Love: This Isn’t Another Average Boring Post About It
Cultural Context on Love
You probably clicked on this post thinking ” it’s yet another post about love and checklist to look for “.
Well, you’re wrong.
I promise you that this post is nothing you’ve seen before where I, a 31-year-old man, guide you through this gilded hellscape.
My idea here is to flip your mind by sharing my most deepest and controversial ideas that I frankly haven’t heard anyone talk about before.
You think you know everything about relationships and love?
Let’s see how that holds up when you’re swept into the chaos of modern romance.
The idea that love is enough is dumb.
In this era, we’re not just dating; we’re looks-maxing!
It’s as if an algorithm, not our hearts, determines our worth.
And marriage? That sacred institution that honors love now feels like a vestigial organ.
Once vital for trading sheep, now a flimsy promise we make for love.
How’s that working out? Not so well, it seems.
You’re trying to understand love’s mechanics, aren’t you?
Or are you just building an armor?
There’s a assortment of pop psychology out there:
TikTok’s biological essentialism, love languages, attachment styles—all promising hyper speed paths to romantic enlightenment.
But here’s a radical thought:
What if this DIY psychology is just another form of avoidance?
You can’t hide from the infinite shades of human experience behind these tidy little phrases or tests forever.
“Red flags,” “icks”, “checklists”, we’ve turned dating into a game of minesweeper.
Men wearing classy outfits, not baggy or torn like the trend? The horror!
Maybe this obsession with trivial preferences reveals more about us than our partners.
As the philosopher Alain de Botton suggests:
“We don’t fall in love with people, we fall in love with our fantasy of them.”
If love was enough, then we wouldn’t have skyrocketing divorce rate or toxic relationships at all.
Your desired partner to be in love with is just an extension of your idealized self.
The internet’s fixation on dissecting love is another futile attempt to organize reality.
Love is terrifying because it forces you to confront loneliness, sex, legacy, death, and breakups to name a few.
It suggests that someone who once cared for you could hurt you so deeply that your life is permanently changed.
No wonder we try to box it up, to feel in control.
But here’s a controversial question:
What if our relationship vision isn’t just culturally programmed, but biologically hardwired?
In other words:
What if our genes are whispering, “Find a young, fertile mate and coexist in wedded bliss until death”?
This biological imperative creates an urgency.
If you’re not pairing up, there must be something wrong with you.
Your parents fret, society judges, and you? You’re left navigating this pressure cooker of expectations.
You see, most of us grow up assuming we’ll meet “The One” in their youth and live happily ever after.
Cute, but overrated.
It’s a STUPID narrative and as old as time, but is it serving us?
In her work, “Marriage, a History,” Stephanie Coontz points that out further.
She argues that the modern idea of marriage based on love and individual pleasure is a relatively new concept that puts a lot of strain on the institution.
So here you are, trying to fit into this mold.
If you can’t engage with this part of life, there’s a sense that you’re defective.
Your parents worry, friends whisper, and start asking you WTH is happening.
And if you’re a female, the topic of the clock, oh, that biological clock, ticks louder each day.
But what if this pressure is part of the problem?
What if, in our rush to not be left behind, we’re making choices that leave us even more alone?
In challenging these norms, remember one thing:
You’re not just fighting cultural expectations, but possibly your own biology.
So, you settle with whoever later on and you find ways to convince yourself that this new partner isn’t really a serial killer.
Welcome to the paradox of modern love where our ancient instincts collide with our evolving ideals of love.
It’s a hell of a journey, but at least you’re not alone in it.
Speaking of journey,,,
The Journey of Love
Here you are, face to face with someone who ticks all the societal boxes you care about.
He or she is attractive, socially approved, and, oddly enough, smells like your mother.
(Freud would have a field day with that last bit!)
Is our attraction more like Oedipus than we’d like to admit?
Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist, argues that we’re often drawn to partners who remind us of our opposite-sex parent.
It’s perfect, right? Go on, kiss.
But wait, do they reciprocate? If not, here’s my advice: Get out now.
Here you might choose to stay and rationalize things in some ways.
Blame this on all the ‘love conquers all” fairytales you’ve been fed.
For example:
Isn’t unrequited love the lifeblood of creativity?
Or maybe you’re a masochist, punishing yourself for something you did in the past and now you’re making amends?
In our moralistic culture, isn’t love often entangled with guilt?
You’ve been known to remember every conversation like you were lovestruck by a spell.
You remember everything, don’t you? Every word, every inflection and situation.
This is the so-called “good part” of love.
But let’s be real: is this even love?
No, this is a volatile cocktail of desire, infatuation, and the initial spark of attachment.
