Love, love, love.
Whispered, shouted, carved into trees, written in stars.
What's it really supposed to be like?
The eternal question.
I. The Problem with Today’s Idea of Love
Social media is ruining our conception of love.
The thing is, it does it in ways nobody actually notices.
It’s subtle.
A drip-feed of subconscious messaging that wears you down over time.
All those videos about how to make him chase you, things women are attracted to, and all the stuff you don't actually need.
"Body count?"
"50/50?"
"Job?"
"Salary?"
"Height?"
It's really depressing, honestly.
Of all the things you could be asking to know if you've met the love of your life, these are the ones?
Such trivial, superficial, shallow questions?
"If you're like this, you can't be loved."
"If you're like that, you're lovable."
"If you're low maintenance, you're lovable."
That kind of internet?
It gamifies love.
It makes it about winning and losing.
About strategy and scarcity.
About becoming the most palatable version of yourself so you can be "picked."
So, when did that shift?
When did the light turn into a spotlight, and the warmth turn into scorching heat?
Maybe it was the first time you were praised for being quiet, or helpful, or good—and you thought,
"Ah. This is how I become worthy."
Maybe it was when someone withheld love until you apologized, or shrank yourself, or made them comfortable.
Maybe it was when your needs weren’t met unless you proved you weren’t “too much.”
Or maybe it was slower, like erosion—small messages absorbed over time until suddenly you were standing in front of a mirror, wondering if you were enough without performance.
Love isn’t a currency.
It isn’t a prize for perfection.
It’s something that should meet you where you are.
Messy, brilliant, complicated you.
You don’t need to be smaller, quieter, nicer, prettier, more obedient, more perfect, less emotional, less sensitive.
You just need to be.
That's enough.
The thing is, I get some standards like, "He should be kind," or whatever.
But then they're people with very shallow standards, like,
"Oh, he should be 6'0 and big," or whatever.
What, so he can match the size of your ego?
"She should be tight."
As narrow as your view of love?
Some of it isn't even preference anymore—it's performance.
People aren't chasing connection, they're chasing status symbols in human form.
"Date someone tall."
"Date someone rich."
"Date someone hot."
And then they wonder why they feel empty.
It's as if depth got replaced by aesthetics, and compassion got replaced by clout.
Here’s what real standards sound like:
Does he make you feel safe, seen, and silly in the best ways?
Does he listen?
Can he handle you at your most creative, most chaotic, most real?
Will he challenge you with love, and love you without conditions?
And if he’s 5’7 with a heart like the ocean? That’s a king.
Anyone can have a body.
Anyone can have money.
Few can hold your soul with gentleness.
And that’s the bar.
Social media has gamified love.
"If you’re desirable, you’re worthy."
"If you look like that girl, if you text back at the right time, if you play it cool, if you’re not ‘too much,’ maybe someone will choose you."
Real love isn’t performative.
It’s not a highlight reel or a thread of green flags.
It’s not calculated.
It's trusted.
It’s felt.
It’s safe.
It’s seen.
It's soft.
Modern culture glorifies detachment and calls it "maturity."
Weaponizes “standards” to justify cruelty.
Confuses boundaries with emotional walls.
Rewards nonchalance and punishes sincerity.
It convinces people that being cold is the way to be chosen.
That caring too much is embarrassing.
That if you’re “too available,” you’re less valuable.
That vulnerability is a flaw, not a superpower.
There is no dignity in devotion.
So why do we play games of dignity in relationships?
And that’s not a flaw — that’s the beauty.
Love isn’t about holding your head high while playing chess with each other’s hearts.
It’s not about who cares less, or who texts last, who's less available, or who’s more “unbothered.”
If you’re worried about preserving dignity more than preserving love… you’re already choosing performance over presence.
Love isn't just about grand gestures.
It's about the small things, too.
The entire folder of videos you have of them snoring.
Rating the smell of each other's farts (lol).
The clumsy, awkward moments you laugh about together.
When did sincerity become a weakness?
Why is it embarrassing to love out loud, clumsily, awkwardly, but freely?
Love should make you soft, not strategic.
It should liberate, not limit.
Dignity is the last thing you should be thinking about when you’re in love.
Not because you don’t have any — but because it’s no longer relevant.
You’ve chosen to open your chest.
To hand someone the map to your inner world.
To let them see the undeveloped roads, the untrimmed bushes—
The beauty in the flaws.
Everything there is to see about you.
Even the broken glass.
That’s not foolish.
That’s brave.
There’s no dignity in devotion — because love doesn’t care about pride.
It cares about truth.
Your relationship is something that's supposed to be private.
As Jazmine Tan once said, "It's a relationship. Not a group project."
So, try to minimize just how much of your relationship you show to undeserving eyes.
People say that when you're with them, there should never be a dull moment.
But that doesn't mean you're always doing something exciting or adrenaline-inducing.
It just means that the silences feel full instead of empty.
Love was never something that was supposed to be earned.
It was supposed to just be.
Like the sun rising.
Like how you loved as a child—instinctively, openly, without hesitation.
The thing is, I'm not nonchalant.
I will write poems about the way you smile.
I will associate colors with your presence.
I will daydream about possible moments with you, or reminisce about ones that have already happened.
I love deeply.
And people saying I should be 'nonchalant' should go find their own romance.
Because I'm not changing myself or the way I love because of it being societally acceptable or something.
II. What Love Really Is
To be loved is to be seen.
To be loved is to be known.
From what you do when you're stressed to what makes you happy.
Loving every version of each other.
Just because someone is trying to get you out of your worst—
Does not mean they don't love you.
They just love you too much to let you be stuck there.
They're not your enemies.
Acceptance of you at your worst and satisfaction with you at your worst are two different things.
