2025 Was the Year of Yearning — Here’s What I Learned

I assumed that I would be missed. Almost every woman I've seen on screen or read in a book has always been like this. They were coveted for their beauty, mystery and untouchability. Not only an object of desire, but also of longing, even pain – that’s exactly how I imagined myself. That I excite the animal impulses of men with something simple, for example, a glance or tucking my hair behind my ear. That I would inspire romance of the deepest, most destructive and all-consuming degree. Like it was my birthright.

High school taught me that I was not Helen of Troy. I'm not Katie Earnshaw either, and I'm certainly not Bella Swan. I am “cute”, I am “funny”, I am “smart”, but I don’t have enough to launch a person into the atmosphere where he would turn the Earth back for me. And to top it all off, somehow, contrary to the story that I was sold, I was the one who was tormented by constant sadness. It was I who had a cosmic, painful desire. I was a person with grandiose romantic fantasies. But I didn't have the charisma to turn those feelings into real connections. I felt defeated by my lackluster feminine wiles. Until this year.

This year—the year of longing—has been a turning point for lovers like me. Crush the culture returned with a bang (actually more of a pain or anguished groan) with characters such as Conrad Fischer, whose dramatic longing for Belly in “Summer when I became beautifulearned him the nickname “Jernrad” Fischer. Jonathan Bailey, whose performance in 2022's Bridgerton cemented him as captain of the yacht Tosca, gave a masterclass in angst when he waxed vanity about why “it’s so important to show it shamelessly.” HBO subscribers, meanwhile, smoldered under the flames.”Heated rivalry”—also known as “Longing for Ice”—in which two horny hockey players exchange intense glances and breathless, desperate kisses.

Pop culture has been saturated with desire this year. However, the face of the 2025 push continued to be predominantly male. Thirsty women were more elusive. There were wonderful, contemptuous breakup albums like Lily Allen's West End Girl and Sabrina Carpenter's Man's Best Friend, both of which mourned lost loves, not so much out of angst as out of anger. Elphaba pines for Fiyero in “Wicked: For Good”, although the “As Long As You're Mine” scene received some criticism from fans who said it. wasn't spicy enough.

However, this year we received one pure, painful example of female longing: Chappell RoanMusic video “The Subway”. In it, we see the yearning imagination brought to life: Roan wanders the streets of New York, her eyes hiding a heady mixture of heartache and hope. She is dragged along by a taxi, and she rushes along the sidewalks, seeing pieces of lost love in the faces of every stranger. She climbs towers and falls screaming into a maelstrom of debris, and she does it all without pretending for a second that she's not in control of her big, beautiful, beating heart. It's four minutes and 31 seconds of raw, triumphant emotion – admitting she's lost and throwing up her hands in surrender to the tornado of her feelings.

Somehow, after a lifetime of talking about being wanted rather than pined, it only took one music video to bandage up the part of me that felt incurably inadequate for failing at the cross-eyed ingenue trick.

It helped me discover that there is freedom in aspiration—that aspiration can be a powerful manifestation of the female gaze. This desire actually belongs to women; it's not just something that happens to us. Longing is the highest expression of our desire. When women write longing, it’s for a reason, I think you're hot. His, I crave you. His, I dream of building a life with you. Our aspiration can be humble and wild.

In 2026, I want to see more women who are overlooked, more women who are unrequitedly in love – and I want to hear from them about how it makes them feel. I want to see more women yearning for something – romantic interest, of course, but also friendship, a career, a cause, a place, a better world. The stories of longing women are interesting, real and meaningful, and we deserve more. And let's hope that at least sometimes these women get what they so passionately hope for.

Too often, the female characters we see in pop culture come to us already finished, already perfect, without everything that makes them human. Too often the crux of the story revolves around the growth of a man trying to win the attention and heart of that ideal woman. For me, a lifelong yearning and deeply flawed woman, it feels good to finally say that sometimes I will be a loser, I will be forgotten. Yes, sometimes I will be desired, but if I am always desired, I will often be disappointed. Wanting, rather than just being the object of it, is empowering, even when it hurts.

Emma Glassman-Hughes (she/her) is an Associate Editor for PS Balance. During her seven years as a reporter, her beats covered the entire lifestyle spectrum; she has covered arts and culture for The Boston Globe, sex and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and food, climate and agriculture for Ambrook Research.