We Don’t Fall in Love with Places. We Fall in Love with Who We Think We Could Be There.

Why Geography Is Less About Where You Live and More About Who You Want to Become.

Dear Unlearners,

We don’t romanticize places. We romanticize the lives we think we could have inside them.

That’s the fantasy: reinvention. But with better architecture, cheaper bread, longer lunches. A soft launch of the new you. The kind of life where everything hard about you finally goes quiet.

I saw it again last week on TikTok.

A girl had moved to Italy and bought a seaside apartment for $40,000, less than a year’s rent in New York. The video lingered on lemon trees, chipped tiles, and a sunlit espresso on the balcony. The caption read: “Best decision I’ve ever made.”

I watched it three times.

Not because I believed it. Because I wanted to.

Why Do We Use Cities to Fix Ourselves?

Hope doesn’t need proof. Just good lighting and a European lease.

I spent ten years looking for a forever home. Paris. London. Barcelona. Summers scattered across Europe, trying to pass as a local. I kept hoping to land somewhere and simply fit. I never did.

I changed cities like outfits, hoping one would finally …