I was in first grade, and a boy in my class, named Dustin, gave me a small, white teddy bear with a red bow tied around his neck. At 6 years old, this was a lavish gift among the ritual of passing out store-bought cards with flat suckers.

I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what it meant. I certainly didn’t want Dustin to be my boyfriend (whatever that means in first grade).

I can remember Valentine’s Days at school in the years after, carefully choosing cards for each classmate, making sure none of them were too flirty. Didn’t want to risk someone thinking the pre-made cards were from my heart.

As I got older, Valentine’s Day had some weight to it.

In college, I told my fellow students to take Valentine’s Day like a man, in the inches of my weekly relationship column:

“It is the lonesome man who looks above this dreaded day and treats it just like any other. He doesn’t wear black, cry, eat chocolate or hate himself.”

I tried to take my own advice, and joined some girlfriends at a martini bar. I remember wearing a silky shirt that was printed with green and blue hearts.

That night, I watched as the bartender poured a long row of Patron shots. Little did I know that the very bartender would be in my life years later, and we too, would share a few Valentine’s Days.

But before that could happen, I was on the tail of a bad relationship. It was a constant back and forth that wasn’t healthy. When Valentine’s Day rolled around, I got stood up, and finally I was free.

And then, I fell in love with that bartender. While there were good times, the bad weighed heavier. For Valentine’s Day, all I wanted was to see him. I fantasized about it—I wanted to order one of those “Heart Baker” pizzas from Papa Murphy’s, sip on beer, and sit with my guy.

But he didn’t want that.

Instead of pizza and beer, I sat alone that night, eating the red velvet cupcakes I baked for him.

It wasn’t one of my prouder moments.

Truthfully, I’ve never tried to put too much pressure on February 14. I know it’s a bit of a silly holiday; I want a relationship where we constantly show our love for each other, not just one day.

But terrible Heart’s Days aside, this year I really wanted to give myself a break. My stock on bad dates is currently up, and I needed a little cheering up. So I looked back on the 2-14s of my past.

I never did get that pizza.

So, I drove across the street to Papa Murphy’s, marched in a told the gentleman I wanted “the heart pizza.” A mere $6.30 later, I drove home with a fresh pepperoni pizza, shaped like a heart.

Because I deserve it…along with a bottle of wine.

My journey to the heart (pizza) hasn’t been an easy one, and it’s certainly not over, but every now and then I need a reminder that the journey (and the pizza) is all mine.

At least that’s what we called it

I found it at the bottom

Of a Lucky Charms box

It was made of clear plastic

A bubble revealing a die inside

Six sides that held our fate

Yes, no, maybe so

I shoved it in my pocket

And We hit the streets,

The way we always did

No plans

Just us

3 blocks from my house

I revealed the plastic toy

A stick of gum later

And it was on the jeep dashboard

Like a cheap Garmin

Hey, DDM, we’re at a red light

Should we turn left

Pop

Yes! And left we went

Our guide drove us through

The city

A city we had memorized

After years of riding in backseats

Carpooling through the suburbs

Gazing beyond the trees wondering

What was outside of our bubble?

Our version of Google maps

Lead us to our favorite place

Where rules didn’t apply

We ditched our shoes

Letting our toes feel the earth

Countless nights welcomed us

There

To the marina

A lake serving

As the backyard

To mansions we would never know

We sipped alcohol

From our parents homes

Smoked flavored cigars

And swam to the floating dock

With a single fear of

creatures

in the water

It was a place to see the stars

A place

Only found beyond the maze of

Paved country roads

But Somewhere along the route

I lost the guide we had that night

Since then, the tires of

The jeep have covered

Enough miles for the Guinness book

The marina sands

Have turned themselves

Bearing witness to

Rites of passage

Adventure-seeking souls

Looking for answers

In the night skies

Worthy of a Tom petty song

I can’t help but wonder

Where that dashboard decision maker

Might’ve taken me

If I hadn’t lost it

If I hadn’t lost

You

2am visit to your house
High heels
Trench coat
Confetti cake
November cold

Kitchen table sex
Front yard cigarettes
A late night connection
Or confused confections

I fell for you
Fast
Mistook
Lust for love

Empty
Shot glasses
Cashed

Mansion in
College park
Stability
In
Secrets

A paved
Path I
Wish I
Could
Turn back

Birthday #26

Took her for
drinks
Took her
home
Took her
clothes
In front of me
Lied
In front of me

