I'm done looking for love

On giving up, endless crushes, and solo polyamory.

I've been looking for as long as I can remember. I'm a little love fiend, so the idea that I would give up is laughable. But that's where I'm at these days. I'm also coming to terms with the fact that I may never have kids and that I might be a solo polyamorist. Read on to learn more.

Taken in Berlin, by my dear friend and sassy gay @breathworkmarc

On not looking for love

On my forty-second birthday, I was in Lisbon and depressed about the current state of affairs in my life. I wrote about it here.

Still single after 42 years, I’m living between a storage unit in Arizona and a tiny studio in Montreal, with no dating prospects, no sex life, newly balding, and what I would describe as an awkward career and a fear of intimacy—and doing most of this quite publicly.

Weeks earlier, a new friend I met online asked if I wanted my human design chart read. Because I'm open and constantly seeking answers, I said yes, and we booked the call for my birthday. I don't know how to describe Human Design, but Wikipedia calls it a new age, pseudo-scientific practice that combines astrology, I Ching, Judaic Kabbalah, Vedic Philosophy, and modern physics. Stay with me, please.

It's a fun way to learn a little about myself—like pulling Tarot cards or astrology. I don't take these things too seriously and usually take them with a grain of salt, but I love learning about myself and sometimes get valuable insights from these tools. At worst, they're entertaining; at best, they inform me about what's happening for me and how I can proceed.

I was looking forward to Karen Scholle's reading. We got on the phone, and after some preliminary chit-chat, she dove right in.

"You're going to have a big third act in your early fifties, and you might not meet your person until then," she said.

"Oh?"

"So, you could take these next years to collide with as many people as possible, and not worry too much about finding your partner. Just see how it feels to be with different people. Go experience people, and life, without worrying too much about what it's going to look like."

"Huh."

Again, big grain of salt. But I also immediately felt a great sense of relief after hearing that.

I can, you know, stop looking for my partner.

Whether Karen, the stars, or Human Design are right about me not meeting my soulmate until my fifties doesn't matter because Karen gave me permission to stop looking (she gave me so much more, because Karen is great and very thorough. You can learn more about her work here.)

This was a wild revelation because I've been looking for my partner for as long as I can remember. I've never not looked. Every person I meet I'm attracted to, I always question whether that's who I will end up with. I know not to put that pressure on people that I date early on, but the question is always in the back of my mind. "Is it you?" is something I've asked myself hundreds of times.