When the Eternal Bachelor Decides You’re “The One”

I am finally unapologetically, totally and completely happy alone.

I don’t want anyone, I don’t need anyone, I love my space, I love my life, I love my plans, I love my friends, I love not having to plan around someone else’s timeline, timings, activities, un-finished plans, expectations, hopes and dreams.

I was so very tired of having to constantly have to plan my life around someone else’s wishes that I decided to reset my life goals and completely erase ‘love’ and ‘kids’ from my image of fulfillment and purpose.

Goodbye dating, I’ve had it.

Quite frankly, I am so much happier on my own. I am so much happier with a business goal rather than a love one. Now, I can safely plan a weekend to Madrid with my friend C, I can invite people over for the weekend without fearing that perhaps at that time I will have found love and he will be staying over, I can jump into my creative love projects without listening to a man I just met tell me that ‘I won’t have time for a relationship’.

Except that’s not exactly what happened.

Do you recall R, the Portuguese guy I spotted in December? Well, he is well and alive and ready to take over my life.

It turns out that perhaps he is not a narcissist, perhaps it’s just his socials that are full of photos of how good he thinks he looks, it would seem that instead, he is just someone who is ready to commit to love.

He has been faultless: committed, determined, a great communicator, consistent, kind, present and ready.

I may have spotted — I know this will sound surreal my friends — an available man!

But here’s the thing, based on 39 years of copious experience, I well know that this cannot be. This must be a mirage, hence I have decided, very uncharacteristically to ditch my usual ‘Hollywood Editor’ that enables my pink vision and that I will, in fact, not fall for any more BS, that I am going to treat this with the uttermost disbelief and de-prioritization.

I refuse to believe in any way, shape or form that this is the love of my life.

Have you ever heard of the taxi theory?

Here’s how it works. Someone once told me that men who used to be massive players, unavailable, men who experienced women wait around for them for years yet never chose to fully commit to them nor to marry them, at a certain point of their lives, hit the ‘ah $*t: what have I actually done with my life’ button.

They come to terms with reality, a mirror of the emptiness they have surrounded themselves with, and they decide that they will turn things around and truly commit to one person.

Perhaps their best friends are all married or with kids, perhaps, like in this case, they are about to hit their big 4–0 moment without the house, wife and kids they had always imagined, perhaps it’s just that they are feeling lonely because January was a depressing month, be it as it may, the emergency light goes off and alongside their inner siren, it signals the emergency status.

In practical terms, they realize they need a taxi, they raise their hand, and the first woman who happens to pass by at that specific time becomes ‘the one’.

Suddenly, they are ready.

Plenty of wonderful, valid, beautiful, clever women have loved and adored them before this point but they will rationally decide that this woman that came into their lives the day they became available is ‘The One’.

I am not kidding my friends, that’s truly, apparently, how it works.

So imagine the surprise when I meet this very handsome man, clearly a player his entire existence, and he raises his hand at that specific moment when I’m walking by and by pure coincidence catches me.

I wasn’t even planning to say — to say the truth. He’s not my type. Much too focused on himself rather than on a bigger purpose to make me feel inspired.

However, I was passing by and when I saw him standing there, not just holding a little red flag but entirely dressed in red, with red luggage, with a red aura, he did something with his hand that made me want to stop.

Don’t ask, I don’t know what he did.

Every fiber of my being was saying — NO THANKS.

I tried to get rid of him off with a no thanks.

But he wouldn’t have it. He came after me.

He was sure.

He stood still despite all the BS I threw his way.

He let me be a bit bitchy which I typically never am.

He let me be unsure without pressuring me.

He stood his ground. After all, that was his taxi moment and I was the random woman he spotted when he made that ultimate decision…I must be the one.

But am I ? I mean he doesn’t really know me…he projected his entire future life fantasy on me and I’m not quite sure if the expectation now is to fill it perfectly or if he’s looking to get to know the real me.

