I hope that reading my writing makes you feel like I've just given you a hug. If it doesn't, e-mail me, and I'll have to give you one in person.

I said, “I am looking for the love of my life.” My friend nodded and pulled on his cigarette. “You are too young to be looking for the love of your life,” he said.

I want someone who is scary-smart, someone who hand-writes me notes and leaves them beside my morning cup of coffee. I want someone to bake for and to moan for, someone who sneaks up behind me in the kitchen and puts his hands over my eyes and I can tell by his smell that it is and always has been him. I want someone who doesn’t care if I stay up late writing in bed, whose face lights up at the sight of small children, who can make impressive literary references without appearing pompous, who knows in which spots I’m most ticklish. I want someone brave, someone who makes me brave, someone worth surrendering for.

I do not want someone who is neglectful of text messages, who sleeps with other people and doesn’t understand why that might bother me, who does not offer to pay for dinner even though he knows I’ll refuse. I do not want someone who secretly thinks Tucker Max is funny or uses the term “slut” with honest conviction. I do not want someone who fiddles with his phone during conversations, is uninterested in reading or does not want to hold my hand but insists on kissing my collarbone.

I’m scared that it’s impossible to love anyone the way you did the person you first fell for. There is something so pure about the moment you first feel that warmth breaking in your chest, your feelings so unburdened by history and the dread of repeated patterns. The brightness of your life is suddenly turned so far up that the stars begin to look like they’re just hanging out in the next town over. The first time you love someone you are both genuine from the start, not yet conscious of the comparisons that you’ll eventually fall victim to, unaware that love rarely begins but always ends with honesty. My first real love is entrenched in mythology, memories threaded with hopeful fallacy. How I loved him in my mind is very different from how I loved him in the world, but neither matters anymore.

At night sometimes I fear that we spend our whole lives learning to love less, every day our hearts growing the subtlest bit thinner. Falling in love is a series of diminishing returns, a quiet crisis. It’s cruel that it takes so much painful practice before we get it right.

I watch every man on the train, in the coffee shop, in the rickety elevator, wondering if he is someone worth surrendering for.  I am young and I am terrified,  but I still look into everyone’s eyes, just in case.

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