At 30, she imagined herself differently. There would be a career she loved, independence, maybe a relationship that looked like something from a movie. The ambition was always there, shaped by childhood visions of what success and happiness could be. But the script rewrote itself the moment she realized what being undocumented in America actually meant.
She hasn't dated in five years. Not on apps, not in bars, not anywhere. For years she couldn't quite explain why to friends who threw around words like "avoidant" or "emotionally unavailable" or "afraid of commitment." Those labels felt hollow. The truth was more complicated: she cares about love, desires it deeply, but has learned that building a romantic life requires a foundation she doesn't have.
She arrived from Venezuela in 2008 at age 12, part of the wave of families fleeing the country's deteriorating economy and politics. Her parents made the call to leave. First Miami with her mother and younger sister, then New Jersey in 2009. As a kid she didn't understand what that plane ride would cost her for the next two decades of her life. She just missed her father and struggled with English.
The real reckoning came senior year of high school. While classmates applied to colleges and mapped out their futures, she couldn't. No federal student aid. No Social Security number. After graduation in 2014, job hunting became an exercise in humiliation. "I don't have papers. Can you pay me under the table?" That question, repeated, hollowed her out. The dream of working in media like she imagined, thriving, climbing, creating, felt laughable. Her status would touch everything: career, money, independence, the person she thought she was becoming.
Then in March 2021, the Biden administration expanded Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans. She got TPS. Suddenly there was a pathway. She could think about school, better jobs, actual possibility. But her work permit got lost in the mail. It didn't arrive until summer 2024. By then Trump had won the election. She played it safe, stayed at her barista job. Something told her to wait. That instinct saved her from a bigger fall. In January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security revoked TPS for Venezuelans.
This is the exhausting reality of undocumented life in America right now. Just when something starts moving in your favor, the ground shifts. The system pulls stability right out from under you. Since ICE raids ramped up again, anxiety has been suffocating. She checks maps tracking enforcement activity. She barely wanted to leave her house. The fear shaped how she moved through the world.
Eventually she told herself fear can't control everything. She goes outside now, takes walks, runs errands, moves carefully through ordinary routines. But dating feels different. Both keep you close to what feels safe, but they don't come from the same place.
The real issue isn't that she's afraid of connection. She's protecting a part of her life already made vulnerable by systems beyond her control. Dating would mean telling someone about her status, but first she'd need to feel safe enough. She'd need to know how they voted, whether they see people like her as fully human or just a political argument. She'd need to trust they don't believe the stereotypes Venezuela and Venezuelans have been hammered with in recent political rhetoric. She'd need confidence they understand her status doesn't make her a criminal.
But there's more. She's 30 and still lives with her parents. She works a job she doesn't love because she has to. She feels fastened in place until her status changes. These facts don't determine whether she deserves love, but they affect everything about how she enters a room, talks about her future, answers first-date questions that feel casual for everyone else.
"What do you do?" For her, not just a question. "Do you like to travel?" Not a cute icebreaker when leaving the country could mean you can't return. "Where do you see yourself in five years?" The chasm between who she knows she is and the life she can actually show someone right now feels unbridgeable.
The person she imagines is ambitious, loves travel, has built a career they're proud of. They're like the version of herself she still believes exists, even if circumstances haven't caught up yet. That's what makes dating feel impossible. She doesn't worry she has nothing to offer. She worries she'll have to explain why so much of her life is still waiting.
What dating would really demand is measuring the distance between who she wants to be and who she can be right now. She wants a career she's proud of. Financial stability. Real independence. The ability to say yes without immediately thinking of all the constraints that force her to say no. She wants to feel like the person she's meant to be before letting someone else fully in.
Maybe her life doesn't have to follow the rom-com formula that depends on fantasy. Maybe it's a coming-of-age story instead, because being undocumented has taught her that we don't all come of age on the same timeline. Direction matters more than time. Being undocumented doesn't make her unworthy of love. Love is still magic. But what she wants before dating is the freedom to become the version of herself she's been waiting to be, the chance to feel like her life is finally hers.
Author Jessica Williams: "Dating isn't frivolous when your immigration status is uncertain, it's another arena where you have to measure what you can give against what you can't control."
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