I visited my California hometown a few weeks ago where, unlike the weather in Seattle, temperatures reached the mid-80’s. It was crazy…let’s just say my deodorant was working overtime. A friend from high school and I sat on a blanket in a downtown park as geese waddled past us and screaming children chased after a Frisbee. We lounged on the blanket, stared up at the green trees, and inevitably found ourselves talking about relationships.

My friend recently left a seven year relationship and was back on the market. As she talked through her recent experience she started voicing fears. “It feels like all the good ones are taken at this point,” she said with a degree of exhaustion. “The only single guys left are the weirdos.”

I pointed out that she was single and beyond awesome, which means there are equally awesome single men out there. There are people who have recently left a relationship that weren’t quite the perfect fit, learned a lot from that relationship, and are now ready to meet someone new. Or there are people who are late-bloomers and are finally reaching a place where they feel ready for a more in-depth relationship. Or there are people who are moving to a new city, leaving an old job, finally recovered from an illness, etc etc etc everyone is at a different place in their journey regardless of age. You never know.

This isn’t a bad thing, it’s actually the exact opposite. It means the people you are going to meet have lived their life, have learned about themselves, and have hopefully become the best possible version of themselves they can be up to that point. Whoever you meet will help you redefine what it means to be in a relationship. Maybe you never pictured yourself dating a woman with children, but it proves to be the most beautiful experience you’ve ever had. Or maybe you never stopped to imagine what it would be like to live in another country, but you’re about to meet a man who spent the last five years of his life working in Namibia.

You never know.

The only thing you can know is how you are viewing the world. So, are you viewing it through eyes of hope and possibilities? Or are you afraid and therefore limiting what you see?

As we watched people picnic in the park around us, my friend and I tried to imagine what our futures might look like. We tried to imagine the different ways our hearts were going to grow, be hurt, or skip a beat. We squinted into the sunlight and realized we don’t really know. And that’s exciting.