What do I know about love?
Nothing and everything, all at once...
Have you ever been in love?
Have you ever wondered why it changes over time?
Was your second love different than your first one? Was it more meaningful?
In this piece, we will be talking about love. I believe that I know a thing or two about love, because of my experience that comes from a relationship which was and still is full of new realisations about myself and of course love.
Now, to give you disclaimer, my point of view will obviously be different from many of you, or maybe all of you. So, whatever I say, think about it and if you don’t agree, just let it be, they are just words.
What is love?
We have all felt love in some way but have we ever asked ourselves “What is love?”
To give you my thoughts on this, here’s something I wrote a while ago:
People come up with this whole unrealistic idea of love. They say that love is beautiful. Indeed it is, but the beauty of love might not be the one you easily recognise.
I find it absurd when someone says that love means happiness. I don't think so. Love is a part of your life. Love is something that makes you complete.
Nothing that makes you complete can be as simple as just happiness. Just one emotion, one feeling. Nope.
Love is the satisfaction you get after surviving through a rough day and coming back home. Your home.
Love is struggle. The struggle to overcome the urge of not being a better person, to resist change. Love changes you, it makes you who you are supposed to be.
Love is sadness. A series of gloomy days of life filled with moments of surprise that how the fuck did I end up with this beautiful person. That's love.
Love is complicated. If anyone tells you otherwise, trust me, they're lying.
Love for me is not about doing nice and special things for someone all the time. You can’t be in that phase all the time. It’s more about accepting the other person, no matter how different they are, and not because you have to or you need to but because you want to.
Love is about realising who makes you complete, and who makes you hate yourself less.
Loving someone else is so closely tied to self love that we don’t even realise it. Maybe because most of us never experience love in our various relationships, until that one person arrives who changes everything.
Are you in love?
Are you really in love, or is this feeling just the idea of love that has been fed to you since childhood? Well, I believe that for most of the cases, it’s the second one.
I am sure many of you would not agree with me on this, and that is totally fine. I am happy if I am proven wrong about this and someone finds true love really soon. But, until then, hear me out.
Relationships go through various phases before it reaches anywhere close to love. For example, here’s the first phase:
You meet the person
You start talking
You start liking them (A lot of times, 3 comes before 2 😂)
You both start liking each other
You go to your first date
You start dating.
Now, most people make this mistake that they start believing that after step 6, they will somehow find love. But, it takes a lot more to reach where love is and most people never reach there.
When you start dating, things are easy and everything is perfect. But over time, when you start being around each other more, when you travel together, stay together, your habits start affecting each other’s life and you start losing the sweet independence that comes with being single, the real test of love starts.
Hard conversations kill many relationships. Why? Because they make you face the reality and you realise that this relationship, which was an escape for you from life, might become a real part of your life itself. That is hard.
If you can still answer the question “Do you love this person?” honestly and positively after all the hard conversations, you might be in love.
And if you are not, it’s still fine. I am not saying that you need to find love always. No relationship starts with love. If you are dating without the assumption of love, and just want to find out if it turns into something later, that is completely fine.
The point I am making is that many times, what we call love is not really love. That doesn’t mean the relationship doesn’t matter. It matters, but it’s just not love.
You don’t love the same person twice
When we talk about love, we assume it to be everlasting. Well, it's not. It's always changing, and the biggest reason is that people change.
We all go through life and find new parts of ourselves, or just rediscover ourselves as a whole new person. It’s totally natural how there is a change in our thoughts, our habits and our lifestyles with experience.
Similarly, when you're with someone, you're on two such journeys. You are constantly finding new parts of yourself and also of your partner. Over time, when your partner becomes a new person, you have to be accepting of that new person. And you have to do it again and again.
And it’s not only about acceptance, you need to keep falling in love, all over again with this new person that they have become. You both are changing over time, so they will have to do the same for you.
You don’t love the same person twice, you can’t, because you both will never be the same person again.
When people say they fell out of love, the reality is that they just failed to fall in love with this new person again. It's hard, because most of us don't know this, and we keep looking for the same person we once loved.
But, how to find love?
Well, I have talked so much about love, so the obvious question that comes after this is “How does one find love?”
One of the answers I have for you is “I don’t know”. It’s a different journey for everyone and it mostly comes as a surprise. But this answer won’t be useful for many.
So, my second answer would be “Let it come to you. Don’t go out looking for it everywhere.”
Does it mean that you should not meet people, not approach people or not talk to people at all? No, I am not saying that. I am just saying, don’t start with the expectation of things to evolve into love.
When you start a relationship with an already set expectation, you shape it to fit into that expectation of yours. But, what if it was supposed to be different than your expectations? What if you were pushing it in the wrong direction because of your own bias of what is “right”?
It happens, and it happens more than you would accept. But it’s fine. Like everything else in life, love is also something we learn about as we make mistakes.
How do we end this piece?
Lemme be honest with you, ending this piece is tough. Does it have a lesson? Does it have a conclusion? Well, no. I just wanted to share what I felt about love because it felt good, and love is my favourite thing to write about.
For those of you who have found love, I am happy for you. Love changes your life, and I hope yours will be changed too.
For those of you who are still in the pursuit of it, you can read the last para again and just cross your fingers 🤞
"You don’t love the same person twice" max relate :)
Very well written Ishant. Loved it.
Such a wholesome issue, full of love hehe...I related to most of it :))