Pull up a chair, grab your oat-milk flat white, and let’s talk about the biggest con we keep falling for. Not the obvious ones like “he’ll text back” or “this situationship is going somewhere.” Nah. I’m talking about the sneaky little whisper we say to ourselves at 2 a.m. while staring at his last voice note: ‘He’s got potential.’
God, that phrase has ruined more of my evenings than bad Tinder dates and Red Bull combined.
Last month I matched with this bloke on Hinge. Let’s call him Jamie. Cute in that messy-haired, wears-the-same-band-tee-for-three-days way. Bio said he was “working on himself” and “loves deep conversations.” We went for a pint in Hackney. He laughed at my jokes, asked about my Substack, even nodded along when I ranted about the latest Tory nonsense. Proper ally vibes. But then he mentioned he was “between jobs” for the third time in two years, lived with his mum at 31, and spent most evenings “recharging” by doom-scrolling Twitter instead of, you know, doing anything.
I still went home thinking, ‘He’s got potential though.’
He could get his shit together. He just needs the right woman to motivate him. Me. Obviously.
Three weeks later I’m doing his emotional labour for free, listening to him moan about his “toxic boss” while I’m the one who actually has deadlines and a mortgage-adjacent rent situation. Classic.
I deleted the chat. Blocked him. And then I sat on my bedroom floor in my slouchy grey hoodie, blue nails tapping the vape, and thought: Emma, you absolute melt. How many times are you going to fall for this same dead lie?
Because let’s be real. We’ve all done it. Every single one of us who’s ever dated in this godforsaken late-stage capitalist hellscape has looked at some half-finished man and decided our love, our patience, our feminist analysis could be the thing that finally unlocked him.
It’s the deadliest lie because it feels like hope.
And hope? Hope is a hell of a drug.
I’ve been writing about this stuff for years—threads that get 100k likes before breakfast, reels where I dismantle the patriarchy in under sixty seconds—but this one? This one hits different. Because it’s not just about men. It’s about what we do to ourselves when we buy into the idea that our job is to excavate potential instead of demanding what’s already there.
Let me take you back a bit.
Two years ago I was seeing this guy called Alex. Proper Hackney creative type. Graphic designer, apparently. Told me he was “building something big” with his portfolio. Had all these grand plans about starting his own studio, collaborating with activists, decolonising design or whatever. I ate it up. I introduced him to my mates in The Coven, hyped him up in group chats, even connected him with an editor friend who could’ve given him actual paid work.
You know what he did with all that? Jack shit.
He spent the energy I gave him on gigs that paid in exposure and endless evenings telling me how “the industry is rigged against people like him.” Meanwhile I was up at 3 a.m. rage-tweeting about something else entirely and still finding the headspace to proofread his half-arsed pitch emails.
One night I snapped. Told him straight: “Babes, I’m not your career coach. I’m your girlfriend. Or at least I thought I was.”
His response? “You just don’t believe in my potential.”
I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my vape smoke. Because that’s the trap, innit? The second you stop pouring yourself into their potential, you become the problem. You’re the unsupportive one. The one who doesn’t get it. The angry feminist who’s “too much.”
I ended it the next day.
And yeah, it hurt. Not because I missed him. Because I missed the version of me that still believed I could fix someone. That version felt important. Needed. Like I was doing the Lord’s work or some feminist missionary shit.
That’s what they don’t tell you in the rom-coms or the Instagram quotes about “seeing the best in people.” Potential is just another way of saying “not yet.” And “not yet” is where women get stuck for years.
I’ve got mates who’ve been in five-year relationships with men who’ve been “about to propose” for three of them. Others who’ve bankrolled boyfriends through multiple career changes while their own savings stayed flat. One girl I know, proper clever, works in policy, spent eighteen months teaching her situationship how to communicate like an adult only for him to use those exact skills on the next woman he met two weeks after they split.
We call it emotional labour. But really it’s unpaid overtime in the patriarchy’s factory.
And the worst part? We volunteer for it.
Why?
Because we’ve been fed this nonsense since we were little. Disney princesses taming beasts. Books where the brooding bad boy just needs the right girl to soften him. Even some of the lefty theory we love gets twisted, “we have to meet people where they are” turns into “I’ll just do all the emotional heavy lifting while he figures out basic respect.”
As a working-class Essex girl who dragged herself to Hackney, it hits extra hard. I grew up watching my mum make excuses for my dad’s “potential” while she worked two jobs and still found time to do the Sunday roast. I swore I’d never be that woman.
Yet here I am, thirty years old, still catching myself doing the same dance.