You
Were
Caught

Afternoon apologies
Morning toast
Midnight bottles
Back porch fortunes

I
Was
Lost

Birthday #27

A plus sign translates
To a negative

Jelly
Wax paper
Pills
Holding me up

Silence
From you
Carefree

In your
Cubicle world
Wood floor
Apartment
Miles
Away
From us

The lies
Stacked
Themselves

Cementing
Like bricks between us
Building
Cities
To keep us
Apart

Roads closed
Time gone
Decision done

Birthday #28

4am
She calls
You lie
I cry

Hate you
Love me

Vodka soda
Whiskey coke
Cigarette kiss
Neon lies

Everything
Is fake
Can’t see
Through
Your smoke
Your stories
Your life
Without
Me

Birthday #29

Call it quits
I’m at my wits
End

Leave
Give me the key

Convenient
End
On a Friday
Give her a call
Tell her you dropped the ball
And chain

One year away
From #30
Didn’t want
Vows
Didn’t want
Kids
Didn’t want
Me
To be
Forever

#30 meant
No more
Flings
No more
bar tabs
No more
lies
For fun

I was just
cake
on a birthday
Just bricks
In the city
Just a notch
on his bedpost
Just cash
At the clinic
Just 4 years
in a lifetime

So this year
Birthday #30

Wake up
Perfect bed
Sheets
Tangled
In lies
Hungover
From the
Hearts
you break

Paved driveway
Company car
Ironed shirt

Joining
A row
Of cubicles
Sitting
Ducks
Men
Who do the
Same
Men
Who are the
Same

So

When
A nameless
Face
Takes the bait

High heels
Trench coat
Confetti cake
November cold

Blow out
The candles
Make a wish
That karma
isn’t real
That fate
Will answer

Pray
For the lost ones

Hope that
#40
Is the new
#30

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of sitting down with a local gentleman who was nominated by his college classmate for Cosmopolitan’s Hottest Bachelor competition. To be honest, I expected our meeting to be quick. I assumed he would be a conceited jerk.

Boy was I wrong.

Ryan turned out to be kind and genuine; he was honored by the outpouring of support he’d received because of the contest. I was shocked that this successful, handsome man was indeed single.

For my article, I had to ask him the million dollar question: Why are you single?

The answer he gave me was priceless.

“In a backward way, I think not looking provides an opportunity to meet someone. If you’re always looking, you’re willing to settle.”

Story aside, it was the answer I’ve been waiting for.

As a single person, being asked why you’re single is tough. It’s not really a compliment when someone says, “Wow, you’ve really got a lot going for you, so…why are you single?” It passively implies that something is wrong with you, but since it’s not physical or resume-builders, it clearly means you’re crazy.

I’d never had a good answer to that question—until Ryan gave me one.

I’m single because I’m waiting for the one. I’m waiting for that romance I’ve dreamed of.

It’s good to know I’m not alone in my thinking.

So, as much as I loved meeting Ryan to share his story, I was also thankful because I learned a little something about myself, too. In return, Ryan got what he deserved two weeks later—he won the Hottest Bachelor contest.

Refusing to settle? Now that’s hot.

Read the rest of Ryan’s story here.

The story, told in only 22 pictures and no words, is a love story of a naval officer and his girlfriend-turned-fiance-turned-wife. The pictures say it all; go see it for yourself:

As a sophomore in college, I was at school just an hour away from New Orleans, the home of Hurricane Katrina. At that time, I was living in a sorority house. The house, they told us, was safe and would remain open, but I was lucky enough to have one of my Greek sisters offer her family home to me.

Because of her invitation, and her family’s well-prepared home, I remember being pretty calm during the storm. We lost power and saw trees fall, but everything was generally okay.

Years later, Hurricane Gustav was headed straight for us in Baton Rouge. It was my first real hurricane experience. Being from Indiana, I had little idea what a hurricane was like. I did as I was told and got bottled water, food items, and supplies for my cat.

When the storm came, I was sitting in my living room, watching out of the window as the privacy fence surrounding my apartment complex flew across the grassy field. I could feel my building swaying.

The worst part, however, were the days that followed. I was lucky, and only without power for three days, while some people were out for weeks or even a month. Trees that had fallen into the floors above me caused water damages in our building, while lower levels flooded.

Without power, I also had no internet connection and no signal. I could barely keep in touch with my boss, my family, or my boyfriend at the time. I longed for some type of social interaction, so I headed to the nearest drug store and stocked up on magazines. That held me over until it was too dark to read.

Eventually, I heard from my boyfriend, and wanted to see him. I went to his house, where at least the fridge was hooked up to a generator. I remember walking over cords in the dark house. I only stayed for about five minutes, as he told me to leave, I couldn’t stay there.

