Samantha LaFountain

I Asked 3 Etsy Psychics to Draw My “Soulmate” Because Dating Feels like a Capitalist Hellscape

If you were to snatch my phone out of my hand and press your other hand to my forehead to keep me from yanking it back (I’m 5’0”, so it shouldn’t be difficult), then open TikTok, you’d see a parade of internet psychics. They insist my manifestations are finally coming true, that someone is secretly in love with me and about to confess, or that, yeah, that person is jealous of me!

The funny thing is, I don’t necessarily believe in magic.

I’m often critical of the metaphysical, particularly of the sometimes-abusive practices that hide within it. In moments of collective stress, when rights are stripped away, groceries cost a small fortune, and neighbors disappear from their homes, people tend to turn to magic. History has illustrated this pattern over and over again. For me, what one person calls clairvoyance, I often see as pattern recognition. We’re animals with instincts we don’t fully understand. What we label magical in humans, we call instinctual in other creatures.

Still, I’ve slowly shifted away from writing it off entirely.

Mainly because dismissing astrology, folklore, and the metaphysical outright typical is rooted in misogynistic, colonizing, and puritanical thinking. “Logic” and “science” have long been weaponized to oppress women and people of color. And much of that so-called science has since been exposed as nonsense: eugenics, hysteria, the blank slate theory, maternal impression, craniometry and phrenology, polygenism, drapetomania and dysaesthesia aethiopica, biological determinism, the “mutilated male” theory, the Matilda Effect, and so on. The list is endless.

So, yes, I’m skeptical, but I try to be a respectful skeptic.

If someone tells me not to whistle in the woods at night, I listen. That kind of advice kept our species alive and helped us survive this long. While I don’t know if whistling will summon some flesh-pedestrian creature, I also couldn’t honestly tell you if something is a skin-walker or a coyote with mange. What I do know is that I don’t want to meet either.

In Magic: A History, Chris Gosden writes, “Magic is older than religion and science, helping to give birth to them.” That line stuck with me because it articulated something I’d been circling: magic, at its core, is mystery. Sometimes we don’t know why something works—we know that through ritual, repetition, or practice, it does. Magic acts as a mirror. It reveals how we see ourselves and the world.

Gosden goes on: “Magic and science have much in common. Both strive to understand how the world works and the manner in which people can benefit from its workings.”

So, maybe I’m a skeptical skeptic?

I enjoy metaphysical things and won’t insult someone for finding meaning in them. I don’t believe every psychic who claims they are Cleopatra reincarnated. However, we do know that trauma can be passed down through DNA, and that’s only what science has confirmed so far. Our bodies carry dormant information from our ancestors, waiting for the right conditions. DNA is a time traveler living inside us.

All of this is to say: this is who I was when I paid 3 Etsy psychics in May 2025 to predict my true love.

I had my reasons:

• I like supporting small businesses.
• I love Etsy, despite its CEO’s best efforts to ruin it.
• I believe in a little manufactured whimsy as a form of self-care in trying times.
• Why the heck not?
• I love romance as a genre; I am, admittedly, a lover girl.
• I’d recently ended a long-term relationship, a few months prior.
• It would be a good bit to share with friends.
• I am oppositional-defiant—even to myself.
• And, maybe, I was afraid.

Maybe, just maybe, I was afraid I was burned out by dating apps that feel like conveyor-belt sushi, where choosing a partner feels like trying on clothes you weren’t entirely sold on to begin with under fluorescent lighting, only to discover you’ll never emotionally recover from how ugly it will make you feel.

Afraid the well of misogyny runs too deep and makes finding love statistically improbable.

Afraid that my earliest models of love didn’t provide safety, leaving me incapable of fully letting my guard down.

Afraid I’d romanticized romance to the point of impossibility (a paradox), like asking a god to make a burrito so hot it burns their own tongue.

Afraid capitalism has flattened love into a transaction, where I’ll only ever be a concept: a manic pixie dream, a spicy harlot, an old ball and chain, never a person with a whole cosmos inside.

Whooooaaaa, there.

Okay. That got deep. And nope, I will not be taking follow-up questions. Please direct them to your bartender, therapist, or spiritual leader.

I chose these Etsy psychics based on…

(checks notes)

Well, not much.