This guy has seen me in person for 24 hours but he is ready to marry me.

Nope, I’m not kidding, he is ready to start a life together. He wants to move to London because he doesn’t want to do long distance, he wants to commit to me in ways no one ever has and certainly I fear he hasn’t either. I’m on his social media posts, not stories, posts. I have now become his WhatsApp profile picture, and the best part is that the photo he used is actually an AI generated photo of us though you’d never be able to tell.

He tells me he loves me every single day.

I tried to diagnose him with so many potential disorders and I am standing here ready to run for the hills, but truth be told I think he may just be a bit on the spectrum, a little bit insecure and an optimist.

I cannot fault him this far.

But here’s the thing that’s a bit bewildering: I have been given what I was asking for — love, security, commitment — yet I feel nothing at all. Well, perhaps a little bit of panic alongside a little bit of a cold sore.

So here I am, in the middle of the night, screening his calls and writing to you in the hopes that by putting this on paper I will find the answers I have been searching for.

My brain automatically reverts back to its baseline adult relationship question: I wonder this time how I will die.

Will he suddenly ghost me?

Will he be super jealous and check my phone (no chance of this surviving if he reads my chats with my girlfriends)?

Will he do something mean?

Will the sex be bad?

A more optimistic part of my brain, the Hollywood part, is telling me that you never know — this is the first time I don’t believe her so perhaps R is the right man for me. It does feel different — I feel nothing at all!

I have become apathetic.

And the truth is, that I kind of love it.

The wonders of self-sabotage

As he has been nothing short of consistent and sweet, there is a good chance that I am, very simply put, self sabotaging.

I do have a history of feeling like I am in the wrong relationship every single time things seem to be going well (with the exception of my terrible Australian avoidant ex whom I thought was truly it).

Self protection mechanisms in place, stronger than ever, I can’t help but wonder if this means that I have grown up and thousands of pounds spent in therapy have actually turned me into an adult woman with boundaries and a healthy dose of realism, of it perhaps of I am just on the verge of self sabotage, ready to kill off the first man who chooses me without the need to disappoint me and make up for it first.

Now that I have become so very happy with myself, do I need to unlearn self love to welcome another kind of love?

Can they really co-exist?

Do I really want more sacrifice, more compromise, more waiting around and being flexible?

Do I really want to tell my precious life stories all over again?

Do I really want to build a brand new picture of life with someone when I know with 99.9% accuracy that most likely at some point I will die from an unknown un-diagnosed relationship problem this person surely has?

Now that I have become so stable and serene, must I truly review my entire stability in the vague hope that this love story actually ends well or even better doesn’t end at all?

Is there a way to double check all of this without paying an extremely high price for it?

Is love truly worth the hype? I don’t even remember why I wanted it in the first place at this point.

Luckily, a wonderful reader shared a valuable insight (

BOOKS THAT MADE ME THINK…?

The taxi theory explains availability, not connection. Readiness alone doesn’t negate agency or sincerity, it just sets the conditions for choice. The deeper question isn’t ‘Did he choose me or timing?’ but ‘can desire grow without fantasy collapsing?’

Apathy here might be wisdom — or it might be emotional anesthesia. The experiment isn’t love vs. self-respect; it’s whether intimacy can survive once projection is removed.

So true. Truth is, only time can tell.

This is why, despite it all, I have told him that he can come over and spend a few days with me. I must find a soft spot in my mind heart and soul to at least try and see where this goes.

R, I have decided I’m giving it a shot, please treat my heart with uttermost care. I will try to take one step at a time towards you and respect your will to dive in. I’m not sure what to hope for but you should know I promised myself safety and self-respect this year, and I intend to put it into action.

I will choose him, once I know him deeply and he has seen many facets of who I am, open, vulnerably, the light and dark sides, the good and the bad. Perhaps I’m still holding on to myself because I know he didn’t choose Me, he chose the hope he has in his mind for who I turn out to be.