It’s an even wackier dating world out there. It’s getting even crazier.

Did you know you can buy a love spell on Etsy? Apparently, dating has gone from swiping right to consulting the supernatural.

64% of Gen Z respondents and 51% of Millennial respondents said they had tried at least one spiritual, psychic, or manifestation-based practice to improve their love lives. One in five Gen Z respondents had paid for a spell or love ritual. Source.

This is outpacing trust in dating coaches, friends, or family for dating advice. This is far outpacing any advice given here at Brave Dating.

Maybe the surprising thing isn’t that young adults are trying magic and the supernatural. Maybe it’s a sign of how badly you all want love to work out and how often love doesn’t. Every relationship you try will come to an end until you do find the one. This is common sense—which we don’t often think about. Maybe because we dread the emotional toll of the end of relationships so much.

Because often love is not enough for this to be a love for a lifetime.

Dating is vulnerable and vulnerability is uncomfortable.

It is you meeting someone new who is trying to figure out who you are.  That is vulnerable. It is someone new also using time (I hope) to learn who you are. That is vulnerable. Who are you presenting to this new person? Do you like this person you are presenting to this new date? Is there a deep down fear that you are not good enough?

Remember this. A failed date or a failed relationship is not a definer of who you are. There are so many variables as to why the relationship didn’t work out.

Maybe because you dread the emotional toll of the end of relationships so much you will try anything to make it work, like a love spell.

You can do everything “right” and still get your heart broken. You can be a wonderful person and still get ghosted. You can pray, make wise choices, go to therapy, communicate well–and still not protect your heart. You are not exempt from pain.

Dating puts your hopes, desires, insecurities, and longing for connection into vulnerability.

You cannot make another person choose you.

You want certainty because uncertainty makes you feel vulnerable.

When you care deeply about an outcome you cannot control, you start searching for something that will make you feel less helpless.

You analyze texts.

You look for signs.

You ask friends (sometimes incessantly) to interpret someone’s behavior.

And sometimes, you look to the supernatural. Not with prayer or asking for the Holy Spirit to lead. Because there is some deeply buried lie inside of you that believes God doesn’t care about this part of your life. So you are trying the other supernatural who definitely does not care about you at all.

This world is not neutral, as much as we’d like to fool ourselves into believing. There is evil who wants our demise.

Magic promises what dating cannot deliver—control. But do those love spells work?

Magic is appealing because it offers the possibility of doing something to influence an outcome that otherwise feels completely out of your control. Welcome to the vulnerability of love.

But the supernatural doesn’t give you certainty either.

Do the love spells work if you pay for a more expensive one?

There is no formula that can make another person love you. No horoscope can remove the risk of choosing. No tarot card can give you control over an outcome that was never yours to control. No spell can make someone choose you freely. No supernatural shortcut can spare you the vulnerability of love.

Before you hand over your money—and your hope—to someone promising supernatural certainty, ask this question: Who has a financial agenda at your expense?

There is an even bigger question. Why are you so desperate to control an outcome that was never yours to control?

You can pray for the Holy Spirit to lead you. You can make wise choices. You can grow into a healthier person who is ready to love well. But you cannot guarantee that someone will choose you.

Love requires bravery, not magic.