It’s not just romantic either. I see it in friendships, in work, even in activism spaces. The guy who turns up to every protest but somehow never organises anything. The colleague who’s “got great ideas” but never hits send on the actual pitch. The mate’s boyfriend who’s “really passionate about feminism” but still expects her to explain why his “joke” wasn’t funny.
Potential. Always potential.
I started keeping a running list in my Notion database. Not the problematic men one, though that’s still colour-coded and thriving. This new tab is called “Potential Ghosts.” Every time I catch myself thinking it about someone, I write it down. The pattern is depressing as hell.
They’re usually charming. Funny in that dark, self-deprecating way that makes you think you’re the only one who really gets them. They drop just enough feminist language to pass the vibe check. They remember your coffee order. They ask about your mum.
But ask them to do the dishes without being asked twice? Radio silence.
Want them to actually read the bell hooks book you recommended instead of just nodding along? “I’ve been so busy, babes.”
Suggest they book their own therapy appointment instead of using you as free sessions? Suddenly you’re “pressuring” them.
I’m not saying people can’t grow. Of course they can. I’ve changed loads since I left Basildon. Therapy, boundaries, actually reading the theory instead of just quoting it for clout. Growth is real.
But growth that happens *because* someone else is carrying the emotional load? That’s not growth. That’s extraction.
And we’ve been trained to see it as love.
Last year I interviewed a therapist for a piece on dating burnout. Proper clever woman, been in the game twenty years. She told me something that stuck with me: “The ‘potential’ trap is one of the most common ways women self-abandon. They trade their present peace for a hypothetical future where he finally becomes the man they already are.”
Mic drop.
I’ve traded so much peace for hypotheticals.
There was the musician who was “this close” to signing a record deal. Two years of gigs in dodgy pubs, me in the front row pretending I wasn’t exhausted from my own deadlines. He never signed the deal. He did, however, cheat with the sound engineer.
There was the activist who was going to run for local council “one day.” Spent every evening at meetings while I cooked dinner and listened to him debrief. He never ran. He did ghost me the week after I told him I needed more reciprocity.
Each time I told myself the same thing.
’He’s got potential.’
Until one day I looked at my own life, my Substack growing, my threads going properly viral, my friends building actual lives—and realised I was the one with the potential. I was the one actually doing the work.
So I stopped.
Cold turkey.
Now when I meet someone new, I don’t ask myself what they could become. I ask: what are they right now? How do they show up when it’s inconvenient? Do they take feedback without making it my problem? Can they handle my rage threads and my 3 a.m. overthinking without turning it into their therapy session?
It’s boring at first. The spark feels different. Less fireworks, more quiet competence. But you know what? It’s sustainable.
I went on a date last week with a guy who has a proper job, pays his own bills, and when I mentioned I was stressed about a deadline he just said, “What do you need right now?” No solutions. No “you should…” Just presence.
Weirdly hot.
I’m not saying every man has to be perfect on day one. We’re all messy. I’ve got my own shit, impulse-tweeting things I regret, checking my rivals’ like counts, rescuing spiders because even they didn’t choose the patriarchy.
But there’s a difference between messy and unfinished. Between someone who’s actively working on themselves and someone who’s waiting for you to do the heavy lifting.
The lie of potential keeps us small. It keeps us hoping instead of choosing. It keeps us in relationships that drain us dry while we tell ourselves we’re being compassionate.
Fuck that.
I want the women reading this, especially my working-class girls, my fellow hot-take merchants, my Coven sisters, to hear me loud and clear.
You are not a construction site for someone else’s becoming.
You are not a free life coach with benefits.
You are not responsible for turning boys into men.
Your time, your energy, your brilliant furious brain, these are not renewable resources for men who can’t be arsed to sort themselves out.
Next time you catch yourself thinking “he’s got potential,” stop. Write it down. Say it out loud to your group chat. Then ask yourself the real question:
Would I want my best mate to settle for this?
If the answer’s no, then why the hell are you?
We deserve people who are already showing up. Who match our effort. Who see our potential and rise to meet it instead of expecting us to carry them.
That’s not lowering your standards. That’s finally raising them to where they should’ve been all along.
So yeah. Delete the chat. Block the number. Close the tab on his half-finished dreams.
There’s a whole world out there full of people who don’t need fixing. Who are already interesting, kind, and capable of carrying their own emotional load.
I’m not saying it’s easy. Dating in your late twenties as a loud feminist with opinions is its own special circle of hell sometimes. But it beats wasting another year on potential.
I’m done with the lie.
And if you’re reading this and feeling that little tug in your chest because you know you’re still telling it to yourself.
Babes.
It’s time to stop.
Welcome to the other side. It’s messier in some ways. Scarier in others.
But at least you’re not carrying dead weight anymore.
Now go live your actual fucking life.
We’ll roast the patriarchy together instead.
— Emma x
