By Tristan Joseph Espinoza
Read While Listening To: Prisoner of Love (Lawrence Hart Remix) by NZCA LINES
Dear Tristan,
How do I search for love when my own immediate future is uncertain? Is it appropriate to? Does “the one” even exist?
Earnestly,
Anxious Lover
Dear Lover,
I’m writing to you from the upstairs bar at Berlin’s Soho House while I sip on a cosmo that tastes almost too sweet to be true. As I look around me at the dozens of millennials searching for their next connection, I’m reminded of the fact that everyone is looking for something in this life – and that hunger will never be satisfied.
I wish I could tell you exactly how to find a lover or what the most appropriate decision is when it comes to your love life, but the truth is that I never can. Love is arguably the one thing myself and NASA scientists have come to an agreement on: we don’t understand it. When I first moved to university in New York after living in a tiny farm town, I thought I’d find my Mr. Big within the first few months. And, to my surprise, it would take another year and a chance one-night stand before I’d ever meet someone who’d sweep me off my feet. He was the kindest, most thoughtful man I’d ever met, and it was hard to imagine him as anything but my inevitable Mr. Big. Yet, I felt something within our relationship was off-center and I said goodbye to him after a few wonderful months.
I never thought I would date again, especially after a breakup that made me listen to Taylor Swift’s All Too Well (10 Minute Version) for days on end, but suddenly I met my second boyfriend after a chance encounter only a few weeks later that turned into a period of bliss. Man number two made me belly laugh at every moment and undoubtedly, loved me like there was no tomorrow. At one time, I thought I would even marry this man and we would raise a family together in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn. But I used all my energy to love him so I was left feeling like a ghost in my waking life. And, when I expressed this, our relationship soured and turned into one of the most toxic situations of my life. After an explosive fight outside a jazz bar in Tribeca, I left him to find myself again.
Then, a few days later after wishing love goodbye, I fell into my third relationship after a blind date that was set up by mutual friends. He was beautiful – the kind of beauty that makes an entire room take notice – and became my best friend when I needed someone most. He was the type of guy I always wanted to date when I was younger, the “all-American” boy that everyone loves, and someone I could talk to for hours about something as mundane as peanut butter. I thought that after two heartbreaks, my third love would finally be the one that God had always intended for me to find. But we shortly discovered that we wanted different things and that our futures weren’t aligned. So, as quickly as we met, we disappeared from each other’s lives entirely.
The point of detailing my entire love life to you is to say that the longer I’m alive, the more I’ve realized how little control I have in who I love. Yet, it’s important to never let limited time stop you from making a decision that’ll ultimately change your life for the better. None of us know the answer to the age old question about who our “one” is or if there’s even just one we’re meant to love – including myself. But, I do know that we each can have multiple lovers, in many different countries, that prepare us for the person we’re meant to eventually settle down with – and, it could even be the man I’m seeing right now. So, with the idea that your life could change at every chance encounter, I want you to ask yourself one crucial question: Are you ready to start looking?
Illustration by Francesca Corno
