What Would You Do for Love?

As a 21-year-old woman with a burning desire for old-school love, I can vouch for the fact that dating in this

generation feels like fighting a losing battle. To put it simply, commitment isn't a guarantee, you'll do every single thing a couple would do but omit the label and voila, a situationship has entered the room. Subsequent to this is the question every girl contemplates over for weeks, even months, the "What are we?". For those unfamiliar with this bizarre rhetoric, the thought of contemplating for this long seems unfathomable, but when you've been playing husband and wife for a sufficient amount of time and you're hit with the "It's me, not you", you're left worse off than you were before ( In the mind of a love bomber's victim). For this reason specifically, many a woman refrain and will accept the omission of the label to continue their idyllic dynamic in the hope, at some point, it will become a reality.

But reality, more often than not, doesn't arrive. What creeps in is the harrowing heartbreak that feels completely self-inflicted, because you knew. Deep down, you always knew. You knew when you hesitated to bring it up. You knew when you made excuses to your friends. You knew when you celebrated a text like it was an act of love. And yet, you stayed. Not because you were naive, but because you were hopeful. But hope, held in the wrong hands, is a recipe for disaster.

Dating in this generation has become a paradox: we crave attention, but fear commitment. It translates into the ideology that love without clarity is somehow romantic. But it's not- it's exhausting. Somewhere along the way, "talking" has become a phase without an expiry date and exclusivity a taboo subject that screams insecure if mentioned too soon. All of a sudden, asking for respect and clarity is doing "too much".

Perhaps this is what the real loss is here, not the man, not the almost-love, but the time spent suppressing your needs just to seem like that nonchalant girl who doesn't ask for too much. The girl who becomes fluent in detachment to protect herself from caring in a world that rewards indifference.

All of a sudden, the relationship (or not so) becomes performative- the whole act of pretending not to care. Instead of speaking truthfully, we carefully curate our reactions, tiptoeing on eggshells in case the honesty pushes them away, ruining the hopes we've carefully constructed in our heads. The old school love type of daydreams we don't admit to but secretly script in the quiet moments. So we stay quiet- all to keep someone who was never really ours. In the end? Half love and full confusion.

But truthfully, wanting clarity isn't asking to get down on one knee- it's asking the right question. If they get scared off because they're too emotionally immature to understand he concept of commitment, let them be on their way. The right love shouldn't make you beg for the bare minimum.