On a normal day, I wouldn’t have understood why he kicked me out in such a flash. During my tropical depression, I surely didn’t get it. And years later, I still don’t have an explanation.

Today, as I brace myself for yet another horrible storm in Baton Rouge (and New Orleans), I am reminded of that dark time. The broken trees strewn across our beautiful city brought tears to my eyes, and someone that I trusted would be there to comfort me and keep me safe, did the same.

I am happy to say I’m not in that place for this storm. I have a feeling the outcome will be a much brighter day.

The psychic was off the main road in downtown Columbus, Indiana. Her “office” was the living room of her home, and when we knocked on her front door she was watching a rousing episode of Full House.

We each paid for a palm reading, half the price of a tarot card session—I’m too scared I’ll get the death card—and Julie went first. I can’t recall what she told Julie, but I will never forget what she told me.

I told her my birthday as she felt my right hand on both sides, touching the lines and the bones. She told me my parents would get a divorce. She also told me that she knew I was struggling between two career paths.

I was, part of me wanted to continue with dance and be a choreographer, while the other part of me wanted to write, and go wherever that would take me. She told me to go with dance.

Finally, she told me that I had a soul mate. He was blonde, tall, and tan. He also had the initials J, C, S, in any order.

We left the old house and analyzed what we heard. My parents weren’t getting a divorce, so I didn’t know how much thought I should invest in the career suggestion or my supposed soul mate. Nonetheless, it was nice to think about a tall, tan, blonde guy waiting for me somewhere in the world.

About a month later, my dad moved out.

While I don’t think a psychic can map out all of the details of our futures, all of us have that gut feeling when something is or isn’t right. Several times in the past, I’ve ignored that feeling, and I always regret it. As I get older, I’ve learned to listen to those feelings and go with my instincts. The outcome is always better.

When it comes to dating, listening to your gut is especially important. I’d venture to say 95% of my dating problems have occurred because I’ve ignored those feelings. In the beginning of a relationship, when everything is fun and exciting, maybe my new guy will do something that seems off, and doesn’t quite fit.

I used to ignore those signs, and say, “Oh, it’s not that big of a deal,” when really, it is a huge deal, and it becomes a massive problem days, months, or even years down the line.

I’m not talking about the way he holds his knife at a nice restaurant or his habit of telling corny jokes, I’m talking about flirting with the waitress (or every woman in sight), doing a bump of cocaine, cheating on his ex with you, etc. The stuff that should be taken seriously, but sometimes it isn’t because you just want things to work.

When my ex of three years tried to dump me via email and phone call, I knew the bad news was coming. However, I demanded he respect me and say it to my face. The fact that I even had to ask for respect while he dumped me is a problem in itself.

Although his prepared speech was about how he just wasn’t feeling it anymore, I knew he had been cheating on me and was dumping me to be with someone else. Suddenly, visions of times I’d ignored popped into my head—him talking about her at dinner, him buying wine for her at the grocery—I don’t know why I hadn’t connected the dots sooner.

I told him this and of course, he denied it. I said, “Oh, how convenient that you’re breaking up with me just in time for the weekend,” and he also denied that having anything to do with it. But I knew the truth. I ripped my house key from his grip and pointed to my front door.

“I hope you’ll answer when I call,” he said.

I shut the door in his face.

Although the breakup was completely necessary, I had a rough time. Friends from all over, even from high school reached out to send me kind messages and share their stories of breakups and love gone wrong with me.

One classmate in particular, Ashley, had several stories for me, and they all comforted me in different ways. She sent me an email one morning after she woke up from a dream (or perhaps a nightmare) that she was marrying her ex boyfriend, and the night before their wedding, he called to tell her he couldn’t do it. She was calling him an hour before the wedding, he wouldn’t answer his phone, and that’s when she woke up.

“I thought my world was coming to an end when my ex broke up with me,” she told me the next day. “I can still remember how it went. He sat down and asked me to come sit by him, because we needed to talk. I knew this wasn’t going to be a good talk.

In that moment, I knew two things: 1., I knew he was breaking up with me, and 2. I knew why he was breaking up with me.

I sat down and looked into his eyes and said, ‘It’s Nikki isn’t it?’ He said no right away, but a woman just knows these things. That’s when the waterworks started, and they weren’t mine.

I didn’t want to be near him. I think I could have beaten him half to death, and I think he would have let me. The guilt he felt still haunts him today. I know because he and I were friends long before we dated, and now the man can’t even look at me.”

