Do not be ashamed of your heart

Thoughts on dating, relationships, and the harms of nonchalant culture from a therapist & certified lover

A TikTok went viral in February of 2026 as a researcher of human emotions (specifically women’s emotional responses) spoke about how difficult it is for the emotionally available, intentional daters out there today.

This is also what I see in session, and what I’ve felt in my own personal journey with love, relationships, and matters of the heart.

If you are currently dating or have even tried a dating app, you are well aware it has become the nonchalant Olympics, with many people deciding the only way to navigate this dysfunction is to blame and shame their own feelings, while attempting to become detached, apathetic, and aloof themselves. It’s a battle of who can care less, and who can show less of themselves in the exchange, as no one wants to feel the shame of being the one who cared more.

This numbing of oneself and embarrassment about one’s heart is the last thing we should be doing.

There can be no future of deep love and connectedness if we lose the ability (or desire) to connect, and the willingness to be vulnerable or be seen trying to find love.

The reasons we shame ourselves for caring are often rooted in the pain of being vulnerable; the pain of one’s own heart being laid bare. We shame orselves even more intensely when our vulnerability was not held with care, or our love was unrequited.

This is especially sensitive for anyone whose emotional needs were neglected as a child or by their family of origin. If we learned we shouldn’t have needs or that those needs did not matter, admitting we care can be devastating. Admitting we want to be loved and we desire reciprocal interactions, rich with care, dignity, and respect, can feel mortifying, especially when those desires or actions are not mirrored or returned.

We often blame ourselves if something does not work out or if a person does not interact with us in the way we had hoped or the way we designate as the loving way. We blame ourselves as if there is something lacking in us that made the person behave in this way. Popular online rhetoric doesn’t help this with phrases like “if he wanted to, he would,” which can partially leave many women thinking if I was just enough, or this or that (fill in the blank with any insecurity), he would treat me better, communicate more, and care more.

This blame can also exist when we begin to care, as it becomes our own explanatory fodder for why something didn’t work out. ‘I was too much, too soon, I asked something deep and made him/her uncomfortable, I was needy – no one wants a needy person.’

Humans, especially those engaging in a potential relationship, are needy, and that is not a bad thing.

Having needs is appropriate. Needing a willingness to and ability to communicate. Expecting reciprocal interest, effort, and openness. Those are not extremes.

In my own experience, and those I’ve seen in my office, we cannot be ashamed of our hearts. We cannot shame ourselves into caring less.

It’s cool to care. It’s cool to love. It’s also cool to try. When did it become cool to play with people’s hearts? To lead someone on? To treat them with anything less than human decency? To be overly cold?

It also seems there is an epidemic of everyone wanting something casual.

I hate this term. Nothing where we are sharing ourselves (heart, mind, body) with another person is casual, and even relationships that do not or will not ever evolve into a long-term exclusive partner or marriage deserve respect. I have always disliked the notion that things are either serious (destined for a pre-determined end of partnership, exclusivity, or marriage) or casual (which is often used as a get-out-of-jail-free card for not caring, and any behavior that is unkind). People use the guise of casual to not have to care, to not have to be vulnerable, and even to not have to engage in honest conversations.

You can be a serious, intentional person even in interactions that are not going to turn into a long-term partnership.

I fear this has not been many people’s experiences, and for that, I am very sad. I am sad so many now believe there is nothing “friendly” in friends with benefits.

It should not be, nor does it have to be, like this.

As Alex, the creator of the viral TikTok noted, it is the intentional daters that are having the worst time, but also the ones who will tap out of these nonchalant, disrespectful interactions where communication is inconsistent and fractured. It is a worse case for those who lean more anxious or avoidant, and the very mechanics of bad behavior in dating (the inconsistent, vague, or unclear communication, for example) trigger the anxious and reinforce the avoidant, rendering them both stuck in the cycle of pain and disappointment.

Many daters who once had open hearts seem to be closing themselves off to dating altogether, not wanting to deal with the pain (or perhaps shame) again of these, lackadaisical at best, and traumatizing at worst, interactions.

Keep loving despite that.

Dating apps have gamified our desire to be in relationship and created an atmosphere of unkind treatment, where we see people as disposable. We are removed (or blissfully ignorant and consciously oblivious) from the fact that there are real people on the other side of these apps.

It is a reality that you will meet many people you do not like in the same way they might like you, and many others you do not want to date or be involved with in certain ways. You will ghost and be ghosted. However, these realities do not mean that we have to be ashamed of wanting love, trying to find it, or pursuing those we are attracted to in open and vulnerable ways.

Even if it doesn’t work out. Even if the feelings end up not being mutual or never were.

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Do not be ashamed of your heart.

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Do not be ashamed of your emotional availability, your desire for something deep and meaningful, or a connection that is rooted in care and kindness.

So how do those with open hearts navigate the current dating scene?

From my own personal and professional experience, it is not about cutting oneself off or writing dating off altogether, but it does take an ongoing flexibility – a holding of curiosity and appropriate expectations.

I say curiosity because some have used “standards” (often mislabeled as boundaries) as a means to quickly cut someone off at the first sign of inconvenience or mismatch. This has its place as (sadly) dating is a numbers game, and we have to get good at failing fast. However, perfect partners don’t exist.

You will have to be in consistent communication with yourself – what works for me? What does not? Where am I willing to lean into a difference, and when is it simply too much?

This conversation is also important as many of us have internalized the mainstream dating advice that is steeped in toxic, bad relationship dynamics (and often mired in misogyny and patriarchy as well). This means we sometimes believe relationships are supposed to be work; it’s supposed to be hard. This is not the entire story.

Creating and maintaining a life with someone is challenging, but especially early on, relationships are not meant to be a slog. You should not be trying to convince yourself or your friends of someone’s goodness or intentions. Once we start making excuses for someone, we have lost the plot and would do ourselves best to choose another path.

So we balance curiosity with appropriate expectations.

Expectations are needed in relationships, but appropriate ones. Someone you just met is a stranger, and we might treat each other as strangers – with dignity and respect, but the priority you might eventually develop is not present at first – and that is ok and appropriate.

How much time you give to someone, how much you share, and what parts of oneself you share with someone also grow and increase with time….as is appropriate as we learn someone.

As I mentioned in a TikTok on this subject, discernment is needed. Remaining open is one thing, but knowing how and when to gracefully remove ourselves is also needed.

“The most empowering relationships are those in which each partner lifts the other to a higher possession of their own being” - Teilhard De Chardin

There is no exact science to dating or how to never be hurt, or how to never feel overly vulnerable.

Perhaps it is far more worthwhile to get comfortable with one’s own desire for love, and learn to be with any discomfort that comes up for you with vulnerability or in conversations.