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This one is for Pauline - I choose to believe that the waiting isn’t wasted, but quietly working in our favor.

There’s a strange silence that lives between the couples’ photos on Instagram and your own reflection in the bathroom mirror. It’s not loneliness exactly… It’s more like the echo of a question you didn’t ask but somehow still have to answer: Why not me?

When Pauline sent me her message (this gentle confession of envy wrapped in kindness) I immediately understood. Because I’ve been there too. I am there, still. Twenty-five, almost twenty-six, surrounded by people who seem to have cracked the code of modern love while I’m still trying to read the instructions. Everyone around me is in a relationship with capital R’s : Real love, Real plans, Real futures. While I’m just trying to figure out if I even believe in the word “forever” anymore.

The problem isn’t just that everyone else seems to be in love, it’s that we’ve been taught to measure our worth by the timing of our love story.

The Timeline Trap

We live in a world obsessed with milestones. At twenty-five, you’re supposed to be in love. By thirty, you should be married, or at least close enough for people to ask, So when’s the big day? By thirty-five, if you’re still single, people start talking to you like you’re a museum piece : beautiful, maybe, but slightly tragic.

We don’t compare ourselves because we want to suffer. We compare ourselves because we were programmed to. It starts innocently, first crushes, first kisses, first relationships, and then suddenly, you’re in your mid-twenties, scrolling through engagement announcements and baby showers, wondering why your own life feels like a waiting room. But maybe waiting isn’t punishment… Maybe it’s protection.

The Mirage of Happiness

It’s easy to think everyone else is happier. That the couples holding hands in cafés have found what you’re missing. That the people posting anniversary dinners and seaside vacations are winning at love. But happiness, like filters, is all about angles. You see the highlight reel, not the behind-the-scenes. And still, even knowing that, we envy them. Not for what they have, but for what they seem to have, a sense of certainty. A story that makes sense.

Because when you’re single in your mid-twenties, life often feels like a collection of prologues. You meet someone, you like them, you think maybe, maybe this one, and then suddenly, the chapter ends. No explanation, no closure. Just a half-finished sentence.

The Curse of the Romantic

Some of us were born romantic. We grew up watching love stories where everything was intense and poetic and slightly impossible. We thought heartbreak was noble, and waiting was beautiful. We believed love should be everything : fireworks, fate, and forever. And now, here we are, the romantics of the digital era, trying to survive in a world where love has become fast food: quick, convenient, and disposable. I know I sound dramatic. But I also know I’m not the only one who feels this way.

I’ve met so many people, smart, funny, kind, who keep wondering why love hasn’t chosen them yet. As if love were a lottery and we forgot to buy the ticket. But here’s something I’m learning (slowly, painfully, honestly): love doesn’t reward the most deserving. It arrives when you stop auditioning for it. Maybe that’s why so many of us feel lost… Because we’re trying to earn something that isn’t supposed to be earned.

But one day, love will probably show up again, unexpected, inconvenient, and dazzling, and you’ll look back on this chapter and realize it was never empty. It was formative. It was the time you learned who you were when no one else was defining you. And that takes time. Patience. And a little bit of faith.

The Hopeful Ending (because there always is one)

Lately, I’ve been seeing these TikToks claiming that the couples who marry between 20 and 30 often end up divorcing later… And okay, maybe it’s a petty part of me that smiles at that, but also, maybe it’s the realist in me that knows timing matters. Love isn’t a race. It’s not about being first. It’s about being right.

Some people find love early. Some people find it late. Some people find it twice. And some, like me, like Pauline, are still waiting, not because we’re failing, but because we’re refusing to settle for the wrong story.

So if everyone around you is in love, let them be. Celebrate them. Take notes if you want. But don’t forget: your own story hasn’t even started yet. Until then, live. Love the freedom of not knowing who you’ll be next year.

Because the truth is, everyone is searching for something, even the ones who seem to have already found it.

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