Love is loving every version of a person, even the worst one, but still wanting them to be at their best.
Love involves endurance and sacrifice.
It means going through thick and thin waters.
As long as it meant you would be wading closer to them.
Sure, life's practicalities are tough.
But love?
Caring for each other?
That should be easy.
You shouldn't have to convince yourself to love certain parts of them.
It should feel like breathing.
You didn’t need to be taught how — you just do it.
That’s how love should be.
Unconscious. Deep. Innate.
Life is a storm.
You're not supposed to survive it.
You're supposed to live it.
Dance with them in the rain.
Love means not being able to imagine your life without them.
Loving them for their perfections as well as their imperfections.
Because, in your eyes, isn't that what makes them so perfect?
Love is having each other's backs.
Being the rock in the storm for each other.
It's choosing to get drenched in the rain with them, rather than stand alone in the sunlight.
Because with them, the rain's healing.
Without them, the sun's scorching.
Millie Bobbie Brown once said,
"I fell in love with myself while I was with him."
That's how they should make you feel.
Love means feeling validated.
Safe.
Like you can tell them anything on your mind.
I once told my dad he should journal.
He said,
"Why should I, when I've got your mom?"
III. Real Individualism & Healthy Change
Changing yourself for your partner isn't about making yourself smaller so you can appease them.
It isn't about performing.
It's about showing you love them by doing things that feel unnatural for you.
The only dating advice that is actually worthy of being heard is being yourself, and loving the other person so much that you would healthily change for them.
That isn't encouraged in this world, where individualism has started being confused with stagnancy.
True individualism isn't about refusing to change.
It's about changing with intention.
Not bending to be loved, but evolving because you’re loved—and because you love yourself enough to grow.
Healthy change doesn't mean becoming someone else, or self-erasure.
It means becoming better.
Together.
IV. Love as Something Sacred
Love is not something that can fit into a box of standards/rules.
It goes above and beyond.
Love is not a contract.
It is not a business.
It comes from simply existing.
Your existence itself has value (you wouldn't be taxed if it didn't, and nobody would want anything from you if your life were completely meaningless).
Even language cannot describe one person's love and capture its essence in its entirety.
Because language is something that's broad, a generalization.
It is not unique to a single person.
It cannot define individuality because it is something we all share.
It is something that connects us, but does not capture individual essence.
It captures collective essence.
So, no amount of language will ever capture one person's love properly.
Loving someone is like creating your own language with them.
You won't find it anywhere else.
So stop comparing your relationship with others'.
All of us—
Imperfect pieces of art.
Shattered stained glass.
Streaks of the wrong color.
Broken vases.
Cracks in porcelain.
We just need to find someone—
Whose own shards.
Whose own misplaced hues.
Will dance with ours.
Come together.
Like kintsugi.
Imperfections made beautiful.
In gold.
In love.
In their own way.
V. S*x, Intimacy & Reverence
S*x is a beautiful thing. Honestly.
But it's also so pure—so sacred—that it's not meant to be talked about in a dirty way.
Just like our naked forms aren’t meant for the common eye,
S*x isn't meant for the common voice.
Because the common eye is not worthy of it.
And neither is the common tongue.
It’s not shame—it’s reverence.
It’s like art.
An artist does not explain the depth of their art to an audience who hasn't made it clear they're actually committed.
Some pieces don’t belong on billboards.
They belong in galleries.
Not hidden—but respected.
Your body is like a pearl—it should only be shown to those who deserve it.
Your body, your love, your intimacy—they’re not for the common eye.
They are sacred offerings.
And sacred things don’t beg for attention—they wait for reverence.
S*x is a spiritual act.
Your bodies joining...
Only if your minds do.
Physical union.
Only after spiritual union.
A physical manifestation of your love.
Let's be honest—the biological role of sex is reproduction.
Children are literally pieces of you melded into one.
An actual personification of your shared bond.
I like to think that the stronger the parents' relationship is, the stronger the children will be.
How can it get purer than that?
Dan Brown's character, Robert Langdon, said about s*x in 'The Da Vinci Code':
"..the natural s*xual union between man and woman through which each became spiritually whole..."
Yin and yang.
"The next time you find yourself with a woman, look in your heart and see if you cannot approach sex as a mystical, spiritual act. Challenge yourself to find that spark of divinity that man can only achieve through union with the sacred feminine."
Learn from that what you will.
And honestly?
Waiting until marriage might just be the quietest rebellion in a loud world.
It’s how you’ll know they came for your heart, not just your body.
It’s how you’ll know it was sacred—from the start.
VI. How to Know You've Met the One
Now, what I personally believe is that your soul will recognize souls meant to stay.
Maybe the reason why it just clicks in our minds when we meet the one is because we quite literally fell in love with them in another life.
Maybe we'd been loving each other the moment we were born.
There is no such thing as "Right person, wrong time."
You know those moments where you're like, "I could stay like this forever and never get bored?"
It's like that.
Obviously, you can't stay in one place forever, so it seems impossible.
But you just know that this?
This is what you want.
Your intuition will guide you.
Always listen to it.
When you look at them, you should feel warmth.
Not butterflies.
Anybody can give you butterflies.
Warmth that touches the soul is only emanated by a few.
It's kind of like your childhood dream career.
You never really know how it's going to work out.
But you know you'd be in it for the long run.
You'd work for it.
You'd go through tough times.
But it would still be yours.
Love is like that.
You don't need to see the road ahead.
You just need to know this—
I'd go down that road with them, no matter what.
As soon as you realize that?
That you both won't turn when things get tough?
That the love you have is truly patient, rooted, and unconditional?
You'll know you've met the one.
It just stays.
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