Love, What Is and What Isn't : A Valentine's Day perspective

As February 14 approaches, the world once again dresses love in red and gold. Flowers are ordered, reservations are made, and expectations quietly rise. A day meant to celebrate love often ends up amplifying our fears—of not being chosen, not being desired, not being enough. So instead of writing about how to secure love or perform it correctly this Valentine’s Day, I want to pause and reflect on what love actually is, and perhaps more importantly, what it is not.

Love has been confused with many things—marriage, sex, commitment, endurance,
sacrifice. Marriage is not love; it is a social and legal structure, a contract that serves stability and continuity. Sex is not love either; it is a biological and emotional expression, a powerful language of the body. Love, however, is something far more subtle and expansive. It is a sweet force that rises from the heart—sometimes in the presence of another, sometimes in their absence, sometimes in nature, and sometimes when you meet yourself in deep inner stillness. Somewhere along the way, these very different experiences were tangled together, and we forgot how to tell them apart.

For generations, society has been taught that love finds its fulfillment inside marriage. This belief has been carefully reinforced through films, music, advertising, and tradition. There is always a specific script: buy the flowers, plan the dates, fight because passion needs conflict, feel jealousy because possession means care, seal it all with a ring. Once the structure is in place, life becomes orderly and productive. Relationships stabilize the system, and people become functional parts within it—cogs in a machine that values continuity more than truth.

Although much has changed socially in the last century, these ideas were cultivated over
hundreds of years, and they do not disappear simply because new narratives appear on the surface. They live on in the subconscious, shaping what we fear, what we tolerate, and what we cling to. One of the deepest messages embedded in this ideology is this: once you begin, you must continue. Ending a relationship is seen as failure, disruption, weakness. Slowly, love turned into possession. Something to keep. Something to protect. Something to endure rather than experience.

Yet love does not follow ideology. It cannot be forced into a shape or held together by
obligation. Love does not care about timelines, social approval, or external validation. In my own life, I may not have achieved what society would label as “success” in marriages or relationships, but I gained something far more honest: clarity. I learned how to recognize the absence of love. Through contrast, endings, and disillusionment, I came to understand what love is not—and that knowledge is not a failure, but a form of wisdom.

Love can coexist with marriage and sex, but it does not require either to exist. It can move through relationships or exist entirely on its own, with the same intensity and depth. Many people remain together long after love has faded, not because love is still present, but because fear has replaced it. Fear of losing what once felt alive, fear of being alone, fear of starting again. Anxiety becomes the glue that holds relationships together past their natural breaking point. And anxiety, multiplied across society, creates frustration, resentment, and emotional exhaustion. A world built on endurance rather than love cannot feel peaceful.

“We stay for the children” is one of the most commonly used justifications for remaining in unhappy relationships. While it sounds noble, it is rarely examined honestly. Do children benefit from growing up surrounded by emotional distance and unspoken resentment? Or would they thrive more in environments rooted in honesty, responsibility, and care—even if that means relationships are allowed to end before they decay? If connections were permitted to complete their natural cycles without hostility, raising children could become a shared act of love rather than prolonged self-abandonment.

The difficulty is that modern society is saturated with anxiety. The emotional climate we live in leaves little room for fluidity or trust. Instead of allowing relationships to evolve or end gracefully, we cling. We hold on. We resist impermanence. And in doing so, we slowly drain love of its vitality until what remains is obligation dressed up as commitment.

The love I am speaking about does not need explanation. You would know it instantly. If
love must constantly be defined as respectful, non-possessive, or non-abusive, then it is no longer love—it is simply a decent human interaction. Respect is not love; it is the bare
minimum of humanity. And even that minimum often feels scarce in the world as it exists
today.

Love, in its truest form, is a vibration—an exaltation of the heart. It feels like being
momentarily invited into a quiet secret of the universe, as if you are allowed a brief glimpse behind the fabric of life itself. In those moments, everything feels possible. You feel boundless. Alive. As if your body or heart can no longer contain what is moving through you. That is love—not something you possess, but something that moves through you.

Lust and sex are often confused with love because they are intense and measurable. When I was younger, I measured love through sex. If he did not want me physically, I believed I was not loved. Desire became proof. Without it, I felt anxious, insecure, and unworthy. Like many people of my generation, I did not grow up witnessing love in its fuller expression. I learned substitutes. I learned to equate intensity with intimacy and attention with safety. Growing up meant unlearning that equation.

Perhaps this Valentine’s Day does not need more proof, promises, or performances.
Perhaps love does not need to last forever to be real. Maybe love simply asks to be felt
honestly, without ownership or fear. Love does not ask to be trapped. It asks to be
recognized—and when it leaves, it asks to be honored.