In high school, my classmates went to parties, bragging in class on Monday mornings about drinking until they puked, smoking pot at our local lake over the weekend and making out with their crushes. My first love? Work. I worked full-time, nights and weekends, at the Denny’s in my hometown, Paso Robles, California. I wore my work like a badge of honour. On the inside, I was lonely.

At the same time, I figured out that I was gay. I never dared share it beyond a few very close friends. Throughout the early 2000s, I lived in a conservative town and was bullied enough already. My classmates called me “faggot” without me adding fuel to the fire. My parents were incredibly supportive, but they could only do so much.

Work gave me an escape. It provided a refuge from the bullying. It was a distraction from the loneliness I felt at school and it gave me the external validation that I so deeply craved. At Denny’s I had space to breathe and be present without having to perform for classmates. I felt accepted by customers who cared about my service, not my sexuality.

Work became something of an addiction. An obsession. While I struggled socially, I thrived at the diner, and was regularly recognized for ranking at the top in sales. It took meeting a special man, many years later, to pull me out of this cycle, one I barely realized I was trapped in.

In college, my obsession with work persisted. I balanced a heavy course load, multiple part-time jobs and internships. I was a residential advisor, worked the front desk of my residence hall and filled my calendar with every campus leadership role I could. I also went on hundreds of first dates. The conversations were fine, but we never clicked. I struggled any time someone asked what I did for fun because I didn’t have hobbies outside of work. I didn’t feel like I could connect emotionally. I didn’t feel like anyone truly understood me. This just reinforced my loneliness. I told myself that I was selective, but I was really so fixated on work and the sense of purpose it gave me that I couldn’t connect with anyone the way I connected with it.

After grad school, I managed three residence halls and a team of 23 staff. The job demanded over 60 hours of work per week and I was always on call. Meanwhile, my resumé-writing and career-coaching side hustle took off. I juggled both and put dating on the back burner.

At the age of 25, I left the university and moved in with friends from college to run my coaching business full-time. The freedom from a traditional job gave me space for self-care activities like meditation and walking. While I began enjoying the small pockets of calm I found on walks through the greenway, my mind never seemed to slow down or disconnect from work, no matter how hard I tried.

I had dipped into therapy many times before, but I returned with a seriousness that I hadn’t ever gone in with before. I fondly recall the first session with my therapist, Stephanie. I was confident and had a typed-out list of goals for our work together. I told her I wanted to learn how to calm down. I wanted to find fun outside of my job. I wanted a man. I wanted all the things I had been avoiding because of my fixation on work.

@xtramagazine Jonathan Bailey is People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” for 2025. The former Bridgerton star is the first openly queer man to be named “Sexiest Man Alive.” And there’s no doubt he deserves it. But it’s also wild that he’s the first gay man to get the nod in the 40 years People has been dolling it out. While the actual mechanics of who is named sexiest and why are not necessarily objective, it’s still a fun thought experiment to ponder what other gays have missed out over the yers. No love for Andrew Scott? Ricky Martin? You’re telling me that in 2024 John Krasinski was sexier than Colman Domingo? We break down what you need to know, along with some other contenders for the crown to keep things queer in 2026. #jonathanbailey #sexiestmanalive #lgbtqnews #wickedmovie #gay ♬ original sound – Xtra Magazine

For as long as I could remember, I told myself that I’d slow down, have fun and find somebody eventually: after high school, after college, after grad school, after this deadline, after that next milestone. I didn’t want to put these goals off any longer. I didn’t want to feel the need to bring my laptop to bed or reopen it first thing in the morning. I wanted to be able to go on a date without my leg bouncing, resisting the urge to check my phone for emails from clients.

Because of my Type-A Virgo style, Stephanie encouraged me to treat the dating part like any other goal in my life. We set an objective: Go on at least two dates per week.

Only a few weeks later, I met J.V.

I remember our first date, in part because he showed up wearing drawn-on eyebrows and fake lashes. I’d been on hundreds of first dates at this point, and I immediately put him in the “no” category on account of him being feminine, carefree and different from the standard of masculinity I had anticipated in dating a man, but I stayed, not wanting to come off as rude.

