What if love never finds you?

This article was originally published in the substack One Girl Infinite Thoughts. It has been republished here with permission.

Put yourself out there, they say, as if love is just a matter of persistence, like assembling IKEA furniture— frustrating, exhausting, but bound to work eventually.

Like getting struck by lightning, stand in enough storms and it'll happen.

So, you do what you're supposed to. You download Bumble (again), swipe past gym selfies, questionable bios, and guys who believe calling themselves "sapiosexuals" makes them sound deep instead of insufferable and agree to another date with another man who describes himself as a "chill guy" but is visibly clenching his jaw at the thought of commitment.

Watch: Mamamia launches the Well podcast on The Morning Show. Post continues below.

You show up. Not the performative version — no curated vulnerability, no strategic laughter. The real you. You ask about his sister's surgery, the scar on his left eyebrow. You remember his pet cat's name (Luna, it's always Luna), the obscure Murakami title collecting dust on his "someday" shelf. You fold these small things into your understanding of them, shaping something real, something intentional. You let yourself believe, just for a moment, that this one might be different.

And still, they disappoint.

Because commitment issues. Because bad timing. Because they're just not ready for anything serious right now. Because they were already with someone, you just weren't meant to know.

You endure a dinner with a man whose hairline performs a slow moonwalk. Who, with the practiced ease of someone who has said this many times before, leans back, exuding the unearned confidence of a man who has never had to try very hard and announces that he's living in the now, keeping it casual, that if something develops, cool, but for now, he just can't do anything serious. As if he is offering you a rare and precious gift, wrapped in the thin tissue of his own self-importance. As if he won't be in a relationship six weeks from now with someone who reminds him more of his mother.

You listen to him talk about his "passion for travel" (Bali twice, Phuket once), and his love for deep conversations (which, as you quickly learn, means regurgitating something interesting his last girlfriend or date once said, passing it off as his own). Halfway through, he leans in and says, I just don't get why girls like you are still single, as if he isn't currently giving you the answer in real-time.

You sip your drink, nodding at the appropriate intervals, and wonder—sincerely, academically—what combination of luck and delusion has convinced him that this is working before making an excuse about an early morning meeting (which you don't have).

You know how this ends.

Image: Substack - One Girl Infinite Thoughts.

Later, you delete the app (again), knowing fully well you'll redownload it (again), because modern dating is less about finding love and more about proving to yourself that you're still trying. That you haven't yet given up.

Later, you lie in bed scrolling past engagement photos and captioned declarations of love — forever my best friend, my person, my home — and you wonder if there's a version of this story that has your name in it. If there was some step you missed, some softness you never learned to cultivate. If you became too good at spotting the wolves beneath the wool, too fluent in the language of red flags, too unwilling to be dazzled by the cheap magic tricks of love bombers and smooth-tongued frauds.

If there is some invisible barrier that makes you too much and not enough at the same time.

You see men cheat and still go home to someone who chooses them. You see men divorce and find love again before the ink dries on the papers. You see men — deeply unremarkable men — move through the world with options, while you sit across from another one explaining that he's just not ready for anything serious right now.

And you wonder: How is it that they always have options and you have none?

And still, you try. Because they tell you love is a numbers game, that you just haven't met the right person yet. So you endure the small talk, the half-hearted texts, the existential exhaustion of wondering if this is all modern dating has to offer.

And then, at some point, a thought creeps in—the one you've been trying to push away:

What if love just isn't in the cards for me?

We are raised on the idea that love is a certainty, not a possibility. That if you're patient and kind, the right person will arrive. That being good, being smart, being worthy will somehow earn you love.

But what if no one ever picks you?

What if, despite all the swiping, the mutual friends, the we should set you up! suggestions, you are just left on delivered by the universe itself?

No one prepares you for that.

No one teaches you how to be alone. Not waiting-alone. Not for now-alone. But alone, as a state of being. How to be the only name on the lease, the only toothbrush in the holder, the only person in the emergency contact field.

How to show up alone. How to stand in a sea of couples and not feel like a missing piece. How to check no on the RSVP without hesitation. How to sit through another birthday party where someone asks if you're bringing a plus one and not flinch at the question. How to attend a wedding alone, slip onto the dance floor between swaying couples, and not wonder if anyone is looking at you with pity. How to let Valentine's Day pass like any other Tuesday and not feel like the world has edged you out of something sacred.

Wanting love too much makes you desperate. Not wanting it enough makes you bitter. Admitting that being single hurts means people assume you're either a tragic case in need of saving or an easy target.

The moment you say, Y'eah, actually, it sucks to do life alone', people either pity you, avoid eye contact, or — worse — assume you're so lonely that you'll accept anything.

So you begin.

Image: Substack.

You do the terrifying, radical thing of building a life that is not a waiting room. You make peace with the possibility that this might be it—not in a resigned way, not like settling, but in the quiet, steady understanding that a full life is not made of missing pieces.

You buy yourself the expensive wine, not the cheap for one bottle. You buy yourself flowers. You book a trip alone. You make a home that feels full, even with only one set of footsteps in it. You learn to cook a meal that is not just fuel. You teach yourself how to stretch out in your queen size bed without apologising for taking up space.

And slowly, without realising it, you stop bracing for absence and let the ache exist without rushing to fix it.

And one day, after all the weddings and the questions and the pitying glances have faded into background noise, you catch your own reflection in a café window, on a street you love, in a city you chose, and think—oh.

This is what they meant by love.

To find more from Anjana, you can follow her on Instagram here or read more on her Substack here..

Feature: Getty.