You are not built to love.

Lovable women are bolstered by “we;” not suffocated by it. They look beyond their lists and types for men who challenge their status quo. Lovable women want to be worshipped and placed on pedestals. For lovable women, affection and giving come naturally.

Then there is you. You, who are hot and cold. You want a man when you want a man. And when you don’t want a man, you want a man who understands that. You roll your eyes when played too closely by willing suitors and plot mercilessly on prying the detached objects of your affection out of their shells. You dismiss for minor infractions. You reject building a life that requires another; fearing you’ll be left holding more than you can handle alone.

You are not built to love.

There’s no room in your heart to love yourself and another. Loving them makes you an unattractive shell of the woman who lures them in. Loving you requires walls — low enough for them to reach you, but high enough to keep them from invading your space.

Accepting your fate alleviates anxiety. There are alternative ways to fill a life, you reason. Friendship and travel and drinks and concerts and writing and restaurants and witty conversations and books and a relentless curiosity about the world. You know there will always be men. Affairs that reduce themselves to flashes of intense memory and passing thoughts of Whatever happened to…

You know they weep for you, right? They just know some far off man in some far off time will add to your life, for life, without subtracting you from yourself. They wonder if you’re lonely because they can’t fathom a more tragic fate than living alone. They assume you’re broken because you upset the “someone for everyone” narrative. They write you off as a cynic to keep the rose tinted just right over their lenses.

Despite their concern, they leave you to your oneness. Maybe there is reward in a life of catering solely to one’s whims and pleasures. Perhaps you can stitch solitude to fit your frame and wear it in such a way the world agrees no other garment could fit you as well.

Perhaps then they’ll stop asking: what kind of woman is not built to love?