I love love. Growing up with more brothers than sisters, I spent my childhood reared on sci-fi adventure stories, action movies with ample explosion budgets, and the “Step Up” movies on repeat. Sure, I learned to love them, but when I reached adolescence, I tried to watch all the “chick flicks” that my friends talked about, but never won the pick for family movie night. It was the summer before 8th grade when I finally put myself through a crash course of rom-coms fueled by a diet of microwave popcorn. I saw all the classics — from 80s John Hughes films to 90s Shakespeare adaptations, and the kitschy, girlboss movies of the 2000s with their will-they-won’t-they tropes.

This experience had two major impacts on me: I wanted to work at a magazine (hello, freelance writing); and I was indoctrinated by the belief that I could get everything I ever wanted, but it would all be meaningless without romance.

“I was indoctrinated by the belief that I could get everything I ever wanted, but it would all be meaningless without romance.”

Over and over again on screen, there they were: women at the top of their career fields or classes, realizing that the meaning of life came with a kiss. Pair that with an iPod Nano rotating through Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” and “Speak Now” albums, and my future was written out for me: I was destined for yearning.

What is yearning?

On the internet, yearning has become a catchall term for a feeling that lands somewhere between daydreaming and limerence. Daydreaming captures its habitual nature — like when you used to catch yourself staring out the window in class, wishing you were outside. And limerence captures the abstract nature of the obsession: How it’s not about the person or thing you’re yearning for, it’s about how you feel.

But in certain circles, yearning is an aesthetic. There is something erudite about wishing for something more. Yearning is a legacy whose path is paved by writers like Virginia Woolf and modeled by characters like Madame Bovary. It’s the hand flex in “Pride and Prejudice.” It’s the perpetual state of the girlblogger. It is the idea that there’s another life waiting for you, trying to get to you. All you have to do is … find a man and kiss him? That’s the answer the romance movies present. That all your waiting, everything in your life will become unstuck if you’re good, patient, and always ready for love.

“It’s the hand flex in Pride and Prejudice. It’s the perpetual state of the girlblogger. It is the idea that there’s another life waiting for you, trying to get to you.”

Yearning externalizes your problems by creating a solution that is outside of yourself. It’s a scapegoat that excuses you from inner work. It feels good because it’s easy — especially when life is hard. Yearning is not only the perpetual desire for another life, but the pleasure of spending time in this imaginary world. 

The aesthetic of yearning has been seductive to me since my Tumblr days. When I was a lonely, awkward adolescent, of course it was comforting to believe that the answer to my problems was outside of me. And that it would come in the form of a beautiful boy who would tell me he loved everything about me, especially everything I felt most insecure about. In the times I felt bad about myself, I imagined someone telling me I was good and worthy of love. And that made all the difference.

“As a self-soothing technique, yearning works because visualization works.”

As a self-soothing technique, yearning works because visualization works. The brain finds it hard to distinguish thoughts as reality or fantasy. Tori Wager, director of the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Colorado Boulder, remarks, “Imagination is a neurological reality that can impact our brains and bodies in ways that matter for our well-being.”

So as a coping mechanism, yearning was useful in my youth. It gave me a physical sense of comfort. But I’m not that sad seventeen-year-old anymore. So I quit.

Why did I quit yearning?

As an overachieving child, the appeal of girlboss comedies was potent. High-strung gal gets saved from her high-stress life and swept off her feet into a world of carefree bliss? Yes, please. Yet even then, I knew the yearning wasn’t for Matthew McConaughey or Ryan Reynolds, but for a release from the pressure I put on myself. 

Studies show that the longer you do something, the more you do it. Your brain creates neural pathways that form and strengthen over time. After all those years of imagining that romance would save me, my brain considers that the easy way out. Instead of dealing with an uncomfortable feeling, I’d turn to my old standby and self-soothe with a familiar daydream, yearning for the romance that would make my life better. 

“Instead of dealing with an uncomfortable feeling, I’d turn to my old standby and self-soothe with a familiar daydream, yearning for the romance that would make my life better.”

The pandemic made yearning a widespread phenomenon. Many of us were literally isolated from our loved ones, but also from anything else we craved. Without many of our usual comforts, more people than ever embraced yearning as a coping strategy — cue the internet memes. Because of how yearning became a personality trait on social media, I avoided facing it for longer than I should have. It was working, I thought. And according to the internet, everyone was doing it — so what was the harm?

But I recently realized how much time I dedicated to yearning, and how that was impacting my real life. I closed myself off to what was available by always emotionally anticipating something better. When yearning becomes a compulsion, it goes past a harmless internet trend and begins to affect your real life. It’s a problem when you forgo real relationships for imagined ones or, in my case, use it to avoid facing reality.

