Growing up, my mother used to say that finding a man wouldn’t be easy for me. At the time, I laughed it off, assuming it was just one of those things parents say without much thought. But as I got older, her words started to stick with me. Maybe she saw something in me that I didn’t recognize in myself—my independence, my stubbornness, my refusal to settle for anything less than what I truly deserve.

I was never the girl who dreamed about fairy-tale romances or planned her wedding at a young age. Love, to me, was always something that should happen naturally, not something to chase or mold myself to fit into. I valued my freedom, my ability to make my own choices without compromise. Maybe that’s what my mother meant—maybe she believed my strength and self-sufficiency would intimidate men or make it harder to find someone willing to stand beside me rather than expect me to stand behind them.

I’d like to believe she was wrong, that love will come to me in its own way and time, without me having to change who I am. But still, in quiet moments, her words whisper in my mind, making me wonder—was she right? Will I always be too much, too strong, too independent for the kind of love I hope to find? Or was she simply preparing me for the reality that the right kind of love has never come easily to women like me?