How ‘Almost Relationships’ Are Messing Up The True Meaning Of Love

Jeremy Bishop

Love is not a maybe thing. It is not an almost or an idea. It is not a fragment or an unanswered question. Love is not a temporary summer fling or arm candy or a swipe on your phone. Love is not a hookup or a one night stand. Love is not lust and love is not a fleeting moment of passion.

We are ruining the idea of love. We are ruining what it truly means and we are ruining the power that love can hold on our hearts. Our generation is ruining what our parents and what our grandparents knew love to be. And we want it so badly, that we have turned it into something else entirely.

We want love so badly, that we have turned it into something less. Something laughable. Something temporary. Something dull.

And love is anything but dull. Love is powerful and it is real. It’s not an imaginary idea society has come up with to trick us into going insane. Love is real. We just have to be patient. We just have to trust our own timing and trust ourselves.

You aren’t going to find love in a crowded bathroom bar. You aren’t going to find love from someone who just sees you as a body part. You aren’t going to find love from the guy who flirts with you but never actually asks you out. You aren’t going to find love from the girl who tells you she only wants casual. And you aren’t going to find love caring about people who don’t care back.

You aren’t going to find love by giving someone your everything, while they give nothing to you in return.

We have to stop loving people who have turned our backs on us. We have to stop sleeping with people who won’t ever want to call us home. We need to stop flirting and swiping and texting until your fingers bleed. We need to stop letting the power of lust and instant gratification override the power of love.

I know it’s easy to want what is fast. It’s easy to shrug our shoulders and to find the next best thing. It’s easy to crave someone’s warm touch and lingering gaze. It’s easy to want to be held and to feel wanted.

But that is not and will never be what love truly is.

Because love? It’s more powerful than a midnight kiss or a flirty text. Love is so much more than just sexual chemistry. Love will lift you up. It will save you from your demons that talk to you at night. Love will wreck you and hold you all at once. It’s compromise and arguments and taking.

Love is giving yourself to someone else. It’s trusting someone with your whole being. It’s saying, ‘I love you and I will never ever give up on us’. Love is trust. Love is unchanging and more powerful than anything you will ever experience.

So let love in. Let yourself be swept away. Give yourself the gift of love and let yourself be loved back. Don’t waste your time on the people who will only want you when they are lonely. Don’t waste your time on anything that isn’t love.

Because at the end of the day, all we truly crave for, is someone who won’t turn away from our flaws and our scars and our wounds. And that? That is love. That is everything that love is. So allow yourself to experience it. Allow yourself to lose control. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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