Check out my interview with Agnes : https://youtu.be/MicusYO-kro?si=zvzUwHqyNNfydSGa

Someone asked me what makes a great relationship. Off the top of my head, I gave them three words: laughter, listening, and likability. I called them the Three Owls — and I want to linger on that last one, because likability is the most underrated quality in love.

We ask people if they love someone. We rarely stop to ask if they actually like them. I never understood how the two could be separated — how love could exist without like. And yet, I’ve recently heard something that has stayed with me: there are people who deliberately choose partners they don’t like. Not out of confusion, but out of strategy. Because indifference is easier to walk away from. Because not liking someone gives you a quiet kind of power — a distance that keeps you safe and in control.

That realization broke something open in me.

“The listening component, the laughter — these aren’t extras. They are the evidence that you actually enjoy each other.”

My husband and I met across a language barrier. We couldn’t always find the words. But the laughter — that was immediate. Unguarded. And it told us everything we needed to know: we liked each other. We genuinely enjoyed one another’s company. In that way, laughter became our first fluent language.

I had retired from dating long before I met him. Not dramatically — just quietly. I’d noticed a pattern: I was more excited about getting ready than about the date itself. I’d spend the evening half-present, already looking forward to going home. To my cat Chloe. To a nightcap, or a cup of tea, and the slow ease of my own company. When I realized I was choosing my solitude over the possibility of connection, I stopped forcing it. I gave myself permission to simply be.

And then he arrived. And for the first time in a very long time, I didn’t want to leave.

I felt safe. I felt seen. I smiled more in those early days than I had in years.

“There’s an element of danger about you.” — the best compliment I ever received from a man.

It was said to me about twenty years ago, and I’ve turned it over ever since. I understand it now. He wasn’t saying I was threatening. He was saying I was complete. That I didn’t need him — or anyone — to feel whole. A woman comfortable in her own skin, fluent in her own solitude, is dangerous to a man who needs your emptiness to feel necessary. I was good on my own. Great, even. And that became my standard.

So much of what we’re looking for in a partner begins with what we understand about ourselves. The Three Owls — laughter, listening, likability — they only land where the ground is ready. And readiness starts with you.

I had to travel a long way to find what I was looking for. But I found it. And I know, without a doubt, that I did.