4 things about love we failed to understand

‘Love’ - it is that one topic almost everyone in the world likes to talk about. It is that one word which is probably the most debated after COVID-19 recently, I guess. This word has always caused a spiral of curiosity down my spine. In order to satiate this hunger, I did a small questionnaire wherein I asked people what the word - ‘Love’ meant to them and the responses were amazing; some intrigued me while some touched those chords in my heart which I did not even know existed. 

Love, as I knew until high school, was in the way my mom called me a thousand times from work to check up on me. It was love when baba got some snacks home randomly after work because he knew I liked street food. But, as I grew up, the definition of the word kept changing with me. 

It suddenly became that cute boy I was happy to share a bench with, then it was holding hands while walking down the road, it went on to become so many more things before it ultimately meant heartbreak.

So many people responded that love meant heartbreak to them. They hinted that love was a beautiful feeling which also caused them the most pain they had ever experienced. I had people tell me that love was that feeling they could not even put into words. There was so much contradiction in the response received. :P All these varied responses made me question and research the basic fundamentals here. 

I started reading posts, articles, questioning people and harbored a lot of help from Google baba. I am just going to sum it all up - 

1. Love does not hurt. No bit of it hurts. It is always the expectations that come hand in hand with it that hurt. It is so much like thread and needle. The thread is useless without the needle and the needle will hurt if not used properly. Kabhi bina expectation, kisi ke liye kuch karke dekho, unse mohabbat ho na ho par khudse nafrat nai kar paoge.  

2. Love is nothing but trust. You have to believe in the person’s truth and the lies and hope that there are no lies. This is something I am handing down from another generation. I heard Sudha Murthy’s story when she blindly trusted Narayan Murthy when he left his job and that is how Infosys birthed.

3. Love is nothing but support. If there is one thing, the generation X taught us was the fact that nothing works without support. You can conquer mountains if you support each other and yes, it works both ways. You will need communication to keep it running smoothly. 

4. Love is nothing but a good thing that takes time. You cannot rush it. Never ever. It is like a plant, it’ll need water, soil, heat and light. It will need all of this in the exact amount. Your love will also require you a lot of things like sacrifice, happiness, care and friendship to grow. It will need you to accept the other person’s flaws because no one of us is born perfect, okay?

Now, why is gen Y so bad at this? 

Because we have successfully made ourselves not believe in any of these aforementioned points. We are afraid of getting hurt, durr bhagte hai hum ghum se because we know we might not be able to handle it at all. We have so much internet exposure which helps us track almost every move of the other person. Kuch kaam hai, instant call/message. We do not even know what it was like to write letters and wait for days so that the reply would come. We could literally track every minute of the other person and that’s when the doubt comes. We have so many options, so many dating apps, so many random Instagram profiles and Facebook messages ki hum bhul gaye hai ki harr cheez ko time dena kya hota haii.

One argument with the person and next thing we know is we are chatting with a new stranger on the random sites. It is not like I do not like the progression technology has made. It isn’t also the case that I don’t believe in matches made online - love exists almost everywhere. But, here is the fact - I am an old school and that’s where I find my solace. I mean I’d rather write you long letters and tell you all that has been happening around me instead of sending you a quick dm update. But hey, that’s just me. I wrote this only to make y’all realize where you are going wrong with love and give you some gyaan on how to make some wrongs right. I hope it helps. 

Signing Off,

- Hopeless romantic

- A