Basically:

• price ($10-ish or less)
• reviews (a lot-ish, 5-star-ish)
• quick perusal of any information provided (more blink-ish than a browse)

So, you know, a real scientific methodology!

While filling out the request at checkout, few asked about attraction or sexuality, assuming, like much of society, heterosexuality by default. I am a cis woman attracted to all genders; in fact, gender doesn’t always factor into my attraction at all. I identify as pansexual, because how do you explain that sometimes attraction is just vibes? Sure, looks can play a part, but not always in ways that align with society’s expectations of gender presentation. My running joke is that my type is either a masc with sad eyes who enjoys me being mean to them, or a strong femme who will be mean to me.

Many metaphysical spaces talk about feminine and masculine, not as literal gender, but as interchangeable energies. Even so, reducing identity to masc versus femme feels two-dimensional, even as a sliding scale. Focusing on masc or femme isn’t bad—I think it’s a great starting point—but it doesn’t feel like the whole picture. Gender, to me, is more like a radar chart or periodic table of elements—multifaceted, contextual, evolving. All this to say: I identify as a woman and sometimes presents very femininely, but the world’s interpretation of what femininity is, often differs from my own.

Dating apps trigger a similar frustration. They ask what kind of relationship you want—short-term, long-term, forever—as if those terms are universal. Doesn’t it depend on the person, the moment in life they’re in, or whether they believe in marriage as an end-all, be-all? How do I explain, in five options, that I want a relationship where I can take a weed gummy before going to the airport (because airports make me anxious) without worrying that, while I’m zonked out of my mind, I’ll have to suddenly sober up because my partner will decide to stop being a functional adult when something goes wrong? That’s how I feel about gender, partners, and relationship timelines. And that’s usually when I delete the apps.

So, I filled out the Etsy psychics’ one-line forms with my pronouns, birthday/astrological sign/age. But, only one psychic actually asked about my sexual preferences.

And that was all it took to find my “true love”!

Just kidding! 😉

They say you can’t plan love, but I scheduled mine to arrive within 24 hours, which was a promised timeline in many of the listings. I guess a lot of people get anxious when they don’t receive their true-love prophecy as quickly as an Amazon Prime order, but I wasn’t pressed. Two came via Etsy DMs and one as a digital download. I now strongly recommend other psychic’s adopt the digital download since it prevents accidental deletion. I screenshot everything anyway, compiling the results into a spreadsheet so my friends and I could cross-reference details like it was a mystical science fair project.

At this point, I should admit I hadn’t read the listings carefully. I think I described it earlier as “blinking” at them. I didn’t realize the “soulmate” “drawings” would be AI-generated. Like many people, I’m not a fan of AI. It steals from real artists, consumes enormous amounts of water, has been used to justify layoffs, accelerates the enshittification of tools, and is just deeply annoying. It’s just another bubble, like NFTs, Bitcoin, coconut oil, frozen yogurt, or Botox, sold as both salvation and apocalypse.

The psychics did note that they used AI to translate their visions into images. Still, had I looked closer, I would’ve requested written descriptions instead.

So, for scientific posterity, or whatever, I’ll present the raw data exactly as I received it. I’ll save the images of my “true love(s)” for later.

A finale, perhaps. I don’t know.

I’m writing this by the seat of my pants.

And here’s a copy of the spreadsheet where I compiled details and I shared with friends:

What emerged from the readings wasn’t prophecy, but pattern. All three psychics blended specificity with vagueness, though the third offered the least amount of content overall. I’ve never been psychic, so I can’t say whether this is standard practice. But if psychic messaging is more art than science, interpretation probably depends heavily on how one sees the world. Maybe they looked at my Etsy profile photo and made quick assumptions about the kind of person I’d want to love, or how I’d like to be loved. Or maybe psychic “downloads,” as TikTok tarot readers call them, are just inherently vague—like texts from a boomer.

You know the ones.

“Help! Emergency.”

This could mean your grandmother died—or just that their phone forgot the Wi-Fi password again.

Two psychics independently described my “soulmate” as having olive skin, hazel eyes, and Italian or Mediterranean heritage—a man grounded in tradition and family. One specified Sicily or Calabria; the others stayed broad with phrases like “mixed or Mediterranean heritage” or “a culture where loyalty and shared beliefs matter.”

