maybe what im in love with is not someone but the idea of being in love

Maybe I’ve never really been in love with someone. Maybe I’ve been in love with the idea of love—the way it looks in movies, the way it sounds in old songs, the way it drapes over conversations like candlelight. Maybe I’ve been chasing a feeling, a rush, the way my heart picks up pace when I imagine love, not when I experience it. Maybe I don’t love people; maybe I love the way they make me feel about myself.

It’s easy to fall for an idea. An idea doesn’t disappoint you. It doesn’t text back in half-hearted monosyllables or leave you waiting in a café with a book you can’t focus on. An idea is golden in your head, where the lighting is soft and your heart stays full. It doesn’t demand reality. It doesn’t have morning breath or messy moods. It doesn’t need tending to.

Real love, though—the kind that exists beyond the abstract—is not all rose-tinted mornings and cinematic lighting. It’s choosing someone even when you don’t particularly like them that day. It’s long silences, unwashed dishes, and awkward pauses. It’s not always poetry. And maybe, if I’m honest, I’ve always just wanted the poetry of it all.

I think I’ve been in love with being in love. With the ache of it. The way rain feels more romantic when you miss someone. The way you write their name in the margins of a notebook even if they haven’t texted in three days. The way you spot a couple holding hands and feel that ache bloom in your chest—not for them, not even for a person, but for the idea of being wanted like that.

Maybe I don’t want love. Maybe I want the moments that orbit it—the stolen glances, the midnight conversations that stretch like they could hold the whole world. Maybe I want the beginning of love, not the middle of it. Not the work of it.

I’ve written entire love stories in my head—stories that stay perfect because they’re untouched by life. No routines, no disappointments, no hard conversations. Just imagined magic. Maybe that’s what I’m really protecting myself from: the shattering of the illusion.

Sometimes I confuse intensity with love. The quickened pulse, the rapid-fire texts, the stomach flips. But what if love isn’t supposed to feel like a fever? What if love is steady, like a heartbeat—quiet, constant, easy to miss until you notice how it holds you?

Still, I chase the fever. I want the soundtrack, the metaphors, the cinematic glances. But real love doesn’t come with music in the background. Sometimes it’s just two people sitting in silence—not because they have nothing to say, but because they don’t need to say anything.

I think I confuse yearning with loving. The almosts, the maybes, the imagined versions of people. I fall for potential more than presence. I stitch poetry into silence, turn crumbs into banquets, and call it connection. But love that only lives in your head is just a daydream.

Maybe I’ve only ever loved ghosts. Not people, but projections. I build them out of soft songs and half-remembered conversations. I fill in their gaps with verses from books and call it chemistry. And when reality doesn’t match the dream, I say love wasn’t for me. But maybe I just didn’t give it a chance to be real.

I wonder if love feels like home. Not the rush, not the ache, but the soft familiarity of someone choosing you on the grey days. Someone who sees you when you’re unwashed, undone, unsure—and stays anyway. But that kind of love doesn’t arrive wrapped in poetry. It asks for patience.

Maybe I’m scared of the patience. Maybe I want the fireworks but not the morning after. The passion without the quiet maintenance of staying. Maybe I want to be adored without having to risk being known.

Or maybe I’m just waiting. Maybe I haven’t met the kind of love that makes the work feel like a privilege. Maybe I haven’t been ready to stop curating the highlight reel and step into something real.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe love isn’t something I need to decode today. Maybe I’m allowed to want the idea of love without knowing what to do with it. Maybe I don’t need a conclusion right now—just room to feel.

And if real love finds me—if it stumbles into my life quietly, unannounced—I hope I recognize it. Not as fireworks, not as poetry, but as something grounded. Something that holds me, not overwhelms me. Something real.

Because the idea of love is intoxicating. It’s the song you hum without thinking. It’s the way you imagine a stranger’s hands before they’ve even said your name. It’s the fantasy of being known, being seen, being chosen. Not always by someone real, but by someone who could be.

But real people are messy. They forget birthdays. They leave dishes in the sink. They don’t always read between the lines. And I wonder—have I ever loved someone as they are, or only as I imagined they could be?

There’s safety in staying in love with the idea. You get to be the author. There are no misunderstandings, no bad timing, no silence that lasts too long. Just you and your version of love, always beautiful, always unfinished.

Maybe that’s why the real thing scares me. Because real love doesn’t stay flawless. It asks you to stay when it’s boring. When it’s uncomfortable. When you feel small and scared and unsure. It asks you to be known—and to not run when you are.

And maybe I’ve trained myself to run. To retreat before I’m exposed. Maybe I fall for people who are half-present because full presence feels too risky. Maybe it’s not that I’ve never been loved—but that I’ve never let myself be.

Still, I romanticize. The late-night texts. The way they say my name. The spaces between replies that I fill with fiction. I write whole sonnets from a look. Maybe it’s the poet in me, or maybe it’s a pattern I need to break.

I chase intensity because I mistake stillness for emptiness. But maybe love isn’t chaos. Maybe it’s quiet. Maybe it’s gentle. Maybe it’s not fireworks—it’s a porch light left on, a soft “text me when you’re home,” a hand that reaches for yours without ceremony.

And if that’s love—if it’s not performance, but presence—then maybe I’ve never really let it grow. Maybe I’ve always walked away when it started sounding too much like real life.

But here’s what I know: I’m tired of loving shadows. Tired of romanticizing scraps. I want to stay. I want to let something be imperfect and still worth it. I want to give love a chance to be real—even if it doesn’t sound like the songs I grew up on.

Maybe what I’ve been in love with all along is the possibility. And maybe one day, I’ll stop writing about love like it’s fiction and start living it—messy, steady, and true.

And maybe, just maybe, that will be enough.

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Clearing my drafts because my 2 am thoughts have every right to see daylight. I love knowing that my thoughts and words can connect with someone else out there, that we’re not so different after all. You reading the entire thing, it means more than I can put into words. So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for letting me share a little bit of myself with you and for reading this.

Lots of love,
Kriti