The same is true of dating. We don’t have to do everything. We’re allowed to do less, even — wait for it — do nothing, and deserve to have everything just the same. Love doesn’t operate on algorithms. There is no if X, then Y. It’s largely up to chance, luck, and the mysteries of human connection. I know this to be true because after a decade of doing every kind of something under the sun, I’m still as single as I was when I started. And if dating is going to be the one area of life where effort and results don’t have to match, where I have just as much chance of meeting my partner online as I do on an airplane, I’d rather focus on doing things I love, stop doing things that don’t serve me, and trust that I deserve love and companionship anyway.I made the choice to do less, to put less overt effort into finding a partner. Without question, my first year without dating apps was the happiest year of my adult life. I didn’t spend my days swiping, I spent them creating. The space that used to be filled with no matches, no responses, and a massive void of nothing happening via online dating that constantly reminded me of how undesired I was all the time was suddenly full of things I loved, rather than full of an absence of love from someone else. And I know it’s working, I know that doing “nothing” is exactly what I’m meant to be doing, because nothing makes me happier than you reading the words I write. And when you and I connect with our partners , and we will, the relationships we have won’t be “fixing” something. We were never broken.