How Do You Still Believe In Love?

Ask me anything, true love, and - shit, I think my prefrontal cortex just developed.

Song of the week: Toothpaste Kisses by The Maccabees

Charlotte York with her happy ending in Sex and the city,

This week, I started my new series by asking you to send in your anonymous stories. Thank you so much for all of your submissions to my new form! You can send in your story here . Here’s the first;

“Hey Em, I fell in love a while ago and it didn’t work out. I guess the issue is nothing since has come close. On dates I just feel indifferently which can sometimes feel worse than disliking them. That numbness and absence of spark. I find so much hope in your writing and how it talks about finding romance outside of dating, just in day to day life. But I guess my question is how to stay hopeful for romantic love? - from a Charlotte York sympathiser.”

With the mention of Charlotte York, I feel like we forget the importance of the journey it took to get her to that happy ending in Sex and the city. She was thirty-six when she met Harry Goldenblatt, but to get there, we also had this iconic scene;

“I did feel love. I believed that there was someone out there for me and I met him, finally. We had a beautiful wedding and then everything fell apart, and I’m worried. I’m afraid he’s took away my ability to believe, and I hate him for that because I always believed before, and now I just feel lost. And I’m trying to put myself out there but I feel hopeless.” - Charlotte York, s5, ep2 ‘SATC’.

We grew up on rom-coms and romance books that gave the protagonists the ultimate reward at the end of their struggle - a man that loved them. Though I took this in another direction the other week (read here), you can also think about it as how boring the film would be without all of the colour it took to get there. Without the friendships, heartbreak and confusion, you’d never know how to appreciate ‘your happy ending’.

But maybe the problem is you’re focusing too much on romantic love when everything inside of you is telling you to decentre it; maybe this part of your life is the bit where you don’t date. If you’re feeling indifferent towards it, lean into that. What makes you feel love? Take up a new hobby, read books, sit in the park, watch films, start a substack, and wait until someone comes along that makes you look up. I know I’d been guilty of rushing this bit too, back when I’d muddy the dating pool with my own fresh heartbreak and emotional inconsistencies as I tried to figure out who I was. I think maybe we’re all so afraid to be alone we enter these half-hearted situations to avoid looking at ourselves for as long as possible. Finding it too difficult to love ourselves enough not to need something shallow to fill the space.

Let them go

When I was fifteen or so, I went on my first ever date. We had met at a house party and he had walked me home after - a few days later we met in town and he bought me a battered mars bar after feigning shock I’d never had one before. It’s now ten years later and I wouldn’t have changed how any of it turned out but at the time when it ended I’m sure I was devastated because it was all I knew. Rewatching that scene in SATC with Charlotte York for the hundredth time, I love how we know she gets the happy ending she’d always dreamed of - she just has to keep going. You’ve still got all of your love stories ahead of you too.

If I look back at the moulding figs of lives I could’ve lived, I thank God I didn’t get everything I’d ever wanted. If I had settled down in my hometown, I’d still be there now. I’d never have become a writer, I’d never have the job I do, I’d never have met the friends that changed my life. You have to keep going so these so-called relationship failures just blur into the footnotes of your bigger story.

Love is trapped in the fresh fruit you bought from the market near your house, cut into its skin and feel it overwhelm you. As it drips down the corners of your mouth and runs down your fingers, you can be messy and free. I was going to make a metaphor about love once being strawberries and now it’s come back to you in peaches, but the quicker option is just to tell you that love looks different each time. By looking for familiarity, you’re not looking for all the beautiful new experiences that are out there for you.

You say nothing is coming close to what you had before, and one day you’ll see that as a good thing, because what’s coming is going to be so much better than what has been.

-Shit, I think my prefrontal cortex just developed.

Thank you so much to all of your love stories you trusted with me to send in! <3