What It Means to Really Love Someone

"Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart's revelation that another person is every bit as real as your are...Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavour...Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self."  - Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts.

When I was only in pre-school, during a scene in a movie in which a boy and a girl were showing some romantic gestures, I commented by saying, "Oh they got together!" My mom was quite upset that how little person like me could know such things.

So that shows that it is in our human nature to be quite aware of romantic connection and love since very early in life. But, as I grew older, I learned that I did not know anything about love at all. All I know about love is quite shaped by our society and popular culture.

Whether you are man or woman, old or young, whichever society you grew up, or what religion you belong to, you, as a human being, want to love and be loved. It is a basic human need. But, what does it really mean to really love someone?  I'm going to share what I thought of love over the course of my live in different phases - from teenage to my adulthood now.

Love is a beautiful fairytale.

This is quite plain and simple. As a young girl in late teens, I thought love starts out with a boy and a girl liking each other so much, then falling in love and then getting married and living happily ever after.

Love is dealing with an annoying human being.

I really enjoyed all the fun part of beginning of any courting. It is quite fun to be pursued and chased by someone. But then, there came to a point, all my fairytale romantic fantasies shattered as harsh realities hit. I was still quite young, early to mid twenties, and packed with insecurities myself. I fell in love with fantasies and an idea of a perfect boyfriend. But I lacked the maturity and understanding of what it means to be really close to someone in his all imperfections after the honeymoon phase. It was all about endless fights and verbal abuses in every way. After three years, I decided to end it. For those three years, I really thought love sucked and it was just quite annoying. One thing I learned from it was that I want to be treated with respect and kindness. It is a basic need and anyone who is not that, I would not even bother to talk to.

Love is a goal to accomplish with certain expected results.

I dated someone right after my three-year relationship. That did not last long but it was quite fun experience - I got to enjoy the fun honeymoon phase of courting.  We did not really have a kind of connection that could hold us together past the honeymoon phase.

I stayed single for a couple of years. Partly because New York City is such a great place to be single. You meet new people all the time.You flirt here and there, and then move on and look for what is the next best thing. Then eventually through all those socialising and friends' parties, I met someone really amazing. It was all fun and exciting as it is always with beginning of any relationship.  I felt really connected with him - we made each other laugh all the time. I started learning that no one is perfect - I accepted that even that amazing human being I fell in love would not be perfect.

However, over the course of the relationship, I started to focus more on signs and indicators of loving affections from him than really enjoying each and every moment with him. What he does or does not do became more of a big deal than our time spent together and learning about each other. I was really focused on the results than the process of deeply connecting with him. As he was a really great man and things had gone well, I wanted it to be in a "successful" relationship, that would fulfil, again, all my romantic fantasies. ( But I never thought of marrying him or anyone in my life for that matter.)  It was obviously no longer fun anymore. I am sure that he went through a series of doubts and I was even more insecure. Eventually, it led to a breakup.

Love is pain so I must avoid it.

I was in a tremendous amount of pain. At the same time, I made a very big decision - a decision to move back to my home country. Well, I did not move back because of my heartbreak. But I did think that big change like that somehow would help me mend my heart. It took me a very long time - more than a year to recover from it. While mending my heart, I found a job that I'm more and more falling in love with day by day. I've been focusing on learning about myself and on my professional development. For a long time, I felt that love is a pain so I must avoid it at all costs and I emotionally shut myself down.

Love is a courage to face the fear of rejection.

After I recovered from that painful heartbreak, I was thinking that "Maybe I don't "need" someone to love or be loved. Maybe I have been socially conditioned to think that I need love to justify my worthiness as a human being." In many ways, I am a very self-sufficient person and professionally very capable, or at least I want to think so. So why would I bother to take all the pain and emotional inconvenience of being with someone? Then I realised that I was lying to myself. It is quite comforting to reject something before it rejects you because being truly known makes you vulnerable and potentially be rejected.

So I realised that I was just being a coward - I did not want to take the risk of being rejected because it is really terrifying. I then learned that love is a courage to face that fear of rejection by being truly known and letting yourself be vulnerable.

Real sustainable love is a process and a choice...

After giving a lot of thoughts and feelings to understand what people in loving sustainable relationships go through and analysing my own experience with relationships, I am slowly learning that it is quite easy to fall in love with a fantasy. We all love the "idea" of falling in love with someone and fantasise about all the excitements and happy moments.  We are often more obsessed with the end results than enjoying the moment and bothering to get to know someone.

I think that the real sustainable lasting love is a process - a process of understanding someone, with all the kindness, generosity and bottomless empathy, or at least an attempt to understand someone, and at the same time, surrendering your pride and exposing yourself to be known. And during the process, you make a choice to be in that process again and again, regardless of fear and doubt that the other person might not choose you.