“What’s your favorite place in the whole world?”I ask, breaking away from the kiss.

The boy I’m with has no words.

“What’s your best friend like? What’s your happiest memory?”

I look away from the unresponsive boy and run my hands over his skin, unable to meet his blank eyes. I know that’s not what this is. I know what I signed up for.

But that doesn’t stop me from hoping.

Every single time, I know what I'm getting myself into. And every single time, I hope that maybe, just maybe, this time, it will be different. That this time, the boy I am with will change his mind and want more and want everything.

That this time,I will be enough to change his mind.

The days will pass and my airways will tighten at the thought of him and the feeling of his lips on my neck will still light me up inside like flames to skin and I will think: this could be love.

It never is.

It's all just a lie I feed myself to keep myself sane. As he traces circles on my skin and I let him, just to bask in the warmth of another person’s body. As his lips meet mine and I imagine putting on his shirt in the middle of the night as I walk lazily into his kitchen to make some tea. As his hands go lower and lower and lower and I wonder why the only person I want to be with is the last boy I truly loved, who is not the one touching me at the moment.

This. This is never love.

It’s all pretend. But, my god, it is the loveliest pretending I have ever known.

How wonderful it is to belong to someone. To have a home, even if it's just for a night. How wonderful it is to let myself go under and believe that this could be it. That this could be constant. That these could be the arms I could run to at the end of a trying day.

How lovely. How wonderful. How gut-wrenchingly, heartbreakingly false.

When it comes down to it, I know I'm the one to blame. It’s my fault for looking for love in all the wrong places. I’m not going to find it in the drunken haze of a frat party or under the violet lights of the club or in the 3 a.m. text messages that say “come over.”

But is it wrong to hope that someone will prove me wrong?

Because I’m starting to realize that that’s what I want. I want someone to prove me wrong. I want someone to fall too hard because that’s the only way I know how to fall. I want someone to fight for me.

And I want it to matter.

I don’t wish to do anything if my heart’s not fully in it. Including my relationships. Especially my relationships. I care too much, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I want to know the little things, like their favorite place, and the big things, like that one moment when they got everything they ever wanted, and I want to know these things without wondering if they’re telling me all of this in hopes of getting together at the end of the night.

My happiness is not in the temporary bliss of hookup culture.

My happiness is in feeling my heart clench at the very sight of someone’s smile. My happiness is in catching my breath at the accidental brushing of fingers. My happiness was in him telling me about his family and his beloved high school memories. My happiness was in the prospect of something more.

My happiness is in the wait for what I deserve.

My happiness is in loving myself enough to stop settling for the wrong people.