One of my best friends, Sheena, has such a strong gut feeling, sometimes it has lead her to the wildest dating stories I’ve ever heard, much less imagined.

Around the time I was with my destructive, cheating ex, Sheena was dating this guy Jeff. Some of the things she told me about him set my radar off, but as her friend I wanted to support her when she was happy, and just be there for her when she needed it.

The beginning of their relationship seemed normal enough, although one night she caught him doing cocaine, which she didn’t approve of. When she confronted him about it, he said he only did it twice a year. She accepted that and moved on.

As you’d expect, he did it more than that, and it just got swept under the rug. However, he was really into partying hard, and Sheena really isn’t. Sometimes, he’d go out without her, drink himself stupid, and ignore her attempts to find him. One night, Sheena called me in a frenzy, and she was driving around her college town looking for his car. She had this feeling he was with his classmate, Amy.

“They’d been in the same Italian class for two or three years, were from the same area, and they were friends,” she told me. “She would come over sometimes while I was at his place, drop off notes, or they would study together. He even took me by her house one night because he had to drop off the Italian textbook they shared, and then we carried on with our evening.”

The night Sheena called me was a month after all of this. Jeff had gathered a group of his friends, and Sheena, to see a movie that was coming out at midnight. However, Sheena wasn’t feeling well, so she went home for the night around 6 pm, telling Jeff to call her later.

“We really didn’t talk the whole night, which was strange,” she said. “I called him around 11, before he was leaving for the movie and he was really weird on the phone. He was very short with me and not acting like he was talking to his girlfriend, which gave me a bad feeling.

So I stayed up until 2:30 or 3 a.m., when I thought the movie would be out and I called him 3 or 4 times throughout the next 30-45 minutes and no no answer. Then, I had my roommate and his roommate call, and they got no answer either.

Since he lived across the street, all I had to do was walk over there to see he wasn’t home and somehow, I just knew he was at that girl’s place. So, I got in my car and drove over there and sure enough, there sat his car in her driveway.

To make sure he actually stayed there, I got up at 8 the next morning and drove by again, and his car was still there. I drove by again at 10:30 and it was still there. Of course, when I asked him what he did, and why he didn’t go home, he lied and said he stayed at his friend Jeremy’s. When I told him I knew he stayed at the girl’s place, he hung up on me and didn’t talk to me for three days.”

At that point, Sheena and Jeff had been dating for three months.

“So awful,” she said. “I should’ve dropped his ass then.”

Unfortunately, Sheena’s gut instinct had to kick in a few more times before she dropped Jeff for good. Several months later, I got a call from Sheena as she was making an early morning investigative trip to Jeff’s house.

“We had gotten in an argument the day before because I was going to Indianapolis to have dinner with my mom and sister, and he never came to my family shit, but I always went to his, so we were pissed at each other, but made up before I left town.

I was weary to leave because he was a bastard and I figured he’d go out and get super drunk and do something stupid.

He was replying to some texts but they were weird and when I called him, I could tell he was really fucked up and he was just like, ‘Come to this bar,’ (knowing I wasn’t in town) and it was around 1:30 or 2 a.m.

Then after that whenever I called and texted him after the bars closed he didn’t respond., which to me was an indication he was with another girl or otherwise he would’ve picked up.”

Sheena called me the next morning, driving from Indianapolis to West Lafayette, on a mission to catch Jeff cheating.

“So, I walked in his front door and saw high heels sitting outside of his room.

I could’ve walked away then fully knowing he had a girl in his room, but I still wanted to see it for myself. So, I walked in his room and his eyes shot open and I walked around the bed so that I could see the girl in front of me, threw up my hands, and walked out.

He said nothing.”

Although Sheena didn’t trust Jeff after that, she gave him one final chance. I can’t blame her, because I did the same thing with my ex. But one event finally happened that broke the camel’s back.

“We were hanging out in the afternoon and he was texting this girl from his hometown that went to college with us that I was also friends with. I think they had a class together or something.

He told me they were texting about the class. I had to go to work in Indianapolis that night, so I was about to leave and wouldn’t be back until like 10 pm, it was probably like 4 pm at this point.

So, I leave and text him a few times while I’m there and when I get back he’s not answering my calls or texts, so I go over to his house. One of his friends was sitting on his front porch waiting for his roommate and I asked him if he had seen Jeff and he said no, so I left.

So I went home and stewed about it. This was when we were on the same cell plan, so I went home and logged on and saw that he had been texting this girl the whole time I was gone and at around 8 pm their texts stopped.

