted readers that it\u2019s hard to give a Valentine without a shadow of expectation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

London girl recently apologized, when I truly least expected it. We\u2019re friends now. My girlfriend is cool with it. She hosted my Valentine\u2019s party with me this year. How much happier I am now than I was a year ago is shocking. I didn\u2019t think it was possible. And that\u2019s exactly the circumstance love seems to be drawn to.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s my advice this Valentine\u2019s Day: be chaotic if you feel like it. Show up at your lover\u2019s apartment wearing nothing but a dramatic coat and lingerie. Send a voice note sext if you\u2019re so bold. Buy a stud flowers if they like them\u2013\u2013this doesn\u2019t happen enough! Femmes aren\u2019t the only ones who enjoy flowers!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But the most loving thing you can do on February 14th is be honest with yourself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Are you holding onto hope that old patterns or people giving you an inch more than the bare minimum will turn into your when-you\u2019re-least-expecting-it? They\u2019re not going to.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019ll say I\u2019m wrong next year (I hope not, I\u2019m so in love), but the only way you can least expect it and not feel dusty candy heart disappointment is by doing the opposite of what has left you lonely in the first place. When-you-least-expect-it isn\u2019t finding a final boss avoidant who chooses you and really is different this time, catching you by surprise. When-you-least-expect-it isn\u2019t the party with the same forty people suddenly being different, subverting your expectations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When-you-least-expect-it is giving the person you never usually would a chance, and\u2013\u2013finally\u2013\u2013having no expectations because they are different. Give it a try. You might just fall in love with someone who hasn\u2019t posted on Instagram in four years after a full year of Dyke Drama.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Catch up on previous instalments of Dyke Drama below:<\/h3>\n

Even as a lesbian, is it ever safe to show your full, \u2018crazy\u2019 self in a relationship?<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n