It’s a neurochemical hurricane of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.
All work together to making you want to kill for them and take them to breakfast afterward.
But eventually, this biochemical high wears off.
Now you see the real face of your entanglement, which until now had been intense but largely uncomplicated.
Let me give you an example that makes sense.
Remember when your friend invited you to lunch and you had the chance to see his family and siblings and overall dynamics?
Now remember how you were sitting there just thinking “Jeez, something isn’t right.”
That’s how I’ve felt about most of the people or girls I once considered a relationship with and I guess you did too.
And guess what? I’m sure some were thinking the same about us too because no matter how amazing we are, we’re not everyone’s cuppa.
They don’t understand, and there are parts of you that you don’t even want them to see.
Your psyche is like a house, with the basement padlocked or filled with concrete.
Eventually, you might let them peek inside.
But not knowing its importance, they’ll say something like, “Ew,” or “What the hell!?”
They’re clumsy with your emotions in a way that sometimes feels unforgivable.
But aren’t we all?
As philosopher Martin Buber said,
“All real living is meeting”. And sometimes, that meeting is awkward and painful.
Relationships uncover sore spots you didn’t know existed.
It dawns on you that this intimate self you want to share is just one big sore spot. a very fragile child riddled with insecurities.
All of which make you fall into manipulation and increase the chances of losing trust in yourself.
And here’s the kicker: you’re doing the exact same thing to them.
You hurt each other over and over, not through malice but ignorance which feels worse somehow.
The closer you get, the more capable you are of absolute annihilation.
It’s the hedgehog’s dilemma: the closer we get, the more we risk hurting each other.
And it doesn’t always happen through betrayal or deception.
Someone might just quietly fall out of love with you.
You observe their intimate world gradually fade away, or perhaps you unknowingly do the same to someone else.
Philosopher Alain Badiou argues that love isn’t just a spontaneous feeling but a construction, a project.
When we stop working on that project, love fades.
It’s a tragedy, any of this happening in the face of severe vulnerability. It changes us.
Our lives are shaped by these pains that influence our future decisions, for better or for worse.
But here’s a thought:
what if this pain is integral to love?
Philosopher George Santayana said,
“There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”
Perhaps there’s no cure for love’s wounds except to cherish the moments between you and them then.
You see, in our culture’s relentless pursuit of happiness, we’ve forgotten that pain is part of the human experience.
Love, in its truest form, isn’t just bliss, it’s a mirror that shows us our deepest, most uncomfortable truths.
It’s not just about finding someone who fits our checklist; it’s about confronting the messy, concrete-filled basements of our psyches.
This exploration of love’s terrain is not merely personal; it mirrors our society’s changing bond with closeness.
We’re moving from arranged marriages based on property to unions built on the shifting sands of emotion.
Is it any wonder we’re all a bit lost or relationships fall apart!?
Modern Dating Challenges That Make Love Terrible
Ah, you thought finding love would be a cakewalk? Think again.
In our digital era, have we regressed to a state of endless adolescence, where vulnerability is penalized and cruelty is valued?
You’re not just dealing with the usual cocktail of fears, insecurities, and wounds.
You’re also navigating the intersection where your emotional baggage collides with someone else’s.
It’s like a bumper car ride, but instead of cars, it’s childhood traumas.
Fun, right?
Now, there’s this deep unease about aloneness, too.
Our culture whispers, “You’re not complete without a partner.”
So, in the grips of this existential panic, you’re supposed to make a lucid, educated decision about the kind of partner you should love.
That’s like asking someone in the midst of a tornado to choose their ideal house.
You have no possible way of knowing until you’ve failed in this pursuit, normally over, and over, and miserably.
As Samuel Beckett said,
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
So, after getting your heart crushed, what do you do?
You adopt a defensive stance. It’s the relationship equivalent of building a bunker.
And you start measuring things, maybe subconsciously, maybe not.
Keeping a record on their actions, logging inputs versus outputs, when they responded and which words they used.
You start to be like some deranged accountant of emotions.
“You’re empowered, you got this” they say, so you refuse to be someone’s therapist.
But wait, you’ve been to therapy or at least did some healing.
And now you can’t stop talking like you have and pushing that onto pretty much everyone you meet!
You’re weaponizing cold workplace phrases like the one above to speak about the bluest matters of the soul.
It’s criminal.
“As per our previous discussion, your inability to process your father’s abandonment is negatively impacting our Q4 intimacy targets.”
You know what I mean!
Meanwhile, your perception and your partner’s of each other is more damaged than those climate activists who destroyed beautiful art!
Then it’s your analysis of your partner’s identity and vice versa.
