Why I Will Never Date a Writer (Including Myself)

I’ve always said that I would never date a writer. I understand the irony oozing from my fingertips as I write this. Everyone has dating rules. No Geminis. No men under 6’2. No smokers. No gym bros.

On my Hinge profile, I list my job as “writer,” and I’m usually asked what I write. I like being asked; I just hate answering. I always say the same thing each time: entertainment articles and personal essays. Most people don’t inquire further, which is a relief. Occasionally, though, on the very rare occasion, I’m asked if I have a Substack. It feels too meta to tell a romantic prospect that I write about relationships – like now they can’t really be themselves because I might publish it later.

One time, I did give a man my Substack because he directly asked for it and this time I couldn’t just vaguely answer or deflect (the irony of me now writing about this isn’t lost on me either.) He congratulated me after seeing my subscriber count and then told me, after reading one piece, that it felt wrong to read another. “I’d rather just know you in person,” he said. Ultimately, we never went out because we lived too far away from each other to make it logistically work, but I always think about his response. He understood that just because my intimacy was easily accessible, it shouldn’t always be consumed. And for that, I respected him.

What’s very strange to me is how often people treat Substack like a dating site. I’ve received countless direct messages and comments where I’ve been called hot, sexy, or beautiful. I recently received my very first “I love you” which felt especially strange. I’m not famous. I can go about my day like usual. I won’t be stopped on the street for an autograph or a picture, yet I still receive parasocial messages and comments. Maybe that’s the real cost of vulnerability at scale. Whether it be writing songs or writing articles, people feel like they know you. Strangers feel intimately connected. It’s a comforting thing that I’ve also felt with many artists, even on this very platform. I’ve received critiques. I’ve received praise. I’ve received advice. People feel a sense of entitlement to you. The internet has even (so graciously) supplied a very platform for it to be voiced. You shared, so now they can share too. It’s comforting and invasive at the same time.

Sometimes, I also wonder what would happen if one of my muses stumbled upon my pieces. I imagine a brief second of mortification before remembering that they were always aware that I wrote about people. Perhaps they naively believed they’d be unscathed in my creative mind-field, but really, no one ever is. Maybe it’s not that I don’t want to date a writer; I just don’t want to date myself.

Because when I think about the archetypal writer – pretentious, deeply annoying about things that they like, incapable of loving anything to a normal extent, so very dramatic, analyzes anything and everything, judgmental yet strangely lax, brunette, short, named Amanda – I realize I’m not describing the Typical Writer. I’m just listing the qualities I dislike most about myself.

I’ve always said that any creative – filmmaker, writer, musician, artist, actor, comedian (especially) – carries a specific kind of melancholy. There’s a darkness they either fictionalize, craft into jokes that cause an entire audience to erupt in laughter, or outrun as they act as different characters to escape who they really are. I once asked my friends how often they get sad, thinking my several times a week, usually once a day, was normal. They said “maybe a few times a month.” When asked why it happened so often for me, I said I just think a lot. The answer felt vague, and later, pretentious. Like I was implying that they aren’t sad because they don’t think deeply enough. That wasn’t what I meant. Or, maybe, on some level, it was.

Research even proves that female writers are more likely than the general population to suffer not only mood disorders but from drug abuse, panic attacks, general anxiety, and eating disorders. It’s as if suffering is a prerequisite for creativity. And yet, in the process, you become insufferable. People envy the talent without wanting the life attached to it. They’d rather live comfortably than be so affected by everything that the only way to survive it is to write about it. I also think about the fact that most writers have to isolate themselves in order to work. To focus, you withdraw. It becomes safer to be secluded. Your writing thrives, even as your life stagnates, and you start to wonder which one is meant to sustain the other. Does your life suffer because your writing thrives, or does your writing thrive because your life does?

I’ve often imagined my soulmate as another creative – someone who understands the need to disappear, the urge to exaggerate, the way reality never feels quite enough. I want them to understand me, yet selfishly, I don’t always feel compelled to understand them. Maybe that imbalance is the paradox. Maybe that’s why so many great writers lives end in tragedy. Hemingway, Plath, and Woolf didn’t just write about madness, they succumbed to it. Writing briefly offered an escape, but it never offered a cure.

There’s a question that shows up everywhere: in job interviews, on the first day of class, on dating apps. Tell me about yourself. It seems simple until you try to answer it honestly. The first thing I always think to say is that I read and write. Over time, it’s stopped being something I do and started being who I am. I want to be seen outside of it, yet how can I when it’s how I understand myself? I’ve realized I don’t crave labels like wife or mother the way others do. When asked to choose between career or love, I used to say love every time. I don’t anymore. Maybe that’s because I haven’t been in love for a long time, or maybe it’s because the validation I receive from my writing fills me in a way love never quite did.

Above all, I want to be great.

I think about Timothée Chalamet’s speech at the 2025 SAG Awards where he admits that he’s in pursuit of greatness (something many leave unsaid, yet still feel.) We are told so often to be humble. Act surprised when you win. Never be disappointed at a loss. But why should you say you don’t deserve an award when you know you do? Is there something so wrong about admitting that you feel a deep, insatiable need to be great? About admitting that you won’t stop until you get there? In every creative writing class I’ve taken, there are people who write because they enjoy it and people who write because they need it. I can no longer coyly say that I write for fun. I, in truth, write because I want to be remembered. I want to change someone’s life. I want to see my name on the spine of a book.

Maybe love softens you. But I don’t want to be softened; I want to be great.

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