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Only when I started reading more broadly about different kinds of bonds and decentralizing romance, about how deeply romance-centered our culture is, did I begin to understand that what I wanted was not romance at all.

I am a loving person. I form deep, committed friendships. I crave emotional and intellectual intimacy. I can admire people the way I admire a painting or an intriguing book cover, aesthetically, intellectually, with curiosity and warmth. This kind of looking isn’t pursuit but attention without possession, closeness without claim, something our language rarely makes room for.

But the gravitational pull everyone described, the merging of lives around a romantic feeling, did not happen. And I certainly didn’t want anyone in my bed. What I wanted was connection, and society taught me I could only truly find it in romance.

Stop me not, but let me jog,
For I am Bob, the drivers dog