Dusty Brandt Howard is a writer & a fighter. He is a trans masculine cultural narrator who builds worlds with words. You can follow his thirst traps on Instagram, his writing on Substack, or find him at your local queer bar in northeast LA.
Select your language
Aug 11, 2023
You know the feeling. You feel like you’ve met your soulmate. The connection between you is deep, earth-shattering, and feels like everything you’ve ever wanted. Everything about this person feels right, but the timing couldn’t be worse. You likely feel like you’ve met the right person at the wrong time, and let me tell you, it can be agonizing.
Most people will experience a ‘right person, wrong time’ situation at some point in their lives. Timing is everything in life, but it’s also completely out of our control.
Maybe the person you’ve met is in a relationship, but you’re single, or vice versa. Perhaps you’re moving to a new city, or your career is taking off at exactly the wrong moment. Or maybe you’ve been together for a while, and the relationship has changed, but you don’t want to let it go.
For whatever reasons (likely due to circumstances out of your control), the relationship feels like it isn’t going to work out. You are not alone in this experience. It’s common to feel like you’ve met someone you were destined to be with, only to have the timing mess everything up. This can especially be true for queer relationships.
But if someone is the right person for you, then wouldn’t the relationship work out regardless of the timing? Can the right person really come into your life at the wrong time? Has the right person at the wrong time ever worked out? Let’s unpack some of these questions.
The concept of the right person at the wrong time is when two people who feel like they are meant to be together can’t be. AKA finding love when the timing is all wrong.
There can be a number of external circumstances that might make the relationship feel impossible and eventually lead to its ending. It can feel like the potential of the relationship was never really reached. This type of missed connection can feel painful as you may be left wondering what could have been.
Feeling like you’ve met the right person at the wrong time can be especially difficult for queer people. While dating can be hard for anyone, LGBTQ+ folks face extra challenges in finding love compared to our straight counterparts.
Depending on what city you live in, it can be hard enough to meet other queer people living their lives out and proud, let alone find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. The timing of queer relationships can be further impacted by whether or not someone has come out or is still living a closeted life.
If you’ve experienced a ‘right person at the wrong time’ type of connection, it can be easy to project your hopes and dreams on what the connection could have been. Sometimes it feels like you have to do everything in your power to keep the relationship going because the idea of not ending up together feels too painful.
You might be filled with doubt and regret and feel like you’ve missed the relationship of a lifetime. Sound familiar?
Everything feels electric and beautiful when you’re together, but when you step back, you might realize that both of you have different goals for your lives. Maybe one of you wants to spend the next few years traveling, but the other one is ready to settle down and plant roots.
To be together, it feels like one of you would have to sacrifice your dreams, which might make it impossible to figure out how to move forward together.
While we love a lesbian long-distance storyline, the truth is that distance and location can play a huge factor in our dating lives. Sometimes the yearning to be together despite the distance keeping you apart can make the love feel more intoxicating—Juliet and Juliet style. However, long-distance relationships take a lot of work and can put added pressure on the natural flow of a connection.
This can be especially hard if one of you has a career taking off, great friendships, family, or other factors that tie you down to where you currently live. Not to mention the lifestyle changes and power dynamics that can come with moving somewhere for a relationship. Some relationships can work across the distance, but it takes a lot of time, patience, and mutual effort to keep the connection alive.
While polyamory is a perfectly valid and beautiful relationship structure, everyone has to be on the same page in order for it to work. Sometimes we meet someone who we feel a deep connection to, but they are in a monogamous relationship with someone else. Or perhaps you’ve fallen for someone who is still in love with their ex and on the rebound.
Either way, being in a new relationship requires a level of readiness from everyone involved. Someone who is still hung up on another connection might not be ready for a new relationship right now.
Sometimes there are too many moving pieces in life for two people to stay together. Relationships require a healthy and stable foundation to work. A foundation can be hard to build if there are too many major life changes happening—big moves, family issues, job changes, getting sober, or grieving the death of a loved one.
Relationships might end up taking a backseat at this time to other priorities in your life. If you feel like logistics are against you, this might be a sign that things need to settle down before one person is able to show up to the relationship in the way that you both deserve.
Healthy relationships require a level of reciprocity from all parties involved. Don’t settle for being ghosted, left on read, or not receiving the same love and intention you have to give. Deep romantic connections are hard to build if someone is not able to be emotionally present with themselves or the other person.
While it is possible to work through trust or commitment issues in a relationship, it requires a willingness from both people to show up and do the work. If the other person isn’t able to be vulnerable or get past whatever is holding them back, the relationship won’t move forward.
Speaking of vulnerability, sometimes a relationship feels like the ‘right person, wrong time’ when one of you isn’t ready to change. This can happen both when you’ve been in a relationship for a while or if the connection is fairly new.
Being in a relationship can bring up our deepest fears, insecurities, and unhealed wounds from our past. Sometimes this feeling is overwhelming and forces us to face parts of ourselves that we don’t like or are in denial about. One person in the dynamic might not be willing or able to work through these feelings and grow with the relationship.
Learning how to trust your instincts when your gut tells you that a relationship feels wrong is integral. There might be a million reasons why it’s not working, or everything feels perfect on paper, but something just doesn’t feel right.
If you have lingering doubts or feelings that a relationship won’t be good for you, listen to those voices. You don’t have to know exactly why, but it might be a sign that the timing of the relationship is wrong.
Although meeting the right person at the wrong time can feel devastating, there are some things you can do.
First, try to take a step back and evaluate the relationship from a more self-focused perspective. Does this person have everything that you want in a partnership? Do you want to be with them simply because you fear being alone? Sometimes when we look at things from a more secure place in our lives, we see them differently.
Take the time to focus on yourself and your own personal dreams outside of romantic relationships, and see if your perspective changes.
Try to release your sense of urgency and desperation about the connection. Consider looking up your attachment style and understanding how this might play a part in your relationships. Don’t compromise on things that are important to you just to keep a connection going.
Relationships can be hard work, but the bad shouldn’t outweigh the good overall. If you are feeling exhausted or depleted by how challenging it is to be together, it might be a sign that the timing is wrong.
Trust me. There are a million people out there you could fall in love with—yes, this is true even for the queers! It can feel like our heart breaks when we lose someone we love, but remember that one relationship not working out can lead you to the right person for you. Even if you find this hard to believe right now, try to be open to what the future has in store for you.
4. Right person, wrong time songs to heal your heartache
Some connections come into our lives only for a short period of time to teach us something about ourselves. Instead of trying to force the relationship into something that it’s not, try to accept it for what it was. We can still value and be grateful for things, even if they don’t work out as we hoped.
When you meet the right person, the timing will be on your side. Or if it isn’t, it won’t matter because everything else will make sense. You will feel relaxed around this person, excited about your future together, and safe in your connection. What is meant for you won’t go past you. And if it does, it will come back when the time is right. Learn to trust the timing of your life.
Ready to meet the right person at the right time? Download HER today to meet your match.
Dusty Brandt Howard is a writer & a fighter. He is a trans masculine cultural narrator who builds worlds with words. You can follow his thirst traps on Instagram, his writing on Substack, or find him at your local queer bar in northeast LA.