Waiting for Love
Taking care of your heart and cultivating your character when detransitioned and single
What follows is an excerpt from my latest letter exchange with Laura Becker, as I strive to find the words to help ease the pain and guide her through her detransitioning process. Laura has been writing to me about her struggles with loneliness and longing for a relationship.
You can see my previous exchanges with Laura here: part 1, part 2, part 3. Read about the Dear Detransitioners series and my upcoming book here.
There’s a balance to be found between…
(a) cultivating in yourself the qualities you want in a partner so as to fill your own inner voids;
(b) cultivating in yourself the qualities you want in a partner so as to be a good match for your future partner;
(c) cultivating in yourself the qualities that complement the qualities you want in a partner; and
(d) leaving room for inner emptiness and longing
Let’s explore each.
Cultivating in yourself the qualities you want in a partner so as to fill your own inner voids.
Here are some healthy examples of what this might look like.
Affection. You want a partner who’s affectionate, physically and otherwise. Our need for affection is not just something we can put on hold for months or years at a time while we “work on ourselves” or “wait for the one.” So how can you fill your need for touch and affection when you don’t have a partner?
You can get professional bodywork, and engage in home self-care practices such as self-massage, foam rolling, cupping, taking baths, using warm compresses, stretching, dancing, sensual self-touch, masturbation, and anything else that feels good on your skin or helps your muscles relax. You can also get affection from pets, and sometimes, safe, healthy, platonic friendships. You can choose to surround yourself with clothes, blankets, bedding, and other tactile objects that feel pleasurable.
You can also give yourself other sources of emotional affection. What gives you the warm-fuzzies inside? Look to friends, family, mentors and guides that have offered you words of solace and wisdom, who have offered reflections of parts of you that long to be seen in a positive and compassionate light. Keep photos of them around. Watch videos of them. Write down things others have said to you, or kind words of your own that you can offer to yourself, and keep meaningful messages visible in your home.
When I was waiting for my person, I did a lot of physical self-care that filled these needs (and this will also blend in to the next section, on becoming a match for your future partner). I also wrote messages to myself that included the kinds of words I would want to hear from my partner. I was honest with myself, even if it felt silly to my inner judge. For example, I wrote “what a babe!” on a post-it note on my closet mirror. I had to give myself permission to write this, and to want to hear it. Sure enough, my person calls me “babe” now. None of my previous partners ever used that term of endearment.
Being affectionate toward yourself doesn’t replace your need for a partner, but it does make the void ache less. It reduces the feeling of desperation and urgency associated with longing for someone who’s not there.
Some other attributes you might want in a partner, but be able to pursue for yourself, include: intellectual stimulation, creativity, humor, friendship, adventure, ambition, spirituality.
Cultivating in yourself the qualities you want in a partner so as to be a good match for your future partner
In each relationship there is a balance of similarity and complementarity. My partner and I are similar in our lifestyle habits, which makes us generally compatible at a day-to-day level. We move at similar paces. We have similar preferences when it comes to food, sleep, exercise, hygiene, daily routines, travel, money, and leisure. We have overlapping tastes in music and aesthetics. These are the sorts of things that make it easy to live with someone. Most of these don’t require a lot of active self-improvement, so much as they simply ask us to be honest with ourselves about the quality of life that comes most naturally to us. For example, though we’d both be delighted to be more financially well-off, neither of us is willing to break our backs to get there. It’s worth noting, though, that we both met well into our adult years, having already established baseline wellbeing in most major life areas.
However, there may be ways in which you are not yet in alignment with the kind of person you want to be, or the kind of lifestyle you want to share with someone. Let’s say, for instance, that you know you prefer a tidy home, and it would drive you nuts to live with a partner that leaves dirty clothes on the floor or crumbs on the table. However, if you’re being honest with yourself, you’re not exactly being the kind of person you would want as a roommate. That’s something to work on. What steps do you need to take, what new habits do you need to train yourself in, to start treating your home the way you’d want your partner to treat your home?
The same might apply to fitness. If you want a partner who looks after himself, but you’re a couch potato, that’s not going to work. Of course, you don’t have to become someone you’re not. Just try to find a way that’s authentic and sustainable for you to get into some kind of fitness routine that would be a good match for the kind of partner you want. If you can get into physical hobbies that might be fun to share with someone (or even meet someone through!), great. You might both enjoy rock climbing, or salsa dancing, or swimming. But if you just want the kind of guy who keeps moderately fit by riding his bike to work and could keep up in a spontaneous game of basketball with your nephews, maybe all you need to do to become his match is to get back into your old walking routine.