“I closed myself off to what was available by always emotionally anticipating something better.”

When I need a distraction, experience an uncomfortable feeling, or want to avoid actually working on my goals, I take a shortcut to the feeling I want by imagining it. When you use this technique for visualization, it can help get you closer to the future you want — but only if you work for it. 

I realized I wasn’t dealing with my insecurities, my problems, or my life. I was avoiding them. I was pushing away my feelings of pain or discomfort by imagining something more pleasant. I missed out on my lived reality in favor of something that could only ever exist in my mind. How much of my life did I waste wishing I was someone else? Or somewhere else? What real pleasures did I prevent myself from ever knowing?

What does my year without yearning mean for Valentine’s Day?

Quitting yearning is a project in rewiring my brain. It’s like when you delete social media apps but your finger keeps hovering over where the app used to be. However, I’ve already felt the change. When I feel myself disengaging from my life, I force myself to turn toward it. I deliberately feel the feeling instead of avoiding it.

When I feel the urge to imagine myself as someone else who is somewhere else, I ask myself: What do I actually want right now? When I’m yearning for romance, what I actually want is validation or connection. So I can call a friend or make plans to see one. I can interrogate what part of me feels insecure or give myself validation. These are ways that connect me to my reality by fulfilling a desire in the real world, rather than settling for an escape that can only ever leave me unsatisfied, wanting more of something that doesn’t exist. 

“When I’m yearning for romance, what I actually want is validation or connection.”

Quitting yearning also puts me in a healthier place to receive romantic attention when it comes. At their best, romantic relationships help you connect more deeply with yourself  — flaws and all. A partner isn’t there to save you from yourself or the world. But they can support you as you grow and change by seeing all parts of you. By committing myself to going for what I actually want in the real world, I am honoring my feelings instead of trying to escape them — which is the basis of creating real, reciprocal connection.

Resisting the urge to lose myself in a habitual fantasy is hard enough on regular days. But with Valentine’s Day coming up, I’m reflecting on what romance and desire mean to me when I’m not using the idea of them as a way to escape myself. 

But like I said, I love love. So Valentine’s Day is a holiday I’ve always enjoyed. Indulging in sweets and rom-coms (and of course, yearning!) has been my routine when I don’t have a partner to celebrate with. But this year, I’m being more intentional with my approach.

Here’s how shadow work can help:

As I’ve been digging deep into the root of my compulsion to yearn, I’ve been doing shadow work in my journal. Shadow work is uncovering the dark, difficult parts of your mind like your limiting beliefs and past traumas. Its goal is to bring to the surface whatever you find hard to face every day. For me, that looked like going all the way back into my childhood to find the root of my escapism as a self-soothing technique. But shadow work is not just creating another trauma story or victim mindset to latch onto; it’s about facing those stories so you can release them with intention. 

“Shadow work is not just creating another trauma story or victim mindset to latch onto; it’s about facing those stories so you can release them with intention.”

If you realize you cannot untangle all your hard feelings alone, don’t try to push them away. Instead, consider seeing a professional. Therapy is the best form of shadow work, after all.

For Valentine’s Day, shadow work prompts could look like:

  • What scares you about being alone?
  • How are you using romantic relationships to avoid negative feelings?
  • In what ways do you feel like you’re not enough for yourself?

These can help identify places you need to heal and potential triggers before they come, so you can feel better prepared to face them. I like to counter these thoughts and feelings with validation and connection. Since that’s what I was seeking by yearning for romance, I write affirmations or things I like about myself so I have them on hand when I need them.

Ultimately, the root of my yearning can be traced back to that rom-com idea that romantic love is the only, or best, kind of love. However, that’s not true. In my case, I was devaluing the love I was receiving from the people around me because it didn’t come from a romantic partner. Which feels like a pretty big oversight.

When my friends or family gave me words of affirmation or showed up for me when I needed them, of course I was grateful. But somewhere within, I harbored the idea that it would mean more if it came from a partner. Letting go of this idea has been transformative for my life. Now I can see love all around me, even if it’s not the type of love in the movies.

“I’m leaning into the love I have, rather than the love I think I want.”

This Valentine’s Day, I’m leaning into the love I have, rather than the love I think I want. That doesn’t mean forgoing my rewatches of “10 Things I Hate About You” and “How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days.” But I won’t sigh wistfully and wish someone would save me from myself. Instead, I’ll ask myself how I can create a life I don’t need saving from. 

Langa Chinyoka is a Contributing Editor at The Good Trade. She is a writer and strategist based in Los Angeles.