Is love a real thing?

So I have been very fascinated by this word we call “love.” I have spent countless hours trying to define it, but every time I define it, it becomes more confusing to me. Then I thought the best thing is to borrow—when you don’t have something, you borrow it from other people. I did the same. I went out and listened to philosophers like Rumi and Socrates, and some well-known spiritual gurus like Krishnamurthy, Osho, and Acharya Prashant. I borrowed the ideas that love is this and love is that—that it should be unconditional, that people should not be too tangled into each other, that you only live with someone when you can live alone too, and so on.

It is very easy to have those fancy ideas, and I started thinking myself that I am an unconditional lover and that true love cannot hurt at all. But when I actually fell into this, it totally changed my perspective. I was jealous. I was sad. I was worried. There was a certain pain that I cannot describe in words. It was a one-sided thing, and it was tough. I lost myself in her, but I did not get back the same love from her. I tried very hard to tell myself that love is unconditional, that love is love, that it does not need anything else, that it is complete in itself. But I failed. I failed as a one-sided lover.

I dated her for more than a year in my mind. But in October 2025, everything changed for me. It was so deep that I questioned every relationship in my life. Then I set some boundaries for myself—boundaries to not hurt myself unnecessarily. I moved on from her, and I promised myself not to be in that situation again. I cut people out of my life who were not respecting me or my efforts, and I started spending time with those who truly value me.

Earlier, I used to be into Bollywood romance. I think SRK influenced me a lot in that way. But now, when it comes to love, I feel it should be natural—where neither the man nor the woman is constantly trying to impress the other. For me now, love is when two people are into each other without any reason. You don’t even know why you like each other, but still you are together. Of course, there will be hard times, but having understanding and not creating drama is the key to a relationship. People should have trust at the top, and also honesty.

Real love feels very easy. Marriage is hard, dating is hard—but being in love is easy. Sometimes you will be hurt, and maybe you both break up and never meet again. True love is not about the person; it is about the belief and about you. There are 99.99% chances that you will never find the true love of your life, but love is that hope of 0.01%. And love is such a strong force that even that tiny hope is big enough to make thousands of lives feel like heaven.

So here I am, still searching for love. And I hope maybe one day I will find it—maybe not in the form of a partner, because people change, but in the form of something else, something mysterious. Let’s hope for the best and never stop just because people cheat or hurt you.

As Rumi says,
“You have to break your heart until it opens.”