A psychic predicted I’d meet the love of my life this fall

I fancy myself a witch. I manifest like no one’s business, I’m never without my tarot deck, and at the beginning of this year, I met a psychic who came highly recommended by other witchy friends. She predicted that a toxic ex would soon come crawling back into my life, and lo and behold, in late-January, her prediction came true—which made it easy to believe her when she said I’d meet the love of my life this October. (Yes, as in, this month.)

I’ve been swiping on dating apps and meeting people pretty steadily all year, so it’s safe to say I’ve been putting in “the work,” but I can’t exactly say it’s been particularly fun for me. When you’re on the apps, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to find “the one” and forget that ultimately, while there’s nothing wrong with dating with intention, it shouldn’t feel like work, either. You’re flirting with a stranger! Going on cute dates! Letting someone woo you! Even if the end goal is long-term commitment (and for a lot of folks, it’s not), the process of finding a partner should be, at the very least, somewhat enjoyable.

But the longer I’ve been at it, the easier it’s been to fixate on my “type” and swipe left on anyone who doesn’t seem like it based on a few prompts. With the sudden threat (if you can call it that) of being in a relationship by the end of the year, I realized that somewhere along the way, dating stopped being fun. And this prediction was just the motivation I needed to change that.

Of course, psychics aren’t actually soothsayers. I knew I couldn’t take her word as absolute truth, but at the start of the summer, I wondered: What would my life look like if I did? How would I live now, knowing the love of my life would be knocking on my door in just a few months’ time? The answer was clear: Have as much fun as possible with as many guys as I could get my hands on, and do it all for the plot. You know, the plot—those truly juicy stories you share with your girlfriends at happy hour that give everyone the belly laughs. This summer, I made the active decision to start saying yes to more fun, and I quickly noticed how my dating life turned around for the better, not to mention, how my feelings of self-doubt began to slip away.

Armed with this intention, I was quick to say yes during one of my first beach outings of the summer when a rock band (comprised of much older men) at a bar invited me to sing with them on stage. As I belted “Valerie” clad in a bikini top, boxer shorts, and flip flops, I noticed a group of cute guys watching me, and one of them was filming me on his phone. Naturally, I flirted with his camera as if I was Olivia Rodrigo starring in an angsty music video, and when my song ended and the audience cheered, I knew I had to talk to him.

“Great job up there!” he said.

“Oh, thanks,” I laughed.

“I couldn’t help but take a video; it just looked so funny to have all those old guys up there and then you.”

“Oh my god! I have to see it,” I said. I took his phone, told him to tag me, and we quickly followed each other. He said he was a firefighter about to graduate from the academy. I couldn’t not think of that Sex and the City episode where the girls go to Staten Island to judge the hot firefighter competition and Samantha goes home with one who was nice to look at but impossible to talk to.

Within a week, the firefighter and I were DMing and meeting up for drinks. We stayed up all night hooking up at my place and laughing—and I couldn’t remember the last time I had a guy over without worrying about what it all might mean later. I realized I’d forgotten that it’s possible for guys to be nice, hot, and just fun to hang out with at the same time, just what I needed at the start of what could potentially be my final single summer.

A few weeks later, an old flame—we’ve been hooking up on and off for a decade, whenever both of us happen to be single—messaged me that he was in town for a wedding, about 45 minutes away from my apartment. I was out but invited him over, and by the time I got home he was waiting by my front door, looking as cute as ever. The next morning he brought me breakfast in bed and promptly jetted off to the wedding. Sometimes my friends ask me what the point of still entertaining him after all these years is, but truthfully I’ll always have a soft spot for him, and that was reason enough for me to say yes to seeing him one more time—especially knowing that our ten-year rendezvous might soon come to an end.

The next day, I was heading to Chicago to visit my best friend when I remembered Brody*—a Chicago native I’d had a one-night-stand with after seeing his band play in New York in 2014. A full decade later, I slid into his DMs to tell him I’d be in town. What’s the worst that could happen? I thought, keeping in mind my summer mission. He says no? To my surprise, he was pumped that I’d be in town and quickly made plans to see me. The night after I flew in, he invited me over. We caught up for a bit on the couch before moving things to the bedroom for a long-awaited part deux. His convo skills were pretty lacking, but he looked amazing and the sex was just as good as I remembered it—even if he did only have one pillow on his bed, in true band-guy fashion.

Despite a healthy dose of guys I resurrected from my past, my summer of yes also included a few new conquests. On an August night in Sag Harbor, my friends and I hit up the only bar in town where I noticed a tall, cute guy staring at me. I was feeling brave off a few tequila sodas so I turned around to face him and said, “Are you trying to talk to me?” He laughed and said he was. Back in New York City, we went on two dates. On the second, we discovered we just weren’t vibing, which might make the experience seem like it wasn’t worth it, but on our second hang, when he was in the bathroom, the bartender leaned over and asked, “What is this, a Hinge date?” My friend and I went back to the same bar a week later, and that time, I left with the cute bartender’s number.

This summer, making the active decision to start having more fun and take things less seriously led to a string of actions IRL that actually made my dating life more interesting. I took a few risks and realized that interacting with people in public doesn’t have to be scary—I just had to get out of my own head and throw out the cookie-cutter checklist of what I thought I wanted out of a date.

Ultimately, if October comes and goes and I still haven’t met the love of my life, I still feel like I won. I’m going into Fall armed with the newfound knowledge that I have more control over my dating life than I thought—I’m not bound to an algorithm that decides who I see. Getting out of my comfort zone convinced me that the psychic’s prediction wasn’t so much about the love of my life arriving in October, but more so about re-evaluating my approach to dating in the first place. More importantly, I’m walking away with something better than a partner—a newfound confidence. A mentality that feels like a superpower I can hold onto. And there’s something about that that feels magical, regardless of whether the psychic’s prediction comes true or not.

Lead image credit: Getty/Khadija Horton
 

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