I continued to call and text him throughout the night and got no response. Finally around midnight, I told him if he didn’t respond I was calling his parents because I was worried something happened to him. He responded that he was fine.

That was when I knew he was with another girl. The next day, I called him and he was playing video games with someone, so he was very short, I said, ‘I know you were with Ally last night’ (at this point, I didn’t know they had gone out to dinner) he didn’t deny it, and told me he’d have to call me back later.

An hour after that, I got on Facebook and saw that he took our relationship down. I later found out that this was because he lied to the girl and told her we were already broken up.

He never gave me an explanation or told me what happened, but of course this girl had a big mouth and told all of my friends that he took her to this super nice, expensive sushi place and got bottles of wine, and then they went over to the guy’s house who was sitting on Jeff’s front porch waiting for his roommate for a bon fire and beers, and then like a week later one of the girl’s roommates told me she walked in ally’s room in the morning and Jeff was naked in her bed.”

Sheena hasn’t talked to Jeff since.

Although your intuition might not lead you to something as wild as what I and my friends came to find, but it’s important not to ignore the feelings. There’s a reason you don’t feel right about something. Or, perhaps you have a feeling that something is just so right. After all, they say when you know it’s the one, you just know.

His name was Andy. He was the cutest boy in my second grade class, and I was determined to make him mine.

To do so, I placed a metal ring, painted gold, into my wooden cubby before school one morning. The note attached to it read simply, “From Andy.” When Andy arrived at school, I skipped over to him, sporting the oh-so-glamorous ring, and thanked him for it.

“I gave you that?” he asked.

“Well it said ‘From Andy’,” I replied.

And that settled it. He was my boyfriend.

Even at 7 years old, I had the guts to go out there and snag the man I wanted. But even at 7, I was okay with knowing that it was a lie that got me the guy.

Twenty years and a college degree later, I’ve often found myself in relationships that were built on lies. Unfortunately, those lies run deeper than a ring from a plastic bubble machine.

About 10 years after my fling with Andy, I had my first actual boyfriend, who I shared my first kiss with. It was just a few months after my parents divorced, leaving me with my mother, whom I barely knew.

Patrick, my boyfriend, was a hockey player and popular at school. I felt on top of the world. One night, he even made a heart out of bark on my front doorstep; 24 hours later, he dumped me, saying our relationship wasn’t moving forward physically.

When he jumped right into a relationship with the school slut, I took my anger out by hooking up with nearly the entire basketball team. I don’t know if I was really mad at Pat, or mad about my parents’ divorce, or just mad at the world. In any case, I still ended up hurt and alone.

I have never wanted to be the girl who blames her parents, or her past, for the troubles that still plague me today. However, I’m slowing admitting that we only know what we see and what we’ve felt, and I’ve got some twisted memories.

Despite dating my best friend, a drug addict, a bartender, a pathological liar, a college student, the punk rock kid, my next door neighbor, a personal trainer, a waiter, the guy in the band, and got cheated on by most of them, there remains threads of hope in my heart.

Often, I don’t know where they come from, because the data shows that I should’ve given up by now. But although I always tell myself, and those around me, that I just want to “focus on my career,” I know that I am still waiting to experience true, honest love.

Of course, my dreams about love have changed over the years. Perhaps I’m more cynical, or just a little more real. Now, I am trying to approach my life in a different way. I know that it’s time to put me first, so that one day, I can let someone in to enjoy the real me. That’s the person that’s been lost for 10 years.

Some days, I wonder if this is it. In 10, 15, 20 years, will I wakeup alone, pack my lunch, head to the office, hit the gym, and then eat dinner watching The Bachelorette? In those moments of wonder, that’s when I know I can’t deny my want for love, for a true partner, to spend my nights with — even if we are watching trashy reality television.

Sometimes I may feel alone, but I know I’m not the only one thinking this way, which brings me to writing this book. I can’t tell you a fairytale about love coming true. But I can tell you that I’ve been lied to, cheated on, and even ignored, but the sun still rises with hope in sight.

The 7-year-old me would have concocted a brilliant story of how she’d meet her husband, but in that story I would’ve been a married mom by now. Love isn’t a highway, a math equation, or a recipe.

When the road gets rocky, my hope comes from stories; real stories about crazy love gone wrong, then turning right again. In those moments I know that one day, things will turn right for me, too.

It is my wish, now and 20 years from now, that stories like this will build hope in the hearts of women. Because no one has all the answers, but we know what we’ve been through, and with each experience, we’re laying the bricks for our road to turn right.

• Good hair matters.