But how do you commit to actively practising love for people and the world without getting distracted by longing for a form of it you don’t have? I think you plumb the depths of who you are until you find a purpose in life that excites you. You take all the efforts you’ve been pouring into longing, and instead use them to dig deeper for the love that’s already there, hiding right in front of you, so that you can grow it. This doesn’t mean pretending that you don’t want to meet a partner – or have a child or make new friends or find whatever love it is that you’re searching for; it means being brave enough to hope for what you want, but wise enough to know that life is not one love story, but many. It means trying to build love with a partner – if you want one – but also in purposeful solitude, in creating something that others connect to, in a stranger’s kind words, in friendship, in family, and in the sometimes-bright-sometimes-grey sky that’s always been there, all your life. It means understanding, too, that all these forms of love are not given or acquired; they are learnt and earned.