Do you believe in love?

I wrote this a little less than two years ago, and I read it many times over the course of the last few months. I’ve decided to share it as it was originally written.

Last weekend (at the time of writing), I met up with one of my friends that I see a few times a year. It was a lovely catch-up, serving to reaffirm that our friendship was still strong, our values, sense of humour, and interest still the same. At one point, we had a discussion about love. He asked if we had become too old to believe in love like we did when we were younger.

For context, we met in college, so we weren’t talking about puppy-dog love from high school or earlier. We’ve also never had a discussion about love, but as someone who like the same movies and read the same books as me, I was sure we were on the same page. Also importantly, I had just gotten into a relationship a month ago (at the time of writing), and was very much in love with my partner. Despite this, I knew what he was talking about, and I hesitated before saying yes. Had he asked me the question a few months ago, I probably would have replied negatively. If he asked me the question at time of publishing, who knows what I would say? I’ll give it a while before I publish this not only because I’m in love right now, but because my new partner reads my blog. In my experience, interest in my writing quickly dwindles so there’s a chance it slips under the radar.

A year ago, I had decided that I no longer believed in fantastical love, with a capital “L”. I decided that it was the mature thing to do, to understand the difference between infatuation based on the scarcest of physical and personality traits, and really growing to like someone. I thought back to all my past crushes, and the overwhelming emotion I felt, the absolute obsession with the object of my affection. In most cases, they weren’t reciprocated, but that’s besides the point. This fascination would persist for a few months or even years, but faded with time and with further knowledge of my crush.

Bouncing from one crush to another got exhausting after a while, as did constantly wearing my heart on my sleeve, hoping that I would find The One. The constant chase, the renewed attempts in the face of rejection, and the refusal to consider anyone that I wasn’t absolutely in love with. Instead, I had decided that love was something cultivated after a sustained relationship with a person, a slow burn. Instead of only pursuing the few people that I felt I had that impossibly rare spark with, I started to broaden my horizons, casting a wider net. It was unrealistic to hold out, especially if by doing so I wasn’t meeting new people.

One of my friends was in the habit of saying potential partners “check a lot of boxes” when assessing whether he was going to date them or not, just about the most unromantic thing possible, but one of the most rational. I had agreed with him then: I just needed to find someone who checked enough boxes, and everything else would work itself out, love would come about as a result of time and experiences. I entered my previous relationship with that mentality. My partner was exciting and interesting, but she also checked a lot of boxes. My feelings for her deepened as the relationship grew, and even though I didn’t love her at the beginning, I did with time. I wanted nothing but the best for her, and it made me happy to see her happy. In the end, it didn’t work out because of other issues of compatibility, but that didn’t hurt my belief that love was something which should grow over time.

Does everyone experience this with age? My friend and I certainly concluded so. Over the years of puppy love, of flaring hormones, and of failed relationships, it’s easy to fall out of love with love. The books and movies go from simple depictions of everlasting love, to nuanced breakdowns of romantic relationships, to despairing stories of heartbreak and stagnant relationships. Love in the Time of Cholera, interpreted as a manual of romantic love, was one of my favourite novels when I was younger. Then I read Tender is the Night and Revolutionary Road. The Before Trilogy ends on a bittersweet note with After Midnight. Real life isn’t all flowers and rainbows: there are storms to weather, and they sometimes can’t be withstood. Not everything is so simple as Disney would have us believe or as we would like to believe.

Of course, it’s easy to rationalize feelings and experiences, and then to be swept away by torrential emotion when it comes. And so I believe in love again. I believe what I have is real, and I am shocked that I had ever thought otherwise. I’m inexplicably happy these days and find myself smiling for no good reason. I’m as sure I’m in love as I have ever been, and to have it reciprocated is a wonderful feeling. I believe in nothing but the truth of this emotion and the future of our relationship. Once again, all the ballads, books, and romcoms make sense, and make me think of her. When things happen, I want to share them with her, I’m willing to go to lengths for her, and I want to make her happy. I’m reminded again of what love is, and it makes me sad to think that some people don’t believe in it anymore

I retain enough of my faculties to realize that my relationship and my feelings won’t necessarily last forever. That even though she might be The One, there will be bumps in the road and cloudy days. And although now it feels like we could be together forever, nothing is promised in life, least of all the longevity of passionate relationships. But what has changed for me is the belief in romantic love again, in love that is proclaimed from the tops of mountains and from the depth of my heart. Love that makes someone move across the ocean to chase someone, love that makes someone write an entire book. And so, I hope that my belief in this love persists, that I will continue believing in true, unadulterated love. But in this moment, more than that, I hope that what I have right now is love.