live like you're never going to fall in love

reflections from that one friend with a deplorable track record

My (now ex) boyfriend got me a tissue box for my 21st birthday because “you’re gonna need it.” Very considerate, given that I did need it; He knew I had found out about his infidelity mere hours ago, and kept treating it like a gag as I broke into sobs throughout the day. I continued dating him for 4 months after that incident.

On my birthdays since then, my loved ones have brought me flowers, surprised me with cake, and even taken me out to dance classes (I dance. They don’t.). Amongst the remnants of ice cream cake and accidentally popped balloons, I’d write a yearly journal entry to my 21-year-old self to tell her much better it gets. But my mind always hitched on one thing: If any of my friends had gotten me a tissue box with fresh trauma to cry about, we wouldn’t have been friends anymore. Why did I ever tolerate such treatment from a romantic partner?

We are wired to crave community, but when you develop a track record like mine, the hierarchy of love starts to confound you. In a world overflowing with familial and platonic love, romantic love is expected to coax another dimension out of us. It’s meant to turn us into people who’d fight to the death just to graze our lover’s fingers again. Butterflies in the stomach, sparks at every glance. Creating the most intimate of memories through sickness and in health. Regardless of what you’ve been through, romantic love is depicted as the light at the end of the tunnel, especially for women who date men. We’ve all seen classic tales of princesses released from poison-induced comas with “true love’s kiss.” The outcast girl unshackled from her loser status when she gets The Guy. The ordinary teenager who uproots her human biology to live happily ever after with her vampire boyfriend.

Teenage me was enraptured by this narrative, imagining who I’d become when someone finally liked me back. I centered romance so heavily that when I began dating, my incompatible boyfriends were priority, while everyone else was lucky to be penciled in around them. Romantic relationships are always in motion with a goal - “We’re moving fast/slow; We’re finally holding hands/engaged/[insert milestone]” - while friendships are portrayed to just exist. The level of compromise, patience, and commitment reserved for romantic relationships is rarely applied in other relationships or areas of life. I was the girl who could get cheated on three times and still “make it work,” but I could start an argument with my family for less. I’d gone weeks without seeing friends, but anxiously stayed up till 3 AM just to open the door for him. My centering of romantic love made me a flaky friend, a distracted daughter, and a woman incapable of passing the Bechdel Test; A painfully common reality in a socioeconomic landscape where romance and the nuclear family are treated with utmost importance.

As romantic fanaticism evolves into disillusionment, uprooting such a societally rewarded thought pattern is made to seem radical even though it isn’t. The fabled “de-centering of romantic relationships” is often conflated with swearing off relationships, burying one’s desires for emotional and physical intimacy, and even veering into resentment against one’s dating pool in more unhealthy cases. This defeats the purpose, because actively avoiding something requires just as much energy as centering it. Rather than giving up on love, de-centering romance is understanding that we are not meant to design our entire lives on the expectation of finding and keeping romantic love. Instead, investing a romantic level of energy into your friendships, work, and art will save you.

Personally, the best advice I’ve ever received is to live like I’m never going to fall in love. If the brain space I devoted to looking for love were invested somewhere else, who would I become? What hobbies would I explore, what relationships would I nurture, what would I learn about myself? Who am I when I’m not waiting for romantic validation?

Here’s my answer: I am a cancer researcher, an artist, a writer, and - most importantly - a dedicated friend and sister. I hold various identities that I would not have come close to had I not consciously chosen myself. Exploring my many roles in life outside of a relationship has allowed me to contribute meaningfully to my community; It has given my patients a mindful listener, my brother a role-model older sister, and my friends a trustworthy confidante. Above all, it has allowed me to heal for the sake of myself rather than a hypothetical future partner.

I eventually found a romantic connection that I explored for a little while, and even then, he was not the center of my life. My friends, hobbies, and goals held equal importance, and I tried my best to uphold these priorities (Admittedly, I am still a work in progress.). I knew that I would be thriving with or without him, which is eventually what helped me let go when the time came. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t sting, but I am grateful to finally have a bond that I can look back upon fondly. I had let myself continue to be a multidimensional person, and they had cared for who I was rather than who I could have boxed myself into being. De-centering romance, ironically, makes you a better lover and invites healthier relationships (romantic, familial, and platonic) into your life.

Eventually, I hope to be so strong in my commitment to myself that if I do find romantic love in the future, it will not dominate every conversation or steal all my evenings. I will never wistfully tell my children about who I used to be before I was a wife and mother. They will see me continue to pursue my goals as an individual and as a parent, and I hope to embody the well-read, educated, and multidimensional female role model that I never had growing up. This approach to love is my way of breaking a generational cycle of women who watered themselves down to become “palatable” and were arranged to marry out of necessity, not by choice. I am the first woman in my lineage with the privilege to date, be picky, and make decisions not based on others’ honor but on my preferences; I intend on choosing well. Alternatively, de-centering romance is also my way of making peace with the possibility that love might never find me, but fulfillment always will. I am destined to thrive with or without this hypothetical partner, for I will always love and be loved by the community around me.