It’s OK to want love. Don’t let anyone tell you differently (not even Will and Grace…).
Early on in my counseling and coaching career, I told one of my beloved mentors that I was helping clients open their hearts to love and ultimately find it.
“Oh, Christina,” she said, “You’re not promising them anything, are you? Because love can come to people in so many different ways.”
I could see where this was going.
“For example,” she went on, “maybe they move in with their gay best friend and live happily together until the end of their lives.”
I agreed with her that this would be a beautiful way to experience love in the world, and many people do.
Then I added gently: “'But the clients who come to me want romantic love, specifically. And it’s okay that they want that” (I also knew I could help them get there).
There seemed to be a subtext to what she was saying – that my clients’ vision of romantic love was either flawed or unattainable, like: “not everyone gets to have romantic love, so be happy with what you get.”
I had received that same subtle messaging a lot while I was single: if it’s taking you this long to find love, maybe it's just not your path in life.
But who were they to say what was my path in life or not? And who was my mentor to say what was my clients’ path?
Interestingly, my mentor's hypothetical scenario resembles the ending to the Will and Grace revival (2017-2020). In that series finale, Will and Grace (who have decided to have children on their own) buy a big house together and decide to raise their kids there jointly.
One of the series creators, Max Mutchnick, explained that this ending was “honest to the characters.” He said, “the best family tableau is the one that works best for you – and that's what we're going to give Will and Grace."
Truly, this was the right ending for the reboot. After recurring setbacks with romantic love, Will and Grace had begun to carve out their own paths for themselves. Since their platonic love for each other remained rocksolid, it was the natural nest for their growing family.
The revival’s ending showed how the blended family model works so well, and in so many different configurations, for people around the world.
My clients and students have a different vision for their lives – and that’s okay too. They want something more like the ending to the first Will and Grace (1998-2006).
In the original Will and Grace, the series ends with Grace coupled up with a doctor, played by a dreamy Harry Connick Junior. Will ends up with an equally dreamy cop. Both of them have kids with their beloveds.
But there's also something unsatisfying about that ending, because it closes with a rift between Will and Grace that does not get mended until their children meet in college 20 years later (shown in a flashforward).
Why is there such a pervasive belief in our culture that when it comes to love, you have to choose?
The ending to the first Will and Grace suggests that you have to choose either romantic love or enduring love from your best-friend-of-a-different-sexual persuasion.
My mentor’s scenario was the reverse: if you choose the best friend kind of love, you don’t need romantic love.
Why can’t Will and Grace have both romantic love and enduring best friend love, and every other kind of love, for that matter? Why can’t my clients?
Of course they can. And you can too, dear one.❤️
There’s no limit to the amount of love we can experience in this lifetime. And romantic love is not just for a select few – everyone can have it. It’s not something you ever have to give up on, even if you do move in with your best friend and start a blended family together.
Let me tell you about the man who was the Will to my Grace during my single years, and how both of us came to have it all with love.
I met my Will back in 2001 when we started in a graduate program together in the Midwest. We actually met just before 9/11, a very inauspicious start to an extremely auspicious friendship.
Many years later, we both serendipitously landed academic jobs in Southern California. This allowed our beautiful Will and Grace friendship to continue to grow and blossom.
We use to drive around Los Angeles in his car singing a truly terrible rendition of “If You Say My Eyes are BeautifulI” (well OK, his Jermaine Jackson was better than my Whitney Houston). When we went out together in West Hollywood, I coined the term “strai-dar” (that's when a straight person needs to use radar to find the lone other straight person in a gay bar).
When I spent Thanksgiving with his many wonderful aunts, uncles, and cousins, I joked that he should introduce me as his “insignificant other” (because I wasn’t that significant).
I cried on his shoulder and crashed on his couch more times than I can remember (usually after some heartache with dating, but once when my cat of 16 years died).
Over the many the years that I told him about making vision boards and manifesting anything you want, including love, my Will listened patiently, if skeptically. He is not of the New Thought persuasion like I am, but he humored me.
Then one day I saw his post on Facebook: “Okay, Universe, I’m trying this out. I want a boyfriend in the New Year.”
Basically, he did a 2-line, virtual vision board on Facebook. And guess what? Within a month, he had a boyfriend.
When I remarked to a friend of mine how easy it was for my Will to manifest love while I’d been trying for years, she said: “That’s because he wasn’t having a cow about it, like you are.”😂 🐮
The point is, when love knocked on my Will’s door, he answered it. I did the same thing a few years later when it knocked on mine (apparently, I’d stopped having a cow about it and learned the actual way to invite love in, which I now teach…).
Now, thanks to the marriage equality act, we’re both married to wonderful men. The best part is when we all go out together. So much laughter and so many good times (in fact, we once joked that our husbands should go on vacation together, since they both love to do walking tours and museums and other active things. My Will and I are good to relax on a beach with margaritas☀️🌊🍹).
In fact, my Will read a David Whyte poem at my beach wedding in Santa Monica (“The True Love”). A year later, he helped MC my baby shower.
My Will and I have both since settled into domesticity. He and his husband are raising their two children together (a Chihuahua and a cat called Prior, named after the lead in Angels in America). Meanwhile, my husband and I are struggling to raise a very spirited and strong-willed 5-year-old, and still squeeze in some kind of social life somewhere in between.
As for my Will and me, the quantity of our time together has winnowed significantly, but the quality is rocksolid. Whenever we do get together now for lunch or the occasional pedicure, we go right back to our old dynamic.
I don’t think either of us would change a thing. We have our Big Loves by our sides, and our love together – the Will and Grace kind – on our sides.
This month especially, dear ones, be proud of who you want to love, however you want to love them.
Also be proud of the fact that you want love – the romantic kind. It’s okay that you do.
Just ask my Will.
My friend Trevor (my Will) and I walking the red carpet at the Ovations awards in Los Angeles many years ago, when a play he directed won for best theater production.
Happy Pride, everyone!
I'm curious: has anyone ever told you that you couldn’t have the vision of love that you want for your life? How did you respond? Leave a comment here and tell me all about it!)
Christina McMahon is a love coach and certified somatic counselor. Over the past seven years, she has helped hundreds of conscious singles remove inner barriers to love and step into the love life they desire and deserve. Schedule your free consult call with Celeste, Christina’s Client Care Specialist and discover if love coaching is the right path to your Big Love.
