My world is littered with stories of men and women who are supposedly in love. A friend tells me a story about a friend of a friend. She married a man who had cheated on her for months. Everyone knew, except for her. When she found out, when she accepted the truth, she still married him. Another friend tells me a similar story, except it was a he who married a she who had cheated on him for years.

I eavesdrop on stories swapped quietly in aisles of the supermarket. Two friends walk side by side. The content of their basket tells me they’re making some sort of chicken pasta dish for dinner. The cute one tells the cuter one: “He’s incapable of doing anything for himself.” Her friend eggs her on: “Men are useless!” They laugh; painfully.

I ask my hair dresser about the stories that women tell his reflection. I want to know the ones that are yelled at him, over the high hiss of his hair dryer.

He tells me about a woman who comes in once a month to cover the brown in her blond but does nothing to mask the jealousy that seeps from her roots.

“This one time her boyfriend came with her to get a haircut and Maria- he points to his assistant. “- Maria was washing his hair, and you know, we give head massages. Well, she walked over and told Maria, “Don’t enjoy it so much. He’s still coming home with me.” And then he replied, “Shut up, you idiot. You’re a psycho.””

These stories are passed onto me because I ask. I’m curious about the lives of others. It frustrates me that I can only see the world through my eyes; coloured by my own experiences. I used to think teleportation would be cool. I could go anywhere in the world. Swish! I don’t want to travel to foreign countries though. I want to live in foreign shoes. I want scientists to invent soul-swapping.

In lieu of that, I ask everyone I meet to tell me stories. I hear about women who spend years out of their lives trying to change the men they love. And I hear about men who simply ignore their women. I hear about reciprocal emotional abuse. I hear about betrayal, disrespect and lies. I hear about control, jealousy and manipulation.

Across the board, women call men useless and men call women crazy. I cringe at both words. But I’m also impressed. We say we don’t understand each other, yet we both -men and women- know the exact spot to hurt each other.

I hear these Chinese whispers of stories in my shoes. In the shoes of a woman who has been single for far too long and doesn’t remember what love feels like. I hear these stories, in my shoes, and because I’m in my shoes and because there’s no soul-swapping allowed, my brain cannot compute these connections.

I still know that there is someone out there who could love me for who I am. It’s a logical argument. But I’m having trouble trusting the logic because the stories that litter my world aren’t logical at all.

They’re messy. They’re highly-charged. They’re senseless. I think: These people don’t deserve having the thing that I want.

But then I remember that the relationship I want is not the relationship they have. I don’t want to marry a person who has repeatedly cheated on me. I don’t want to love a man who thinks I’m crazy. I don’t want to be loved by a man I think is useless.

I don’t mind mess, but I don’t want dirt. I want highly-charged respect. I want senseless curiosity. I don’t have any of this yet. I don’t have this relationship yet because like teleportation  I haven’t discovered the man who will be part of this relationship yet.

I’m holding out for soul-swapping love.

And that’s the story I want my hairdresser to share with some other girl who sits in his chair and asks him to tell her about other people’s love stories.