I Was Fooled

I used to think that my greatest disappointment was the betrayal.

Or maybe the lying.

Or the cheating.

Or the emotional abuse.

Those things wounded me deeply. They changed me in ways I'm still discovering.

But lately I've realized there was another grief hiding underneath all of it.

A quieter one.

One I didn't even know I was carrying.

I thought I had found my equal.

That sentence alone almost makes me cry.

Not because I think I'm extraordinary.

But because I had spent so much of my life waiting for someone I could genuinely admire.

Someone who loved ideas.

Someone who could stay up talking for hours about God, books, philosophy, history, human nature...

Someone whose curiosity was just as alive as mine.

I thought I had finally found that.

Sometimes I laugh when I remember that because it's so opposite of how our story eventually unfolded.

What changed wasn't his face.

It was what I believed I saw behind it.

He talked about apologetics.

He talked about economics.

He talked about books.

He seemed thoughtful.

Curious.

Reflective.

I admired him long before I desired him.

I don't know if most people experience attraction that way.

But I do.

I've never really fallen in love through appearances.

I've always fallen in love through admiration.

Maybe that's why Mozart fascinated me when I was younger.

Maybe that's why, all these years later, I found myself quietly captivated while studying Saint Paul.

It isn't their faces.

It's their interior life.

Their minds.

Their conviction.

Their integrity.

Somewhere along the way, admiration quietly becomes attraction.

At least, that's how my heart has always worked.

Looking back now, I don't think I was fooled because I ignored red flags.

Some of them were there.

Some of them weren't.

I think I was fooled because I confused potential with character.

I confused curiosity with discipline.

I confused intelligence with wisdom.

There's a difference.

A very big difference.

There's a difference between owning books and reading them.

Between talking about truth and allowing truth to change you.

Between sounding profound and becoming a person of depth.

I didn't understand that then.

I do now.

Oddly enough, I don't write this with bitterness.

Not anymore.

If anything, I write it with gratitude.

Because this disappointment revealed something beautiful about my own heart.

It helped me understand what I actually admire.

Not brilliance.

Not credentials.

Not someone who always has the right answer.

I admire coherence.

A life where words and actions belong together.

Someone who loves truth enough to be corrected by it.

Someone who fears offending God more than being proven wrong.

Someone humble enough to say,

"I was mistaken."

The more I heal, the more I realize that this has always been my type.

Not the loudest man in the room.

Not the most charismatic.

Not even the most intelligent.

The wisest.

The man whose soul belongs to God.

The man whose convictions are lived long before they're spoken.

I used to think I was looking for an intellectual.

Now I think I was looking for wisdom.

Those aren't always the same thing.

And somehow...

that realization has brought me an unexpected kind of peace.

Because now I know what my heart has been searching for all along.

Not perfection.

Not performance.

Integrity.

The kind that can only grow in a heart that has surrendered itself to God.

And maybe that's why, all these years later, I found myself smiling while reading the letters of Saint Paul.

Not because I have a crush on a man who lived two thousand years ago.

But because his life reminded me that true masculinity is still possible.

And I think...

that's one of the most hopeful discoveries I've made this year.

💜