Tradition, culturally speaking, can be deeply meaningful—especially given how white supremacy has stripped many communities of their traditions while attempting to co-opt them in modernity. But when “traditional” appears with romance, it often signals hetero-normative tropes, particularly when paired with cultural stereotypes of masculinity. Mediterranean becomes shorthand for romantic, devoted, sensual, and rooted in “old world values.”

It gave me immediate Tall, Dark, and Handsome flashbacks, with a side of Latin Lover.

Love is still frequently narrated through tradition, family, and marriage. My father used to tell me to marry a rich man, so I’d never have to worry about money. And culturally, love that doesn’t culminate in marriage is often framed as lesser, even though not everyone has equal access to marriage, like disabled people. The pressure to be married by a certain age has lead many to settle into relationships to meet expectations rather than desire.

Two of the psychics also aligned on my “soulmate”’s potential career path, while the third diverged.

Similar

Psychic 1: “May work or volunteer in a helping profession—wellness, social work, education, or counseling.”

Psychic 3: “Possibly a teacher, counselor, or someone others go to for advice.”

✔ Helping

✔Advice

✔ Counseling

✔Education

Diverges

Psychic 2: “Business, architecture, or hospitality—or he could run his own company. It is built on structure, ethics, and trust.”

I would certainly hope the business is built on structure, ethics, and trust. I’m not looking to date a shoddy CEO or a Mafia guy—those aren’t even my preferred romance tropes.

But also… just “business”?

“What do you do for work?”

“Business. Now mind your own, toots.”

All 3 psychics agreed on where I’d meet my “soulmate”: a spiritual group/gathering or a class/seminar.

Psychic 1 and 2 added that it could be through a mutual friend, while Psychic 2 and 3 suggested travel or relocation.

Timelines, however, varied wildly. From Psychic 3’s August–October 2025, to Psychic 2’s December 2025–March 2026, to Psychic 1’s vague assurance that I would meet them “once your life has already begun improving—emotionally or spiritually.”

I imagine specific timelines are difficult to predict if we accept that free will and chaos exist. But for the sake of the bit, let’s review the most recent timeline that has passed, Psychic 3’s August–October 2025.

2025 Spiritual group/gathering(s)

September: Attended a Summer Solstice event at a local witchy store (and yes, I bought several things—did I mention I love supporting small businesses?), but I didn’t meet anyone.

2025 Travel or relocation

• May: A birthday present to myself / a redo of a Los Angeles trip after being laid off mid-vacation 3 years earlier
• July: Burbank/LA again, this time for a wedding (Congrats Ana + Tommy!)
• September: a work trip
• November: a feral femme weekend with friends.

Still, I didn’t meet anyone new and/or I’d describe as:

• Psychic 1: “Feels soft but magnetic—you may first notice how calm you feel around them.”
• Psychic 2: “The moment you meet, it feels like remembering, not discovering.”
• Psychic 3: “There’s a sense this wasn’t random. You’ll feel the familiarity instantly.”

I am, however, currently within Psychic 2’s timeline—so I suppose time will tell. Or not tell. Maybe there’s no such thing as perfect timing. We like to imagine life arriving at the “right” moment, but things often happen when they happen. Good ole chaos and free will in action.

Alternatively, a more hands-on and direct approach might be best. I may need to get out there more, take additional classes or seminars. I enjoy learning new skills, but the last personal class I attended was 7 or so years ago, for silk trapeze. Most of the time in that class, I was confirming my suspicions and crushing my ego, by realizing I am not graceful. I am also pretty convinced the instructor hated me. I was the only student who attended weekly for 7 out of 8 classes on the same day, yet she never remembered my name. I skipped the final class because I couldn’t endure her indifferent stare while I struggled to breathe after hitting the floor mat and having all the oxygen expelled from my lungs.

Aside from all that hyperbolic mental and physical trauma, I should probably leave my apartment more often. Sure, my elderly, perfect one-eyed, toothless baby angel kitty, Behemoth, screams and searches for me when I’m gone, but I believe my heart could handle it. Just imagining her squawking with her raspy meow as she roams my place like a little orphan match girl doesn’t make me want to vomit and cry simultaneously. And no, our relationship is very healthy and not codependent. And I resent you for implying otherwise.

