“You’ll meet your person when you least expect it"

"If you can meet someone who fits more than 80%, consider yourself lucky."

The rain was about to peak out on the wind brushed waters 2 years ago. I locked eyes with someone on a boat, feeling an instant connection, a bit powerful and curious as I felt his nerves from his quick glances. He had a gentle, charismatic way about him without pushing it too far to touch me. I felt him wanting me without needing me. The attraction between us was a tease, and it grew louder and louder. If the story had ended there, it would’ve been a meet-cute.

However, it didn’t—

I had just gotten home from a date where the questions felt staggered. It was almost like we were reading the same book, but on different pages.

A part of me felt hopeless, like I had never met someone that I felt fully seen by. Right after my last breakup, my dad—an engineer through and through—offered a calculated love formula, the 80/20 rule.

"If you can meet someone who fits more than 80%, consider yourself lucky."

No partner will ever fulfill 100% of your needs or desires. If they meet 80%, the other 20% shouldn’t make you throw it away. It sounded practical. But it also felt like love was being reduced to an equation.

For some, though, the missing 20% can feel impossible to ignore. Especially if they’re searching for love to fill their inner gaps.

There were times when I got extremely close to the 80%. Overtime, that curdled into moments where we both knew that, because of where we were in our life’s trajectory, we had to diverge. Staying together would’ve meant denying who we were becoming—almost like being alive, yet pretending our inner thoughts of doubt weren’t shouting at us louder and louder. Until the shouts became pangs of acceptance, if we loved each other, we would have to pretend we were both dead while being very much alive.

It was the type of love compilation from my romantic self to my mature understanding of nearing the 80% was not what I expected.

Letting go while being so close is disheartening.

That woke me up from the realities of puppy love. Meeting eyes across the room, felt less mystical and more shallow and horny over time. Grounding me in the magic felt rooted in the alignment of our paths rather than the attraction over quick-witted banter and a gentle, charismatic way about them.

It made me question all the familiar dating advice: “You’ll meet your person when you least expect it.” As if love rewards the ones who aren’t looking in a world where we all want to be loved by someone we deem attractive.

In all honesty, I have sought solitude in this message.

Other times I can’t help but feel like the next time someone says this truism to me, I want to yell “shut up” and in their face.

Maybe that was the eagerness talking to dull the pain of my last failed connection. The phase grounded me as a lover girl who started to mutate into an anxious attachment style.

So, how true is “you’ll meet your person when you least expect it,” anyway?

Viewing dating this way can help with feeling desperate and, therefore, unattractive. You can smell the anxiety and eagerness as if love would solve all their problems, and connection would give them value. In Greenlights, McConaughey captures his wife’s essence and what enthralled him most when he first encountered her:

“She was no virgin, but she wasn’t for rent…She wasn’t selling nothing. Didn’t need to.”

It’s a striking tribute to her independence and self-respect. We want people we choose to care for, not people who require it.

But people are fickle. No partner, place, or accomplishment can define your worth. Only you can do that. Accepting this perspective allows us to see love as abundant, all around us. Believing it’s scarce only turns that belief into a self-fulfilling prophecy. So if you carry fears of disappointment, you may come across as tense or judgmental, which is repelling.

I’ve always believed people can sense the way you feel—whether it’s destroying you or serving you. Studies show that body language, micro expressions, and even breathing patterns shape the emotional tone of a room. Maybe it’s pheromones? but perhaps it’s the sheer belief in abundance that helps us loosen our grip on the outcome—especially when love feels so risky.

So hypothetically, everyone wears their heart on their sleeve, the people who are the most confident are the ones who accept their emotions and/or fake their magnetism.

If you’re inwardly stuck in negativity, people may feel unsettled around you even if you’re smiling. If you’re genuinely peaceful or joyful, it creates a sense of ease that others pick up on. This is why deeply magnetic people work on their inner state first, inevitably increasing their chances of finding someone who has also been working on their magnetism.

So, since we know “people will be more interested if you are not desperate”, yet on the other side of the coin, “you can’t just sit there and expect the love of your life to suddenly show up.”

Not “looking for love” does not mean doing nothing at all. Chance favors the prepared mind: those who are active, sociable, and open-minded create more “luck” in love. Meg Jay calls our twenties “The Defining Decade,” warning that brushing off love as trivial often leads to regrets later.

When “not looking” isn’t passive isolation but a mindset of ease and trust.

Finding lasting love is less about finding that person who is 85% perfect or cosmic timing. “You’ll meet your person when you least expect it." When you’re building the life you want, you might just bump into that special someone—then invite them in as a new character in your story. Love isn’t magic timing or an elusive equation. It’s meeting your person when you two are okay with building a life worth sharing. A life where you invite meaningful connection, not a contract to please someone who will inevitably change.

[Rough draft Edit. 2]