This really comes down to being honest with yourself. In what ways are you already living the right lifestyle for you, one that is compatible with your ideal partner, that you’d be content for him to join you in? In what areas of life do you need to make some adjustments to your lifestyle to become a healthier version of yourself and better suited for the kind of person you want to be with?
Cultivating in yourself the qualities that complement the qualities you want in a partner
That last section was about similarities. I think it’s good to want similar lifestyles and fall into similar grooves with your partner. It makes life easy and enjoyable.
This part is about differences that balance, harmonize, blend well, complement and/or complete each other. For a concrete example, you and your match might share similar tastes in food, but one of you loves to try new recipes and take the lead in the kitchen while the other is happy to chop vegetables and wash dishes. These differences lend well to a balanced relationship in which you’re eating together with ease.
What are some less tangible but equally important aspects of a relationship that matter to you? In what ways might you want to develop the parts of yourself that are compatible and complementary with your ideal match?
Here are some examples. I’ve cultivated my ability to gently probe the depths of a person’s psyche in ways that help them feel seen, but not threatened. My partner has said that he values this quality in me because he tends to be emotionally guarded, but wants to be brought out of his shell, and feels that it takes someone like me to help him open up. Meanwhile, he’s cultivated an easygoing, stable, and lighthearted demeanor that helps me come up for air, remember to laugh, and relax at the end of the day. We bring out the best in each other. But this isn’t guaranteed. Our dispositions could also generate a frustrating cycle of polarization. The shadow of a probing nature like mine is its capacity for being overly dramatic and intense, while the shadow of a stable temperament like his is the potential to be cold and withdrawn. For our traits to be complementary rather than polarizing, we have to refine them so that they are appropriate, attuned, and nuanced, not reactionary coping mechanisms. So let’s put the question this way:
List out some of your qualities and traits. Describe the light and shadow aspects, or the highest and lowest octaves, of each.
For example, honesty is a virtue, but taken to an extreme, without refinement, an “honest” person can be an insensitive jerk. Therefore, honesty needs to be balanced with kindness. Similarly, kindness is a virtue, but when overly emphasized or distorted, can lead to dishonesty. Playfulness and humor are virtues, but when used as reactionary coping mechanisms, can lead to dangerous levels of responsibility-avoidance, procrastination, and dismissal. Therefore, playfulness needs to be balanced with responsibility. Success and achievement are virtues, but when they are a person’s sole focus, she might become selfish and ruthless. Selflessness is a balancing virtue, but taken to an extreme can lead to self-destructive masochism and tolerance of abuse.
You get the picture.
You might want to consult any of the internet’s abundant collections of lists of values, virtues, or human needs, to help you with this process. Once you’ve identified your virtues and their related pitfalls, you can assess where you stand at the moment in your process of bringing out the best in yourself while tempering each of your virtues with other forces that balance and round them out. Identify what you are proud of, what you are working on, and where you might need to course-correct. This isn’t about fundamentally changing yourself, so much as refining your character to bring out the best in yourself and set yourself up for success.
Leaving room for inner emptiness and longing
This one is tough for many people to find balance with. I bring it up here because I think there’s a lot of bad advice out there about being perfectly happy on your own, not needing anyone. It’s unrealistic. We are social creatures, wired for love and attachment. The past two and a half years of the pandemic have been one of the most extremely isolating periods in human history. It’s unprecedented and unnatural and we were never built or prepared for this. But it’s understandable that many people shore up their egos of “I can do it myself!” as a way of guarding against the pain of loneliness and the embarrassment of vulnerability.
At the same time, you’ll be miserable if you overgeneralize your loneliness, lean too heavily into your pain, and adopt a fatalistic attitude of learned helplessness such that you afford yourself zero pleasure, joy, or confidence without a partner. One way or another, you have to fill your days with meaning, fulfillment, connection, creative pursuit, moments of happiness and delight. Even if it hurts to be single. Even if there’s a sense that something, or someone, is missing.
So, what does balance look like?
I don’t know what it looks like for you. But I want to say it involves softness and tenderness, held with grace and self-compassion, while maintaining dignity, self-respect, and devotion to self-care. I see you working on these things.
That’s all I’ll say for now. I want to get this out there. You’ve waited a while. Done is better than perfect. So I’m not even going to re-read this. I’m just going to hit send.
Thank you for your patience.
All the best,