J.V.’s bashfulness and mystique caught me off guard. I was drawn to him. I needed to know who he was beneath the makeup and youthful energy. He was the polar opposite of what I had always expected in a partner, and I wanted to know everything about him. J.V. describes it as a deposition or interrogation. I was genuinely surprised by how much I wanted to get to know another person who wasn’t a colleague or client.

On the way to my next date (yes, I had two that night), I called my mom and said, “I found the one. He’s nothing like the others.”

I needed him.

I’m a planner. I call ice cream shops to confirm they carry my favourite flavour before making a trip. I’ve ordered the same Starbucks drink daily for the last decade. I have a dozen alarms set throughout the day so I never miss a meeting, Pilates class or my bedtime ritual.

J.V. is an adult child in all the best ways. He goes with the flow. When deciding between two options, his answer is always “Both!” He convinced me to buy a Disney Magic Key Pass on a whim the first time we visited Disneyland together, and now we go every month. He convinced me to move from the Bay Area to Santa Barbara to shorten our drive by six hours and allow us to experience Disneyland more often. In the past, I would have never done this! I had planned out my entire career and life in San Francisco.

J.V. is a hard worker who truly cares about his career. He has also taught me that there is more to life than work. That you don’t have to sacrifice one for the other, and that you can have both. That you can have balance, and that you can also have fun.

In the eight-plus years we’ve been together, we’ve both pursued additional degrees. My natural tendency was to return to my work-obsessed ways. I wanted to either hunker down in my home office or bring my laptop to bed as I fixated on every word of my dissertation.

J.V. wouldn’t have it. He wanted to make the process of getting new degrees fun. He wanted to make it glamorous. He encouraged us to have fun and work from new locations, like a beautiful outdoor coffee shop in the Funk Zone of our new home of Santa Barbara.

When we graduated, I suggested we skip attending the ceremony, like I had for my master’s degree. I literally moved the day after I graduated from the master’s program, because I “needed” (in my mind) to get to my new job as quickly as possible.

He insisted that we not only attend graduation but make a celebration out of it and hire a professional photographer to commemorate the milestone. I can still remember standing on the stage and enjoying the moment, rather than waiting for the next milestone, thanks to him.

J.V. brings out the best in me. I’ve learned to be much more spontaneous, like the time he encouraged me to drive over two hours to buy his favourite baguette in Los Angeles. No heads-up. No plan. We were just on a mission together for his favourite bread.

He’s kept me accountable for working less too. Between all my endeavours, I used to easily clock more than 80 hours of work per week. I’d fall asleep with my laptop, and it would be the first thing I touched every morning.

Now I have a much healthier relationship with work. It’s hard to keep working when a bubbly face pops into my office saying, “It’s 5 p.m., time to stop working!” or asks if I want to go out to eat. It’s hard to say no when you have someone who is excited by the little things in life.

In return, I provide J.V. with structure, stability and focus. I help him clarify and realize his goals, even when they feel scary or impossible. I’ve pushed him to pursue multiple leadership promotions and higher education. I’ve encouraged him to talk about feelings and topics that once felt unapproachable and taboo to him. I’ve watched him transform from a cautious dreamer to an unstoppable butterfly, fully embracing that his possibilities are limitless.

Yes, there are times when our differences make life a bit challenging. When we go to the grocery store, I have a detailed list of exactly what we need. I turn around, and he’s in another department,looking at something that caught his attention. I’ve learned to laugh at these moments and to not take everything so seriously. These moments remind me that life doesn’t always follow a plan, and sometimes the best experiences happen when you let go.

Falling in love is difficult. It’s been even more challenging—and more rewarding—because we’re so different. I’ve gotten to learn more about J.V., and in the process, I’ve gotten to learn more about myself. It’s an ongoing dance between work and relaxation, control and surrender, obsession and connection. It’s hard, and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. Not even work. Sometimes I still think about that 16-year-old Kyle at Denny’s who thought work was his everything. I wish I could tell him it can never match the love of another person.