I work from home, so I don’t need to be at home constantly. But the economy is bad, and I flinch when folks cough nearby (thanks to the pandemic and anti-vaccine folks). And my tech job totally doesn’t cause me overwhelming anxiety about layoffs, even during vacations, thanks to previous jobs… so maybe I should take more time off and travel.

As for Psychic 1’s claim that my life would already be improving emotionally or spiritually—I’m not sure how one can improve without the other, or whether we even mean the same thing by those words.

Also, “already begun improving”?

What are you implying, Psychic 1?

That my life has sucked?

Sure, it hasn’t been a carefree frolic through daisies, but it also hasn’t been a total crap house! 😉

Do they look familiar? Honestly, no, not at all. While I don’t have face blindness, I think a person’s interpretation of how someone looks versus a photograph or real 3D life can look very different. And, I’m a person who can totally miss an incredibly recognizable celebrity walking through a crowd all because they are out of context for how I normally see them (and accidentally singing What A Feeling by Irene Cara but replacing key words with urine related themes, in front of them).

None of the drawings look alike, but they do share certain features—cleft chins, thick eyebrows, similar mouth shapes, beards—giving them a vaguely familial resemblance. Cousins, maybe. Or roommates who’ve coexisted for too long, so they start to look alike, kind of like what happens with owners and their dogs or married couples. But it is interesting, because if all three psychics were independently tapping into the same “soulmate”, you’d expect a bit more facial consistency.

Maybe the images represent multiple possible loves. Maybe each psychic interpreted the same idea through their own experiences and biases. Or perhaps these men are diluted stereotypes of what women or femme people are expected to desire. Or maybe they’re just evidence that AI imagery tends to homogenize faces, recycling cultural bias through vague prompts like: “You will meet when your life has begun improving emotionally or spiritually.”

Ultimately, it’s a lighthearted bit with friends and a reflection on my current feelings about love. To me, asking 3 Etsy psychics to find my “true love” feels just as meaningful as swiping on a dating app on my dopamine-vending-machine phone.

I haven’t shunned dating apps out of fear of vulnerability or the belief that my “soulmate” will only appear at a spiritual seminar. After my breakup, I’ve chosen to focus on myself—personal projects, friendships, and understanding how I want to love and be loved, with intention, being inspired by smarter thinkers than me like bell hooks, Erich Fromm, and Byung-Chul Han.

In a culture that commodifies love, it’s easy to use relationships as a balm for loneliness or a way to silence the fear of being alone—or even just our own thoughts. I desire my next relationship to be more intentional. I don’t want to date simply to feel wanted. I want to be chosen because it is me, not because I meet specific criteria. And, I want to select someone for the same reason.

Dating apps might facilitate that—but I’ve experienced them before. Maybe it’s time to pause and let things develop without algorithms guiding me and enjoy time with myself. Tomorrow, I might wake up feeling prepared to dive in again. For now, I believe I should trust my instincts more than an app’s predictions.

xoxo,
Samantha

“In the course of a positivization of all spheres of life, [Love] is being domesticated into consumer formula devoid of risk and daring, without excess or madness. All negativity, all negative feeling, is avoided. Passion and pain are giving way to pleasant feelings and inconsequential arousal. […] The aim is to procure the comfortable, and, ultimately, dull immanence of the wholly identical. Modern love lacks all transcendence and transgression.”

“When otherness is stripped from the Other, one cannot love—one can only consume.”

The Agony of Eros by Byung-Chul Han

“No man must be the means for the ends of another man. That all men are equal inasmuch as they are ends, and only ends, and never means to each other.”

“Love is an activity, not a passive effect; it is a ‘standing in,’ and not a ‘falling for.’ In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.”

The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm

“Love as the will to nurture our own and another’s spiritual growth,”

“Many of us choose relationships of affection and care that will never become loving because they feel safer. The demands are not as intense as loving requires. The risk is not as great.”

“Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else.”

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory response to the problem of human existence,”

All About Love by bell hooks

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12/28/25 – Updated

Added in my initial reactions to results. It took a bit of scrolling but I found them in my group chats message histories. Removed friend imgs/full names.