Man, I have to tell you about this one stretch of time, maybe two years, where my dating life was basically a loop. I kept meeting guys who were pure fire—like a thousand degrees right away. I mean, you know the drill: meet someone, the intensity goes from zero to a hundred in a single weekend, and then three weeks later, you’re sitting there wondering who this person actually is and why they’re suddenly too busy to even text back a simple “hey.”
The Energy I Kept Pulling
I finally got so fed up that I pulled out my cards. It wasn’t some fancy, complicated spread, just a simple three-card pull to try and nail down the core issue. The first card, the one representing the vibe of how all these relationships started? What did I pull? The Prince of Wands. I swear, I almost threw the deck across the room. It was like the universe was just laughing at my pain because that card was the entire problem, staring back at me, encapsulated in one dynamic, slightly reckless guy.
I had to sit down and really look at all the times that energy showed up in my life. The Prince of Wands is not bad, but he is fast. He’s all about motion and passion, and he doesn’t look where he’s going. All my dates were like that:
- We started things at breakneck speed.
- The passion was immediate and overwhelming.
- There was zero planning; it was all immediate action and impulse.
I remembered one guy—I met him on a Thursday, and by Saturday night, we were planning a two-week trip out west. I barely knew his favorite food, but we were discussing the logistics of sharing a tiny tent for fourteen days. That is pure, undiluted Prince energy. I dove headfirst into that relationship, ignoring all the little, quiet alarms going off in my head because the feeling was so damn good. It was all about the immediate thrill, that rush. We raced through the first month like we were trying to win a prize. Every date was an adventure; every conversation was filled with bright, fiery future plans that, looking back, were obviously never going to happen.
When you get the Prince in a love reading, you think, “Yes! Excitement! Finally!” And yeah, you get that. But nobody ever warns you about what happens when that horse just runs out of steam. I watched every single one of those romances just fizzle out faster than a cheap road flare. He would get bored, I would get exhausted, and suddenly, the guy who wanted to spend every second with me was just gone. He packed his little saddlebags and was off to the next horizon. I was left holding the debris, wondering how I missed the giant, screaming red flags. The truth is, I didn’t miss them; I actively chose to ignore them because the initial flame was so bright, I couldn’t bear to look away.
The Kitchen Counter Revelation
I’ll tell you exactly when this pattern truly clicked for me. It wasn’t even during a thoughtful meditation or a quiet moment. It was three weeks after the last Prince-type guy ghosted me. I was trying to assemble this super cheap, terrible IKEA shelf for my kitchen. The instructions were garbage, and I realized I was missing a single, crucial screw. I was furious. I had rushed to the store, paid for the thing, dragged the heavy box up three flights of stairs, dumped the pieces on the floor, and started building without even bothering to check the inventory list. Total, impulsive rush job. It was a failure from the jump.
I stood there looking at that half-built pile of wobbly particle board, and I suddenly started laughing like a lunatic. It hit me: I was dating IKEA furniture. I was treating my love life exactly the way I treated that shelf project. I charged in, skipped the instructions, assumed the missing pieces would magically appear, and then when it inevitably collapsed on my toe, I was absolutely shocked. The Prince of Wands energy is the spark, the starting line, but it is definitely not the finish line.
The core problem isn’t the passion; it’s the lack of follow-through, the total disregard for the nuts and bolts of what makes a connection actually last. The Prince sends the exciting, fiery, romantic letter, but he honestly doesn’t stick around to wait for the reply. He’s already halfway to the next quest. I finally understood that I didn’t need more fire; I desperately needed more stable, boring earth.
So now, when I see that card—or when I feel that super-intense, all-consuming, gotta-do-it-now feeling with someone new—I pull back hard. I force myself to take two steps back and stop. I made myself a quick little checklist of boring questions I have to answer before I let myself get completely carried away. Things like, “What does this person actually want out of life a year from now?” and “Can we genuinely sit quietly together without needing a giant, loud activity?” That Prince is great for a wild weekend trip, a burst of energy, but he’s simply not the guy you want around when the metaphorical car breaks down on the side of the road and you need someone who knows how to actually read the manual and change a tire. He’s already off. I finally figured out that I needed someone who knew how to build the foundation, not just light up the whole room for a minute and then disappear on the next adventure. It took a mountain of failed dates and one very unstable kitchen shelf for me to finally learn that simple fact.
