I don't like to search too much. I find it is easier when romance

“I don’t like to search too much. I find it is easier when romance finds you.” Thus speaks Michelle Trachtenberg, and in her words lies a truth that has echoed through the ages: that romance is not always seized by force, nor crafted by design, but often arrives unbidden, like a breeze through an open window. She reminds us that the greatest treasures of the heart are not always discovered by searching, but by being ready when they appear.

The ancients themselves taught this lesson. In the writings of Plato, love was described as a kind of divine madness, descending upon mortals without warning. One does not hunt for it with maps and compasses, for it is not the quarry of reason. Instead, romance is like an arrow loosed by Eros: swift, invisible, striking when one least expects it. To seek it desperately is to chase shadows, but to live with openness is to be ready for the moment when love arrives.

Consider the story of Ruth and Boaz in ancient scripture. Ruth did not wander the land in search of romance. She labored in the fields, humble and faithful, and there, in the ordinary work of her days, love found her. Her story teaches us that love does not always reveal itself through great quests, but through the quiet unfolding of life. When we are true to ourselves, destiny often brings to us what striving cannot grasp.

To “search too much” can be its own kind of blindness. Those who strain with desperation to find romance often miss it when it comes, for they expect it in one form only. But love is a shape-shifter, arriving sometimes as friendship that deepens, sometimes as chance encounter, sometimes as a bond forged in trial. To wait with patience, rather than to hunt with anxiety, is to allow the mystery of romance to reveal itself in its own time.

Yet Trachtenberg’s words are not a call to passivity. They are a reminder that love cannot be commanded. One must prepare the soil of the heart, live with integrity, pursue purpose, and in that fullness, be ready when romance appears. This is the paradox: to find love without searching is to live so fully that love is drawn to you, like flame to kindling. It is not laziness, but trust in the rhythm of life.

History honors those who found love in such ways. Abélard and Héloïse were brought together not through pursuit, but through the meeting of minds, teacher and student bound by intellect before they knew passion. Their love was born not of a search, but of a crossing of paths that destiny itself ordained. Such stories remind us that romance, when it comes unlooked-for, carries a power that no planning could have created.

The lesson is thus: live not in restless pursuit of romance, but in readiness for it. Do not chase desperately through bars, through lists, through endless comparisons, but cultivate your own life as a garden. When romance comes, it will be like rain upon that soil—unexpected, refreshing, life-giving. Trust that love, like the seasons, comes in its time. And when it finds you, welcome it with gratitude, for the loves that find us often shine with the brilliance of fate.