“Do You Believe in Love?”

Do you believe in love?

My immediate response was always: yes, of course I do. I’ve never thought much of the concept. Love? How could I not believe in it? What else drives empathy, care, and humanity? How could I possibly deny the prevalence of such a powerful emotion?

But when asked: love, the romantic kind; the kind that makes butterflies flutter in your stomach, and your heart swell—do you believe in it? Up until this point, I’ve always had a very clear answer: of course. Love definitely exists, so how exactly is this variation any different?

If you know anything about me, you would know how strong of an influence my sister is on my perception of the world. We practically share all the same opinions. On everything. So when she was asked: love, the romantic kind; the kind that makes butterflies flutter in your stomach, and your heart swell—do you believe in it?  She promptly replied: no. I was caught completely off guard.

She said:

Romantic love does not exist. Excitement exists. Hope exists. But excitement fades, and hope carries forth. And as long as the excitement is selfish, she said, that is not love.

I used to argue that romantic love, in its purest form, was something magical. It might feel a lot like excitement, yes, but it was somehow different. At least in my mind it was; I was an idealist, and that is what I hoped to believe.

I don’t know why I felt that way anymore.

In my 17 years of sheltered life, I have first-handedly seen some of the dangers associated with the misconception of love. Whether it’s a family member staying in an abusive relationship for years until she acknowledged the painstaking truth of her situation and mustered up the courage to leave, or a 6 year-old child shaking, crying in my arms at work in response to the neglect he faces at home, because his parents can’t stop fighting long enough to raise him. The illusion of love that excitement creates blinds one from facing the truth of their situation, which takes a toll on the individual, and others they care about. It’s a toxic cycle, and it’s terrifying. It really is.

Despite witnessing all this, however, I continued to be an idealist.

I saw the impact that these errors in judgment had on these individuals every single day. And every single day, I felt the back of my eyes burn with fury, resentment, and helplessness, while I used every ounce of energy in my body to keep a strong composure for the victims who needed my support. Looking back, I cannot believe how naïve I was. I didn’t notice a pattern, or any sort of flaw in human nature. I brushed these off as rare occurrences, and proceeded to ignore the terrifying reality of vulnerable hope turning into something truly horrific.

But in my 17 years of sheltered life, I have also seen the immense, overwhelming beauty associated with pure, raw love. The kind that drives empathy, care, and humanity. The kind with no complexities, tangents, or any sort of variation. The kind that my father so selflessly demonstrates every single day by being the most hardworking person I know in order to provide for his family, or the kind that allows one of my best friends to feel safe and accepted despite her unconventional sexuality. I have had the privilege of knowing what love feels like, and to be able to reciprocate that very same love.

I believe in the truth and simplicity of love.

I believe in the truth and simplicity of love; not the obsessive kind that quickly transforms into nonchalant ignorance, but the kind that fills an empty space with overwhelming, heart-wrenching emotions merely with the absence of words.

I believe in the truth and simplicity of love; and its ability to make the spines of even the most pompous, conceited souls stiff and rigid in response to the weight it carries.

I believe in the truth and simplicity of love; I believe in the intimacy of human emotion without the presence of superfluous small talk, or the lust that is commonly associated with it.

And maybe, just maybe this is the idealist in me talking, but I believe that despite the danger of misconception and foul experiences, true and simple love will always provide fulfillment and beauty to the lives of others. However, one must fight the human tendency to overcomplicate and overestimate the idea of romantic love, and instead believe that simplicity will be worth the wait.

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3 thoughts on ““Do You Believe in Love?”

  1. Dear Riya,

    You have an unfathomable talent for using the right words to describe exactly what you are thinking in your head. For many, it is a struggle to connect mind to pen– for you, it is an effortless task. It leaves me breathless, and aching to read as much of your words, your mind, as possible.

    In this blog post, you were able to take something that exists universally as a fundamental quality, and challenge it. You addressed and delved into specifications of love that I had never even thought to question. Like you, I too simply glazed over it as an obvious necessity; love is the essence of all things good. Why would I not believe in it? But as I read on, taken aback by the truth of what you were discussing, I felt more and more flustered. It is difficult to be questioned on something you have been brought up believing, and it requires a great deal of tolerance to adequately form your belief after that. However, your writing seemed to walk me through this unsettling revelation. You ensured that the reader felt they were not alone in feeling what they were feeling: that the irritation in their heads as you challenged a universal principle was something that, though often unwanted, was essential to be addressed. You stated how, even though evidence of challenges were present in your daily life, you continued to ignore them in hopes of maintaining an innocent, wholesome view on love. I wished to do the same.