Now, you’re questioning love altogether.
It’s like playing mental chess against yourself while your opponent is doing the same.
Checkmate? Who knows!
Oh, and let’s not forget, in the midst of all this, your internal world of love is always changing.
Your identity is a moving target, and the only way they’ll know and be able to keep up with it is if you explain it to them.
Just start talking!!!
As philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein put it,
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.
If you can’t articulate your inner world, it remains a mystery to others”.
You might think, “If he wanted to, he would.” (BTW, this is one toxic line I hate).
Maybe, or maybe he just doesn’t know what on earth you’re talking about and you have to tell him.
It’s hard.
We’ve been conditioned by rom-coms to believe in mind-reading soulmates, but reality is messier.
Some aren’t that self-aware or experts in EQ and body language to crack this up easily.
Communication needs to live at the heart of your connection.
In other words, communication is the relationship itself.
In our culture, we’re encouraged to present a curated, static version of ourselves, on Instagram, on first dates.
But in love, that’s a death sentence.
As philosopher Heraclitus said,
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
You’re always changing, and so is your partner.
Dating apps encourage us to list our traits like we’re pitching a product.
But love isn’t a transaction; it’s a constant negotiation, a dance where both partners are always learning new steps.
And here’s a controversial thought:
What if all this self-help, all these attachment styles and love tests, are just another way to avoid real vulnerability?
We’re so afraid of being hurt that we try to systemize love, to make it a science.
But as poet Rainer Maria Rilke said,
“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks.
The work for which all other work is but preparation.”
Love is the effect of committing to a good relationship, you don’t wait for it to be in a relationship.
In other words, love isn’t a status to be achieved but a garden to be tended.
And yes, sometimes you’ll get stung by nettles or pricked by thorns.
But that’s part of it. That’s life.
Misconceptions About Love
We’re fed this fairy tale about the rarity of love.
And if you’re still reading, you know I’m here to tell you it’s utter bullshit.
It’s like claiming truffles are scarce when the forest floor is abundant with them, you simply need to know how to sniff.
We’re not just some species; we’re Homo sapiens, the kings and queens of adaptation.
If we could see all the branching possibilities of our affections we have, it’d look like the Amazon rainforest, not a single tree.
In other words, we are already capable of loving beyond that “one-time love” notion.
So I believe it’s about time to drop that notion like a hot potato. It’s causing you pain.
First step: admit you’ve been sold a Hollywood lie.
As anthropologist Helen Fisher puts it,
“We are an animal built to focus our attention on just one partner at a time.”
But that doesn’t mean it’s the same partner forever.
Now, I don’t mean here to juggle many partners at once. That’s unhealthy anyway unless you don’t value monogamy.
Here’s a story that my friend gave me the green light to share. (Let’s call her Helen).
She is the kind of woman who spent almost all of her time alone with one or two friends mainly.
For Helen, opening up left a heavy toll on her.
So her intimate relationships felt so rare, like vintage wines she’d invested her life savings in.
Failure in staying in a relationship for her felt like losing the most important part of herself forever.
She said:
“The idea of my true self, without conditions or pretenses, being unnoticed or forgotten was unbearable”.
It was like having a Schrödinger’s cat situation but with her identity.
If no one observes it, does it even exist?
Terrifying stuff.
To Helen, being in a relationship was her last chance at this existential validation.
She didn’t even know it was the problem.
Eventually, and after some deep introspection and humility, she ended that relationship.
You know that scene in “500 Days of Summer” where expectation and reality split-screen?
Yeah, that.
So here’s the moral of the story:
the only way to behave respectably in love is to feel like you don’t need it.
Sounds like a bumper sticker, right? But it’s true.
Your identity shouldn’t be a house of cards that collapses without love or a romantic partner.
I’m guilty of this too at some point in my life.
Easier said than done though, I know.
As philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre put it,
“If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.”
In my solitude, I deeply thought about what my life looked like when it was just me.
It’s like when the power goes out, and you realize how many gadgets you have that still work.
I also realized in all my relationships, wanting to seem easy-going or perfect, I was hiding parts of myself.
What you want will always catch up with you. Repression is a ticking time bomb.
This is mainly a result of my anxious attachment style that I had to work on to be more secure over the past years.
So I did all that introspection, and guess what?
I became less anxious, more reasonable.
Now, I see the value in closeness that doesn’t last.
Any intensity you feel for anyone is worthy of your attention and respect in my opinion.
This isn’t an excuse to jump from relationship to relationship at the first sign of trouble.
The goodness needs to be cultivated, like a tree, it takes patience, care, and sometimes a bit of pruning.
The idea of love is about finding someone who wants to make something with you.
