Let me tell you something, friend. It always begins the same way.
She looks at you. But she does not see you—not the man standing in front of her, not the scars you carry, not the stories folded into the wrinkles around your eyes. She sees a version of you that exists only in her mind. A possibility. A sketch. A ghost of a man who could be—if only.
At first, it feels like love. Like being touched without hands. Like someone finally found the part of you that had been waiting in the dark and brought it into the light. But make no mistake—it is not you she sees. It is a story she is telling herself. And you, my friend, are just the paper she is writing it on.
The first time it happened to me, I was sixteen years old. She was seventeen, drove a red Ford, and smelled like cinnamon and cheap perfume. She told me I had potential. I thought that was the highest compliment a woman could give a man. I mistook it for love. What I did not understand back then was that “potential” is a polite way of saying, “You are not what I want yet—but maybe, with work, I can turn you into it.”
So I began to work. I changed the way I talked. The way I walked. I cut my hair because she said long hair made a man look lost. I learned how to cook pasta and pronounce French wine labels. I started journaling and jogging because she said she liked men who were both deep and fit. I stopped playing guitar because she said it reminded her of her ex.
And she smiled. And I smiled.
And for a while, I thought I was winning.
But then, one evening at her father’s lake house, she looked at me and said, “You are not the man I thought you were.” And she was right. I was not. I was someone else entirely. Someone I built for her—out of scraps and guesses.
That same pattern followed me into every woman I met in my twenties.
One woman loved how quiet I was. So I became a man of few words, even when my soul was screaming. Another loved ambition. So I filled my calendar with meetings I did not care about and goals that made no sense to me. One adored mystery, so I pretended to be brooding. Another wanted emotional vulnerability, so I cried on command and second-guessed my strength.
I became a shape-shifter. A mirror. A reflection of whatever they hoped I could be. I thought that was love. I thought that was devotion.
But it was just performance.
And here is the brutal truth: the moment I broke character—when I dared to show fear, or doubt, or even a bit of backbone—they pulled away. Slowly at first. Then all at once.
They would say, “You changed.”
Or, “I thought you were someone else.”
And I would stand there, hollowed out, wondering what I had done wrong.
Eventually, I stopped asking that question.
Because the answer is simple.
I did nothing wrong.
I simply stopped pretending.
I stopped reciting the lines of a role I never auditioned for in the first place. And once I stopped, the illusion fell apart. And when the illusion dies, most people do not grieve it. They replace it.
So they left.
And I stayed behind—me and the man I had been trying not to be.
At some point, I began to notice the pattern. That most people, women especially in my case, were not falling in love with me. They were falling in love with what I represented. Some were looking for a healer. Some a father. Some a rebel. Some a priest. Some a rescuer. None were truly looking for Carl.
And I cannot blame them entirely.
Because the truth is—I made it easy for them. I handed out the masks. I played the parts. I was so desperate to be loved that I became whoever they needed me to be, hoping that one day, someone might finally look past all of it and see me.
But how could they?
I had buried myself so deep beneath the act that even I forgot who I was.
So I did something terrifying.
I stopped performing.
I sat with myself. For the first time in my life, I stopped chasing. I deleted the dating apps. I turned down invitations. I let myself be still.
And let me tell you—solitude, real solitude, is a brutal teacher. It shows you everything. The cracks in your armor. The voices in your head. The shame you buried. The longing you pretended not to feel.
I remembered the boy who cried at movies. The man who wanted to be a writer. The father I feared I would become. The failures I carried like rusted anchors. I met all of them, one by one, in the silence.
And slowly—painfully—I started putting myself back together.
Not for anyone else.
For me.
I stopped seeking validation. I stopped asking, “Am I enough?” and started telling myself, “I already am.”
I began to walk differently. Not arrogantly. Not loudly. Just—firmly. Rooted. Whole.
And that is when I met her.
Not “the one.” Not the fantasy. Not a storm in a dress or a goddess with a clipboard.
Just her.
A woman with no script. No rescue fantasy. No desire to fix or be fixed.
She had done her own work. Faced her own ghosts. Buried her own illusions.
And for the first time in my life, I did not feel like I had to perform.
I did not need to impress her, save her, entertain her, or explain myself.
I just had to show up.
As I was.
She did not fall for potential.
She did not fall for a projection.
She fell for presence.
And friend, that kind of love—the quiet kind, the honest kind, the kind that asks for nothing but truth—is the rarest thing I have ever known.
But here is the hard truth: you do not find that kind of love by chasing it.
You find it by becoming someone who does not need it to feel whole.
You do not attract it by being good at playing roles.
You attract it by being unwilling to wear a mask ever again.
So if you are like I was—tired, aching, confused—let me offer this:
Stop chasing eyes that light up when they imagine what you might become.
Start becoming the man who no longer needs to be imagined.
Be real.
Be whole.
Be willing to lose everything fake in order to find something true.
And when she arrives—the one who sees you, not the dream of you—you will not need to convince her.
You will not need to audition.
You will not even need to try.
You will simply stand there.
And she will stay.
Not because you fit the part.
But because you finally stopped pretending you had to.
The Moral of the Tale (if you’re the sort who likes morals):
If you spend your life chasing eyes that sparkle when they imagine who you could become, you’ll die a stranger to yourself.
But if you dare—really dare—to stand as you are, flawed and full of soul, the right ones will stop looking for perfection and start seeing the person.
And that’s when love gets real.
Not because they need you.
But because they choose you.
Just as you are.
And not a heartbeat before.
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