I'm A Romance Writer Without a Romance

I’m a romance writer without a romance.

I’ve had boyfriends. Those relationships all started off with starry eyes and big hopes. They also ended in dramatic fashion. I have lost count of the first dates I’ve been on over the years. There are so many now that I’ve forgotten most of them. Just the other day, a friend said “do you remember that time I walked by the brewery window three times while you were on a date to make sure he wasn’t shady?” I had forgotten all about that guy. I have yet to remember his name since she brought him up, just that I went out with him a couple more times, he lived in Richmond, and he drove a Jeep.

There was Nick the accountant. I went on several dates with him, couldn’t decide if I liked him enough to keep seeing him. It eventually fizzled. There was Brandon who was perfectly nice and perfectly content. I politely told him after a couple of dates that I didn’t think we were a good match. He was settled in his data entry job, loved living in the middle of nowhere. I like being able to walk to Trader Joe’s and I think I’d be darling at ruling the world. Our ambitions and goals pointed us in opposite directions. Months later, he texted me out of the blue and told me he listened to Taylor Swift’s “Midnight Rain” and thought of me when he heard the line “I broke his heart because he was nice.”

I suppose he’s not wrong.

He was nice. He just wasn’t The One.

So I continued to be a romance writer without a romance.

There was the guy who said “that’s not a very feminine drink” in a judgmental tone when I ordered my preferred Old Fashioned. The guy my aunt set me up with who texted me every hour or so to ask what I was doing. The guy who took me out for Mexican and admitted he knew nothing about football. I asked if he wanted to learn and he said “I don’t think your love of sports is very attractive.”

I’m going to keep drinking Old Fashioneds, I don’t need nor like an hourly check-in, and me and sports are in a long term relationship with no end in sight.

Who can forget the guy who essentially interviewed me for the role of “wife” while eating oceanside at one of my favorite restaurants in Manhattan Beach? Casual first date questions like “what do you do?” and “do you have any siblings?” quickly turned into “how many kids do you want?” “private school or public?” and “would you consider converting to Judaism?” I got a parking ticket that day and I’m still mad about it.

Bad date. Parking ticket. Still a romance writer without a romance.

A few months ago, I was set to go on a date with a guy I met on Bumble. Things were looking up. He had a good job, owned his house, lived on a farm. He said a couple of things that made me pause for a moment, but it’s hard to decipher intent over text so I noted them, talked them over with “the council” (you know, the group text with my girls), and decided while they were beige flags, they weren’t red ones. We were supposed to meet in downtown Knoxville, walk around, have coffee, maybe get an early dinner if all was going well. A good first date. It spiraled when he told me we would then be going to a surprise party for his friend’s wife. I told him I didn’t want to crash the party of a stranger, he told me “bring a change of clothes.” I laid down my boundaries to which he said “I’m desensitized to women.”

I took my dogs to see Santa instead.

I avoided the apps for a while after that, but in a “how else will I meet someone?” moment, I opened Bumble again a few weeks ago. The first profile to greet me was a man and wife looking for a third. Hard no. The next guy chose a photo of him and his kid peeing in the woods in the Great Smoky Mountains as his profile picture. I closed it and opened Hinge. Things weren’t a whole lot better there.

Despite a string – a very long string – of first dates and bad dates, I still believe I’m destined for a big, sweeping romance. I still believe that one day, I’m going to walk into a coffee shop and meet the love of my life. Or perhaps when I’m in Nashville in a few weeks, I’ll run into him on the sidewalk outside of the Ryman or at my favorite burger place. Maybe our paths will cross when I’m in Los Angeles later this year or in Gatlinburg in a few weeks. He could already live in my neighborhood or he could be at a Tennessee football game this fall. He could be the guy I saw in a Farragut parking lot last week that looked like the same guy I kept seeing around Manhattan Beach when I lived in L.A., the guy I tried my best to work up the nerve to flirt with.

That guy looked like Kayce Dutton from Yellowstone. You’d be intimidated, too.

Sometimes I feel naive about holding on to such a belief. I never thought I’d still be single at this point in my life. I’ve had my Pinterest wedding planned for years with no groom to complete the picture. It feels silly sometimes to still believe in love, to believe that love could strike anywhere, any time. To believe that I’m destined for a grand romance, to believe my own fairy tale is pending. I even wonder “why bother?” at times when I’m feeling discouraged and falling into the pit of the “there are no good men” belief. Dating is hard. Being single is hard.

Yet I’m a romance writer. I lose myself in creating characters people fall in love with while they (the characters) fall in love with each other. Sometimes it’s a cinnamon roll of a man, other times it’s a morally gray bad boy. Sometimes he’s a smooth talking bartender. Other times he’s a gruff detective. She could be a Type A marketing executive or a creative loose spirit. She might be a jaded small town girl (hi) or she may have left her small town in the dust for big city dreams. They always find each other in meet cute fashion. They always fall in love.

I’m a romance writer without a romance of my own, but at the end of the day, I still believe in love. I still believe in that magical moment, in having my own meet cute, in having fate unveil an incredible story.

I’m a romance writer without a romance.

And I believe my romance is right around the corner.