    But there are no advancements, no growth in dismissing reality; there never has been a positive outcome of living in comfortable illusions. Your sister’s wisdom: “Romantic love does not exist. Excitement exists. Hope exists. But excitement fades, and hope carries forth. And as long as the excitement is selfish, she said, that is not love.” honestly opened my eyes. It made me take a step back and look at my life: see what things I have conceded as love, and wonder if they were even pure. Wonder if they were simply fragments of excitement that my brain accepted and distorted to believe to be love, and wonder if that is why that kind of “love” fades. Your writing made me do a great deal of pondering, and I feel as though I could keep attempting to tackle the jumble of thoughts you invoked in my head. But, that would require much more than just this comment section.

    I feel I must also comment on your exquisite syntax, formatting, imagery, and repetition. The elegant way in which you used all four ensured I was engaged throughout your piece. You varied your sentences, started a new paragraph in concordance to the way my mind thought, and had a very poetic, innocent-to-experienced flow which allowed me to resonate completely with your thought process. I absolutely adored the way you repeated the sentence starter “in my 17 years of sheltered life,” but contrasted them in their endings: one admitting the dangers of misconceived love, and the other admitting the beauty that subsists in the raw kind. Furthermore, I was astonished by the imagery you created in this sentence: “I believe in the truth and simplicity of love; and its ability to make the spines of even the most pompous, conceited souls stiff and rigid in response to the weight it carries.” So much so that I admittedly re-read it to again imagine it in my head. To see whether I had experienced someone’s strength being challenged in the presence of love. I had. It really purely validated how your interpretation of love evolved from a child-like “butterflies in your stomach” kind to one so powerful.

    To improve, I would encourage you to perhaps have expanded on one of the examples you listed (i.e. “family member staying in an abusive relationship for years”), if you felt comfortable doing so, in order for us to see how in those situations your definition of love faltered. You were inclined to doing that in the second example in the same paragraph, I noted, when you impeccably showed your understanding in the sentence: “a 6 year-old child shaking, crying in my arms at work in response to the neglect he faces at home, because his parents can’t stop fighting long enough to raise him.” That kind of event, how you feel you still undervalued the unease in your mind, really helped me experience your emotions, and more depth would have surely improved this connection.

    Riya, you left me feeling stunned, and you left me disputing my own beliefs. It’s so amazing that a string of sentences can do that to a person, but it’s vital to acknowledge that not just any kind of writer can do that to you. Thank you.

    With (simple and truthful) love,
    Ayisha

  2. Dear Riya,

    Right from the moment you told me that you were going to write about love, I knew it was going be something that would honestly impact me; and I can truly say that this was beyond my expectations. This post has left me completely out of words for I understood everything that you had been through and witnessed.

    Throughout the piece, you had added snippets of the love you had witnessed. Such as the blind love that can completely take over a persons mind and heart, the kind of love that can destroy lives and relationships. Riya, not only was your writing something that can completely make a person sigh, it is beautiful. It is hooking. Finding something to work on was really difficult because everything fits together like a puzzle, because I too have seen such a spectrum of loves. Loves that can conquer hate, and loves that have way too many similarities to hate. All I can truly say is that I want to see more of the kind of love you have experienced first hand. I know for a fact that you see the world in your own unique way which is what I have always admired and it’s your perception on love in this post that completely makes me love you more!

    Thank you for such a beautiful piece,

    Suneet

  3. Dear Ayisha and Suneet,

    Thank you both so much for the thought you put into your replies! As incredible writers, I am so grateful to receive your feedback.

    Ayisha, your essay-response really did help boost my writing ego! You are so incredible. Thank you. And yes, I do agree that going back and adding more detail to the abusive relationship anecdote would serve this piece well, and allow my readers to empathize with my writing more. I considered it when writing this post, but didn’t know where to begin. The event itself carries so much weight, but I will definitely keep that in mind for my future responses.

    Suneet, your feedback was also similar to Ayisha’s! You are much too kind. Thank you so much. You also mentioned that a further exploration of my anecdotes would do this piece more justice, and I completely agree with you looking at it now. Perhaps even more anecdotes would allow for readers to connect better with my writing.

    Again, thank you ladies for your constructive criticism, and your kindness. Adding more to my personal connections will definitely help my personal writing.

    With (simple and truthful) love,
    Riya

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