Honestly, I Think My Type is… Heartburn.

Some conversations only happen when the plates are full and the guard is down.

When Love Feels Like a Meal

Over a recent holiday dinner with my single girlfriends, we did what women have been doing around tables for centuries: We talked about men. And then, very quickly, we stopped talking about men…and started talking about patterns.

There we were—three women, three different stories, one big shared question:

Why do we date the way we date? Why do some loves nourish us… and others leave us with emotional indigestion?

It started as a joke, actually.

One of my friends set her fork down, sighed, and said, “Honestly, I think my type is… heartburn.”

We laughed, but the more we talked, the more it landed: Maybe love really is a lot like food.

Hunger Wearing a Nice Outfit

Some relationships look beautiful on the plate. They come dressed in charm, chemistry, late-night texts, and the kind of attention that feels like fireworks after a long winter.

You take a bite. At first, it’s intoxicating. Your whole system lights up—finally, finally, finally, I’m being fed.

But then, hours or months later, you realize you’re bloated with anxiety, replaying conversations at 2 a.m., trying to decode mixed signals and crumbs of affection.

It’s not love. It’s just hunger wearing a nice outfit.

When you’ve been starving for a long time—on validation, on safety, on being chosen—almost anything can taste like a feast.

Even what hurts you.

A spread of sweetness and sameness… reminding me how often we choose what we’ve tasted before.

The Buffet of Our Patterns

As we kept talking, it became obvious that the men were almost incidental. The real story was the menu inside each of us. Why do we keep reaching for the same flavor?

One friend realized she always chooses “intensity” over steadiness—the emotionally unavailable artist, the complicated wanderer, the man who makes her feel like she has to earn every ounce of tenderness.

Another confessed she goes for “safe but numb”—the man who will never leave, but also never really see her. Reliable. Kind. A little distant. Like eating plain toast every day and calling it a meal.

And then there’s me, noticing the way I’ve sometimes confused chaos with chemistry, how a nervous system wired on unpredictability can mistake familiar adrenaline for love.

It’s not that we want unhealthy love. It’s that our bodies quietly reach for what they recognize.

Nourishing Love vs. Emotional Junk Food

Some loves are like slow, nourishing stews.

They’re not flashy at first glance. They don’t knock you off your feet or ignite an immediate crisis.

Instead, they:

• let your shoulders drop

• make your breath deepen

• leave you feeling more yourself after being with them

You walk away from those connections feeling quietly full. Not stuffed, not starved—just… fed.

Other loves are like sugar hits.

They spike you—the adrenaline, the obsession, the constant checking of your phone.

You feel lit up, high, chosen. And then comes the crash: the doubt, the overthinking, the way your self-worth starts bargaining in the dark.

Unhealthy love often doesn’t feel unhealthy at first. Sometimes it feels like everything you’ve ever wanted. The problem isn’t how it starts—it’s how you feel when the rush wears off.

Nourishing love calms your system. Unhealthy love keeps it on high alert.

When We’re Starving, We Call Anything Dinner

This is the part of the conversation where the laughter turned into that soft, thoughtful silence that only happens with women who know your story. Because underneath the jokes about “types” and bad dates, there was a gentler truth: Sometimes we haven’t actually learned what healthy love tastes like.

If all you’ve ever known is:

• love that withdraws when you need it most

• attention you have to earn

• affection tied to performance

• caretaking instead of being cared for

  
  

…then of course your system is going to reach for the familiar. Of course you might confuse drama with passion. Of course you might stay at a table where you’re handed crumbs and told it’s a banquet.

It’s not weakness. It’s wiring.

Rewriting the Menu

So maybe the point isn’t to shame ourselves for what we’ve swallowed in the past.

Maybe the point is simply to notice:

• Which loves leave us anxious and hollow afterward?

• Which ones quietly strengthen us?

• Which patterns keep repeating, no matter who sits across from us?

  
  

  We don’t have to fix it all in one holiday dinner (or one blog post).

But we can start asking different questions: Instead of “Why doesn’t he love me better?” try“ What part of me believes this is what I deserve?” Instead of “Why do I always end up here?” try “What does this flavor of love feel like in my body—and what would nourishment feel like instead?”

That’s how we slowly, gently, begin to change our order.

A Table, A Question, A Tiny Shift

By the time dessert came, nothing in our lives had dramatically changed. No one had met the love of their life mid-meal. No exes had magically healed. No patterns had vanished in a poof of clarity. But something had shifted.

Sometimes the conversations that reshape us really do happen quietly—over warm plates, full hearts, and the women who know our stories by heart.

We left the restaurant the same women who walked in…and also not quite the same.

A little more aware. A little more honest with ourselves. A little more curious about what it would mean to choose love that nourishes, not just love that distracts us from the ache of hunger.

Maybe that’s where real change begins:

Not with a grand decision, but with a tiny, tender knowing:

I am allowed to be well-fed in love.

Some conversations only happen when the plates are full and the guard is down.

a conversation…

and the quiet realization that some of us have been calling hunger “love” for far too long.

And from there, bite by bite, we learn to stop settling for emotional junk food and start saving our hunger for what truly feeds us.

— A Sip From The Chalice🕯️🍷