Years of singlehood, dating apps and humiliating set-ups left me skeptical. But Calling in the One – surprisingly – worked
In January 2023, a friend recommended I read a dating self-help book with her. “I think we need to read this,” she said. “My friend did it and that’s how she met her husband.”
But when the book arrived, I discovered it wasn’t a recommendation so much as an enlistment.
Calling in “the One”, written by Katherine Woodward Thomas, is a seven-week workbook designed to “attract the love of your life”. The introduction suggests that you complete the book with a friend, using them as an accountability partner – in her case, me.
Still, when the ruse was revealed, I didn’t object. I had been single for five years. I had trudged, reluctantly, through the sludge of dating apps, and had begged my friends to set me up, yielding humiliating results. I had said yes to dates with total strangers from my DMs – which is inadvisable from almost every angle. I worked up the courage to leave my hot neighbor a flirty note, to which he responded that he was gay. I even paid a matchmaker $6,000 to try to circumvent the misery of dating when I could have – should have – just bought a Chanel bag.
