I gave up casual sex and dating apps to try and find a deeper connection. It's been almost a year since I've slept with someone.

• There's nothing wrong with casual sex, but I realized it's not what I'm looking for right now.
• A year ago I decided I wanted to try to make deeper connections with people.

A lot goes through your mind when you're having sex. Much of it is speculation about what the other nude person in bed with you is thinking, desiring. Maybe you're preoccupied with wishing you would've had time to properly groom. Maybe they're doing something funky, so you're trying to figure out how to guide them without offending their skills as a lover.

I never thought the last time I had sex would be my last (well, at least for now). But I didn't decide ahead of time to enter a period of abstinence, which might be why I can't remember exactly which conquest put the nail in the coffin. The ease with which that encounter escapes my memory helps me rest easy that he was not the one that got away. When I'm feeling a bit more cynical, I suppose I could see that as an indication of my previous emotional detachment from physical intimacy.

I stopped having casual sex because, at a certain point, I simply didn't want it anymore. I craved more than just the endorphins released by two bodies rubbing against each other, and hooking up for the sake of hooking up stopped giving me a fix.

I wanted more than what simply hooking up was giving me.

I had lost myself in casual sex; I thought I might find myself by giving it up

This stretch of abstinence began subconsciously, but one day I realized it must have been weeks — maybe months — since I'd slept with anyone.

It's not that I stopped feeling horny; I very much still wanted to meet someone. But I had been leading the search for love with my body since I came out at 20. With my 30s approaching, I couldn't expect the behavior of my partners to change if I didn't change my own patterns.

I found that my potential online suitors were mostly turned off by my newfound prudishness. After all, many of them were used to a "sex first, questions later" approach. But I no longer wanted to be their fix. I decided to conserve my sexual energy in hopes of manifesting a relationship with substance.

I was looking for The One in all the wrong places

There's a scene in a "Sex and the City" episode where an exasperated Charlotte proclaims: "I've been dating since I was 15. I'm exhausted. Where is he?"

I, too, have wondered this while I was with many sexual partners who I knew weren't the proverbial one: a man who kept insisting he didn't need cocaine but would snort a line every 10 minutes; a guy whose boyfriend I didn't know existed came home afterward; a makeup artist I temporarily dated who refused to participate in any conversation without alluding to his famous client. I could write a book — a trilogy — on men I've had sex with but would never dream about actually being in a relationship with, with plenty of chapters about men who've likely felt the same about me.

My desperation to find a partner landed me in what became worse than perpetual singledom: an unhappy relationship. After we broke up, I moved to Europe for a few months and indulged in sex like I might have in college if I hadn't been hiding so deep in the closet. But this didn't help, and I kept feeling even emptier, more dissatisfied, and more alone than before. I was ready to put all the qualities I was looking for in a man on the backs of milk cartons and cross my fingers that someone would turn up on my doorstep like magic.

Matthew Dempsey, a psychotherapist, says I might've been leaning a little too heavily on sex — and then clinging to my relationship — to make myself feel validated and connected when I was struggling to feel like I was good enough in other areas of my life.

"Think of it like if you emotionally binge-ate all your favorite snacks from 7-Eleven because you felt lonely," Dempsey said. "You're not a bad person, but it's missing the mark and leaves you doubled over in belly pain."

Add hookup apps like Grindr to the mix, and it's no wonder why so many gays get lost in a grid of torsos looking for Mr. Right Now. Though these certainly added to what I was feeling — and my ability to avoid facing those emotions — Dempsey says queer culture has historically been hypersexual, even before the apps. I know I certainly have been. I am a sex writer who's unabashedly been around the block, probably overlapping many people several times.

But what happens when you want more? How do you break from the chains of a community founded on sexual liberation?

"Sexual intimacy can feel like a safer way to connect because it doesn't require emotional vulnerability," Dempsey said, "but exhausting one means of connecting for multiple needs will definitely take its toll." He recommends identifying which apps are best for your goals and using hookup apps if you're looking for hookups or dating apps if you want to date; after all, if you're not honest with yourself about your intentions, you're not going to get where you want to go.

"Align yourself with what feels right for you and nurture a loving relationship with yourself that way first," Dempsey said. It's also important to acknowledge that being sexually liberated means acknowledging when having lots of sex — whether casually or in a committed relationship — is no longer serving you and you need to take a break. Basically, that looks like doing whatever feels right for you, in whatever relationship structure you're in, even if that's one with yourself.

Reevaluating my relationship with dating apps

I didn't give up the apps at first, not even Grindr. I thought that might give me dating FOMO, and I'd had luck meeting wonderful guys on it, even though they didn't turn into relationships. I wanted to leave the entrance open for connection.

However, I did become more intentional with my time and honest about what I was looking for, and I didn't entertain anyone who didn't seem to be looking for any depth.

I continued living abroad as an expat and relocating to Latin America, but I grew frustrated that certain aspects of gay culture translated exactly the same in Spanish. For example, you might be surprised by the number of gay men who expect a stranger to show up and get naked at their apartment but act like dinner is too much of an imposition. My honesty about what I was looking for seemed to be somewhat of a litmus test, so even if I didn't delete the apps, my use diminished, and I was OK with that.

My friend Chris, the editorial director for Queerty, gave me the best advice: Any date you walk into with demands and expectations is bound for disappointment. It's unhealthy to insist a stranger fill a premeditated role, and you might even lose out on great friendships. After talking with him and thinking more about what I was looking for, I refocused on exploring and writing about foreign places rather than trying to tame the gay men in them.

The most challenging obstacle I had to overcome was letting go of my dependence on interacting with men online for constant stimulation, whether for my genitals or my self-esteem. I had forgotten how to live my best life without a new guy calling me cute every day. If I wasn't trying to hook up, why was I still using Grindr besides enslavement to the male gaze? I realized that maybe I couldn't be a good romantic partner if I needed so much external validation.

I've started frequenting gay bars more and made some local friends along the way. The recent monkeypox outbreak helped me justify to strangers why I wasn't immediately jumping into bed with them. When people started telling me they were vaccinated, I joked that my heart wasn't. It was actually as easy as saying, "I'm looking for strings," and being willing to accept that maybe they weren't.

Some folks think I'm silly to have become such a hopeless-romantic globetrotter, but as a freelance writer I'm able to find love anywhere, and I'd stay longer in a location if the opportunity presented itself.

It's not that I don't believe it's OK to have sex whenever the mood strikes, on your terms. But for me, it hasn't yet. My first anniversary with myself will arrive sometime in November, or maybe December — I'm not exactly sure, because it doesn't really matter. In that time, the way I've looked at having a romantic partner has transformed from my Achilles' heel to a luxury, like a bottle of pinot noir or central air conditioning in an Airbnb: It's nice if you have it, but you won't die if you don't.

I've accepted you cannot summon love on command; that's how you end up with demons. But you can set yourself up to be ready for it. I've stopped fantasizing about the arrival of my partner so I don't accidentally miss them in real life. Ironically, my right hand and I have never been happier.