It Was Never About the Chicken

It was 2:00 a.m., and I was crying in a grocery store parking lot over a rotisserie chicken.

To be fair, it wasn’t really about the chicken. It was about the fact that I had bought it for a romantic picnic that never happened. The person I was seeing had canceled via text — a text that ended with a smiley face emoji, which felt like a tiny, yellow knife in my chest.

I sat there, engine running, AC blasting, feeling utterly ridiculous. I was a grown adult, sobbing over poultry and a person who clearly wasn’t as invested as I was. I was drowning in the messy, unglamorous reality of modern love. And I know I’m not alone.

We live in a paradox. We are the most connected generation in human history, yet we feel more isolated than ever. We have apps that put thousands of potential partners in our pockets, yet finding someone to simply sit on the couch and watch bad TV with feels like trying to win the lottery. We are told to “love ourselves first,” to be “unbothered,” to “guard our peace.” And while these are vital lessons, they often become armor that keeps everyone out.

Somewhere between the swipe-rights and the situationships, we’ve forgotten the fundamental, messy, beautiful point of it all.

The Myth of the “Spark”

We are a generation obsessed with the “spark.” You know the one. The lightning bolt. The instant, undeniable chemistry that makes you want to cancel all your plans and run away together. We treat it like the ultimate green light, the only sign from the universe that this person is “the one.”

But here’s a secret the movies don’t tell you: The spark is often just anxiety in a cute outfit.

That feeling of butterflies? That can be excitement, sure. But it can also be your nervous system sensing a familiar, chaotic pattern. It can be the thrill of the chase, the validation of someone aloof finally giving you attention. The “spark” is often a firework — brilliant, loud, and gone in a flash, leaving nothing but smoke and a weird smell.

The problem is, we treat the absence of that immediate, overwhelming spark as a dealbreaker. We go on a perfectly nice date with a kind, emotionally available person and think, “Eh, no spark,” and we move on. We’re so busy looking for the firework that we miss the person quietly building a hearth.

Real love, the kind that lasts, rarely starts with a bang. It starts with a laugh. It starts with a comfortable silence. It starts with curiosity. It’s a slow burn, not a supernova. It’s a warmth that grows, not a flash that blinds.

The Ghosts We Carry

The chicken-parking-lot incident wasn’t an isolated event. It was a culmination. I was projecting years of past hurts onto a new person. Every canceled plan felt like the time I was stood up in college. Every late-night text felt like the ex who only called when he was bored. I wasn’t dating a new person; I was dating all my ghosts, and they were terrible company.

We all do this. We enter new relationships carrying the baggage of the old ones. We have a mental checklist of red flags, and we’re often so terrified of repeating a past mistake that we become hyper-vigilant, looking for proof that this, too, will fail.

This is the hardest part of dating: learning to distinguish between intuition and fear. Fear says, “They haven’t texted back in two hours, they’re losing interest.” Intuition says, “Something felt off about the way they spoke to the waiter.”

Fear is loud and demanding. Intuition is a quiet, calm knowing.

Learning to heal our own wounds isn’t just about “being ready” for a relationship. It’s about being able to see the other person clearly, without the funhouse mirror of our own past distortions. It’s about putting down the checklist of who you think you should be with and being present with the person who is actually in front of you.

The Quiet Magic of “Enough”

The turning point came when I met someone who didn’t feel like a firework. He felt like a Sunday morning. There was no dramatic chase, no agonizing “will they or won’t they?” There was just… ease.

It was confusing at first. It was so calm that my drama-addicted brain found it suspicious. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. But it never did.

He remembered my coffee order. He asked me questions about my day and actually listened to the answers. When I was sick, he didn’t just text “feel better,” he showed up with soup. There was no grand gesture, just a thousand tiny ones. He was consistent. He was kind. He was enough.

And that’s when I realized the most subversive, radical act in modern love: choosing the quiet, reliable, beautiful person who shows up for you every day, instead of the dazzling one who makes you guess where you stand.

Love isn’t a feeling; it’s a verb. It’s a decision. It’s the act of choosing each other, again and again, on the boring Tuesdays and the stressful Mondays and the lazy Sundays.

It’s the inside joke that no one else understands. It’s the shared look across a crowded room. It’s the way they put their hand on your knee when they know you’re anxious. It’s the fact that after a long, terrible day, there is a person in the world who is your soft place to land.

Your Heart is Not a Puzzle

Forget the idea that you are a broken half looking for your other half. You are not a puzzle piece waiting for completion. You are a whole, magnificent, and occasionally messy universe, and you are looking for another whole universe to share the orbit with.

Stop looking for someone to make you feel complete. Start looking for someone who adds to your already-full life. The goal isn’t to find someone who makes you feel less lonely; it’s to find someone whose company you genuinely prefer to the quiet of your own.

When you meet that person, it won’t be about the spark. It will be about a sense of peace. A feeling that you have finally come home.

So, if you’re currently crying in a grocery store parking lot, or swiping endlessly, or just feeling the profound weight of it all, I want you to remember this: The best, most lasting love often arrives not with a bang, but with a gentle, steady, and unwavering glow. It’s not about the chicken. It never was. It’s about the person who pulls up a chair and sits with you while you eat it.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.