An ode to late bloomers

My mother’s reaction when I first got myself a boyfriend at the ripe age of 16 was, “thank God—I thought it would’ve happened sooner!” After years of being overlooked by my peers, I was riding high, convinced that once I reached university, eligible bachelors would simply fall around me. As expected, my high school romance didn’t last. Unexpectedly, those adoring bachelors never materialized. Following unsuccessful attempts to generate interest in myself—which were simultaneously cringey and rites of passage—I was ready to throw in the towel. For a hopeless romantic, this nearly spelled out the end of the world as I knew it. Vacillating from one extreme to the next, I became convinced that romance was dead and its existence was a total fraud. I even researched a few monasteries where I could find refuge from the noise of the world and finally achieve inner peace. (There’s a cute one near Novosibirsk, by the way, if you ever decide to go down a similar rabbit hole.) After all, what could be more romantic and melodramatic than self-imposed exile? I will not lie to you, dear reader—I felt ashamed. And desperate. Which is the perfect cocktail needed to develop a healthy (or at least fun) romance. 

Perhaps one of the reasons that being a late bloomer is pathologized is because we don’t fit in. It is a universally acknowledged truth that the stability of our world depends on constant consumption. The only way to ensure that this stream of spending does not cease is by putting people on a timeline. Graduate high school by 18, finish university by 22, get married before 30, have a kid before 40, and preferably die before 90 so as not to further burden the economy. All of these milestones are accompanied by predictable and recognizable spending habits. You will first spend colossal sums of money getting an education that you have been convinced is necessary to succeed. Then, because the world is too scary and decrepit to face alone, you will find someone with whom you can jump into a long-term relationship. Besides, you’re too cute and snarky not to saddle some unfortunate soul with your presence until the end of their days—see where I’m going with this? When you start a family, you will get a starter home, upgrading to a bigger one after popping out a kid or two, and once your marvelous spawn sees the light of day, the cycle will begin again. Peace, bliss, and capitalistic happiness. If you think you haven’t experienced its pressures, just wait until you hit fourth year and the existential dread of stepping off one track and onto another starts creeping into your mind. This is not to say that those of us who begin romantic relationships later in life completely cast off the yoke of capitalism and become socialist icons. Valentine’s Day becomes Galentine’s Day with an easy flourish of a pen and is followed by a similar outpouring of money from our wallets into restaurants, overpriced chocolate, and bars. However, we do bring a certain level of uncertainty with us. Why are they still single? Will they ever get married? Don’t they know that the only way to be fulfilled is to become proud owners of a house with a white picket fence, two and a half kids, and a dog named Spot? 

Blooming presupposes a death. You wait and you wait and you wait for the yellow tea rose in your garden to develop buds—making sure the pH of the soil is just right and you’re not overwatering it. Then, with bated breath, you anticipate when the radiant petals will open themselves up to the world. When it finally blooms, you are mesmerized—only to find in a few days that the petals have fallen, taking whole worlds with them. Why do we want so much for people to bloom, knowing that nothing as beautiful as they imagined will ever occur? Perhaps the world is predicated upon a conspiracy of mutual disappointment—but that is a discussion for another time. Romance, just like flowers, is based upon newness. The novelty and preciousness of something uncontaminated making its way into the world, not yet burdened with reality. Maybe this is why we equate courting with flowers—this too, is a discussion for a future piece. 

One of my professors, recounting their weariness with romance, asked why they couldn’t identify their sexual orientation as pretty Parisian fountains. Truly, why do we give romantic partners—some of whom we haven’t even met—such power over our sense of self? If love and identity are fragmented and fluid, why do we feel the need to prove them to the outside world? Why can’t I be romanced by an aesthetic, by the first sip of a vanilla latte on the first cool day of fall, by cobbled streets and gas lanterns? Being a late bloomer has forced me to confront these ideas, which would otherwise have repulsed me as a hopeless romantic if I had kept on the blinders of romantic relationships throughout university. Romance is in the possibility. In the smirk of a stranger between Spadina and St. George. In the way the 5:13 pm light glints downtown glass mausoleums, bathing the entire world in amber. In soft gossip carried through suburban streets on a warm summer breeze. I refuse to let go of these simple seductions of life, to confine myself to the possible, to succumb to determinate negativity, to fit myself into the life of another for social recognition. 

I won’t lie and say that I don’t crave love and human connection. But just like the Greeks, I refuse to confine it to any narrow definition. I found love in my friends, for there is a special form of tenderness that is forged in the crucible of young adult angst and the Herculean labours of university. I found it in myself and the passions that I dared to pursue, unburdened by what this might look like to potential mates. A lot of my best friends are late bloomers. On occasion, I worry about what will happen when one of us finds their “one.” Will we too fall like dominoes, succumbing to the normative concepts of attachment that we bit our thumbs at? I hope not. Nothing is perfect, and nothing is lasting—except for the romance that you find when you stop looking for it in others, and open yourself up to the beauty of uncertainty.