Love is Demanding… Can You Handle It?

Growing up, I consumed a lot of romance content including movies and books. Movies like “The Notebook”, with its portrayal of everlasting love, and even darker stories like “Wuthering Heights”, with its tempestuous and destructive passion, shaped my understanding of romance.

So, naturally, I expected love to be a grand, unbreakable bond, an enduring force full of sacrifice, loyalty, and deep understanding. In my youthful mind, I believed wholeheartedly that soulmates existed — that “one true love” was out there waiting for me.

Fast forward to 2013, when I got my first boyfriend. He wasn’t what I had imagined. Sure, in the beginning, I got those butterflies, I blushed around him, and the world seemed to pause whenever we were together. But as time went on, I began to lose interest.

I told myself, “This can’t be it. This isn’t the fairy tale.” So, I let him go, convinced my “one true love” was still out there somewhere, waiting to find me. I bounced from one talking stage to the next, hoping that the next guy would be the one, but no matter how many relationships blossomed, none of them satisfied me.

I kept thinking, “Surely, real love will feel like those epic love stories where two souls are perfectly in sync.” And yet, reality often fell short of my expectations.