Build a LEGO castle? maybe. Or a life? even better.
Does that mean you should couple with anyone who promises major things between you two immediately?
I hope not, but you get my point.
This perspective shift? It’s like going from Newtonian physics to quantum mechanics.
In the old model, love was this rare, fixed entity you either found or didn’t.
Whereas in the new model, it’s a field of probabilities, constantly shifting based on your observations and interactions.
Psychologist Robert Sternberg’s Triangular Theory of Love suggests that love has three components:
Intimacy, passion, and commitment.
They can combine in different ways, creating seven types of love.
So, the love you feel at 20s might be passionate but lack commitment.
Dating in your 30s, it might be intimate and committed with healthy logical passion.
Both are valid.
And here’s a thought that might ruffle some feathers:
What if this obsession with finding “The One” is a form of narcissism?
We want someone who reflects our idealized self-image back at us.
But real love isn’t about finding your mirror; it’s finding someone who shows you parts of yourself you’ve never seen.
Healthy parts that form or have the potential to make you whole and complete.
In Japan, there’s a practice called Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold lacquer.
I’m sure you heard the story before.
The cracks aren’t hidden; they’re highlighted, becoming part of the object’s history.
That’s how I see love now.
Each relationship, each heartbreak, each moment of intimacy, they’re all part of my golden seams.
They don’t diminish me; they make me more beautifully, uniquely myself.
So, ditch this idea that love is rare.
Life’s too short to hold it in this limiting view.
The Essense of Love
Just as no two snowflakes are alike, no two loves are either.
A relationship can’t be understood from the outside just as you can’t grasp the essence of a symphony by reading its sheet music.
Do all lovers feel like they’re inventing something? Indeed.
And I think they probably are.
In the stage of intimacy, you and your partner are not just discovering each other; you’re forging a new version that’s never existed before.
It’s like two artists collaborating, but instead of paint or clay, you’re using the raw materials of your souls.
In this spirit, more than anything, it seems like curiosity is the absolute soul of a relationship.
We can’t learn everything there is to know about ourselves by ourselves nor our partners.
To be known by someone and have that knowledge given back to you, I think, is like an incredible honor.
It’s like having someone translate a book you wrote in a language you don’t understand.
And no, they can’t know everything, we’re not omniscient gods.
We all have secrets or moments we would rather keep within, that’s fine.
But even the commitment to learning about someone else is sacred.
I think it’s very difficult to know all of these things about someone else and treat them in any way but gently.
You see the child in them all the time, not in a condescending way, but in that pure, unguarded state we all had before the world taught us to be cautious.
And no, you’re not their therapist, but you can be just a little.
Your role shouldn’t be the fixer and they shouldn’t be a DIY project.
In his book “The Road Less Traveled,” M. Scott Peck argues that love is:
“the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”
Sometimes that means helping your partner grow in their career, knowing themselves better, having a different perspective, etc.
And yeah, they do the same for you, all the while acting in service of this grand, relentless curiosity.
So, to close the curtain on this topic.
What is love really?
Here’s my definition and how I think about it:
Love is an always-changing, uncalculated, uncompetitive exchange of power with a spark that reminds us of our childhood euphoria and a commitment to support each other.
It’s like two adults playing a game they invented as kids, rediscovering that pure, unfiltered joy.
But here’s a caveat:
To act well in love isn’t to simply accept your partner as they are, that’s not love, that’s just cohabitation.
No, it’s to gently draw out their true self.
You’re not just accepting; you’re actively nurturing and pointing out areas of improvement healthily.
If their true self or identity doesn’t match what you deem worthy, leave.
Now, we all had moments in our relationships where we could have been compassionate but weren’t.
The times we could have turned our palms up but didn’t.
It couldn’t have been different from what it was, we can’t rewrite history, but still, it’s frustrating in retrospect.
Such times are a humble reminder that maturity is a blessing.
The point is, it’s ok to give your partner some benefits of the doubt before you say something.
In a world where we’re quick to “cancel” anyone for the slightest misstep, this idea might seem radical.
But in the realm of love, where two people are archaeologists of each other’s souls, understanding often leads to making better decisions.
In the end, we will keep wanting this love as stated earlier.
It’s not a decision; it’s a biological imperative, like a salmon swimming upstream.
“Okay, I’m going now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
It’s a promise, isn’t it?
Not just to return but to keep returning, day after day, this shared space you’re both inventing.
This is love—not a destination, but an endless, curious journey into each other’s worlds.
Thanks for reading!
What is your way of defining love? And what’s it that you liked or disliked about this blog?
I’d love reading your thoughts in the comment section.
Until next time!
