One of my favorite columns of all time is Modern Love, a weekly column in the Fashion+Style section of the NYTimes that publishes submitted non-fiction pieces on love in all of it’s crazy forms. I started reading it a few years ago because my mom said she liked it and I felt like I should branch out from my front section/commitments section weekly reading pattern. I was drawn in by stories that aren’t romantic in the Disney sense of the word. In fact, some might be seen as downright depressing. However, the guiding thread throughout them all is a focus on lessons learned and that life goes on. Bundled up inside stories of heart break, marriage, divorce, children, dogs that are treated like children, and long-lost lovers are kernels of a kind of truth that seems to me to be universal. While love in the modern sense is a rather new ‘invention’ (some might argue for ‘discovery’), it is not unique to any age, socio-economic, geographic, racial or, as far as I know, cultural group. From 9 to 90, we have all fallen in and out of love and dealt with the consequences of both.

The Modern Love column has shaped my view on relationships more so than the Disney princess ideal as Mulan, Snow White, and Cinderella barely had a foothold in my house, their VHS’s stuffed into drawers in the attic next to the TV that collected dust. That said, it’s hard not to wish that someone would come sweep me off of my feet. Such a wish, one where my role is diminished to damsel in distress, is rooted in the desire to make unimportant any roadblocks I might have within myself. If I am passive things not working out couldn’t possibly be my fault.

Of course, that is absurd. Being passive is one of the easiest ways to incriminate oneself, but is appears simpler when looking over the fence at it from the side of action.

Last week, I unfriended my ex-boyfriend on Facebook. We’ve been broken up for a year and a half and haven’t talked in months but I still hadn’t gotten around to cutting the social media cord. I haven’t dated anyone seriously since him and it’s easy to blame NYC and my long hours at the office. I’ve gone on dates but, until recently, I hadn’t met anyone that I was willing to fight for. Like a good Modern Love column, over the past two years I’ve struggled with relationships, given up a few too many times, and adopted a dog. Now, as I start to see a light at the end of the tunnel, I know that my happiness or long term relationship success does not rest on the shoulders of one man but rather on my own. It seems as if I’ve learned a lesson.