The Things They Don’t Tell You About Love

Love doesn’t feel like what they promised.
Not in the songs.
Not in the movies.
Not in the bullshit stories you tell yourself while staring at the ceiling, trying to fall asleep next to someone who doesn’t touch you anymore.

They told us love was a kind of salvation. Something that would soften the edges. Make the world a little less sharp. Something holy. Something permanent.

But love, as I’ve known it, is a con.
A beautiful, aching scam we willingly fall for because the alternative—being truly alone—is too heavy to carry.

You fall in love, or you think you do. She says your name like it means something. She laughs at your jokes like they matter. She looks at you like she sees you, the real you, the one buried beneath the sarcasm and muscle and bravado. And for a moment—a week, a month, a few hours in the dark—you believe her.

You think maybe this time it’ll stick.
Maybe this one won’t turn to ash.

But it always does.

Because love has an expiration date.
Because people get bored.
Because they want to be seen, but not for who they are. For who they pretend to be.

And once you stop playing the part, once the script gets old and the music fades, they leave.
Or worse, they stay out of obligation.
And you rot together in the same house, trading polite nods over morning coffee, pretending you still mean something to each other.

The last woman I truly loved?
She lit something in me I thought had died years ago.
Not a fire. Something colder. Cleaner. Like the hush before a storm.
She didn’t even have to touch me. Her words alone could unravel me.
And I let her.
I opened the door, let her walk through every room of my soul, and she didn’t even wipe her feet.

She was brilliant. Beautiful. Tragic.
And she never loved me.
Not really.
She loved the idea of me. The version she saw from a distance. The man who made her laugh, who listened when no one else did, who told her she was something rare in a world of disposable people. But when she got close—when she saw the cracks—she flinched.

Because love isn’t about truth. It’s about illusion.
And the moment the mask slips, it’s over.

No one wants the raw, trembling thing underneath.
They want the filtered version. The aesthetic.
The highlight reel of your heart.

And we let them.

We shrink ourselves down to what they can handle.
We lie. We perform. We endure.
Because we want it to be real so badly we’re willing to pretend forever.

But love, real love, isn’t performance.
It’s quiet. Ugly. Ruthless.
It shows you everything: the rot, the rage, the things you try to hide even from yourself.
And if they stay after that, maybe—maybe—you can call it love.

But no one stays.
Not really.

They drift.
They ghost.
They weaponize their silence.
They look through you like you’re a stranger wearing the skin of someone they used to know.
And then they tell you it’s not working. That they’ve changed. That they need space.

So you let them go. You watch them disappear into someone else’s timeline.
And you’re left with the aftermath: old texts, toothbrushes, echoes of laughter in rooms that feel too big now.

You survive, of course.
You always do.
You rebuild. You lift. You run. You drink green smoothies and meditate and sleep with people whose names you forget.
But something’s gone. Something vital.
Some soft, fragile part of you that still believed.

And when you fall again—because you will—you’ll do it with a limp.

You’ll hold back.
You’ll protect yourself.
You’ll love in lowercase.

Because you’ve learned the truth.

Love doesn’t save you.
It just teaches you how much you can lose.