Let’s Stop Romanticising Relationships

We have been taught to romanticise love for as long as we can remember.

From the moment little girls watch their first Disney princess find her prince, we begin to learn that the ultimate ending is not simply happiness, but being chosen. Being pursued. Being someone’s person.

Then come the films, the books, the songs, the TikToks and the Instagram posts. The anniversary flowers. The surprise dates. The airport reunions. The “he knew he was going to marry me the first time he saw me” stories.

And somewhere along the way, we stopped learning how to romanticise our lives without another person in them.

Perhaps that is why modern relationships can feel so complicated.

Because sometimes the person we love most is the person we know we cannot have.

Sometimes it is an ex.

Sometimes it is someone who loves us, but cannot give us what we need.

Sometimes it is someone who has hurt us so badly that we know, logically, we should walk away, yet emotionally, we cannot imagine walking towards anyone else.

And sometimes, perhaps most painfully, we become so completely infatuated with the person who is wrong for us that we fail to notice the person who is standing right in front of us.

Love has a strange way of making the impossible feel irresistible.

We can spend months analysing a message from someone who barely gives us their time, while overlooking the person who would answer the phone at three in the morning.

We can convince ourselves that inconsistency is a mystery. That distance is desired. That jealousy is passion. That those arguments followed by apologies and promises to change are just proof that someone cares.

We call it chemistry.

Sometimes it is simply chaos.

There is something strangely consuming about loving someone you know might not be right for you. The highs feel higher because the lows are so low. A good day can feel euphoric because you have spent so many bad days waiting for it.

And when someone continually gives you just enough to make you stay, you can become obsessed with the possibility of what they could be rather than accepting who they actually are.

Perhaps that is why secret relationships with exes are so difficult to leave behind.

There is history there.

There are memories nobody else understands. Inside jokes. Familiarity. The version of yourself that existed when you were together. The belief that perhaps, if you could just get back to the beginning, things might be different this time.

So you meet in secret.

You talk when you shouldn’t.

You tell yourself that it is complicated.

You say that nobody understands what you have.

And maybe they don’t.

But sometimes “complicated” is simply another word for something that is hurting you.

We have become so accustomed to romanticising the struggle that we forget love is not supposed to require us to constantly prove that we deserve it. Even if you were the one who got things wrong, made mistakes or failed to show up as you should have, you still do not have to spend your life begging someone to love you. Accountability matters, but so does knowing when you have done enough to make things right.

TikTok tells us that if he wanted to, he would.

Instagram tells us that everyone else is being taken on holidays, surprised with flowers and proposed to in beautiful locations.

Romantic films tell us that the man who initially treats us terribly might eventually realise that we are the one.

And somewhere beneath all of it is the dangerous idea that the harder the relationship is, the more meaningful the love must be.

But perhaps we have misunderstood the assignment.

Love is not meant to be easy.

But it is meant to be consistent.

There is a difference.

Love can be complicated. People are complicated. Circumstances can be complicated. Relationships can require compromise, patience, forgiveness and work.

But you should not have to spend your relationship wondering whether you are wanted.

You should not have to beg someone to communicate.

You should not have to become smaller to make someone stay.

And you certainly should not have to abandon yourself in the hope that someone else will eventually choose you.

Perhaps we need to stop giving endless chances to people simply because we love them.

Give someone a second chance.

People make mistakes.

People can grow.

People can change.

But a third chance should not become a pattern of forgiving the same behaviour and calling it love.

Because there comes a point where choosing someone else means refusing to choose yourself.

And I think that is the part of romance we rarely talk about.

We talk endlessly about finding someone.

We rarely talk about finding ourselves.

We are taught to wait for the right person to make life feel exciting. To have someone to dress up for. Someone to send good morning messages to. Someone to call when something happens. Someone to share our ordinary moments with.

But what if the ordinary moments are already enough?

What if we romanticised getting coffee alone?

A late-night drive with your favourite song playing.

Getting dressed simply because you like how you look.

Going somewhere you’ve never been.

Laughing with your friends until your stomach hurts.

Watching the sunset.

Starting again.

Making plans that have nothing to do with whether someone else is going to be there.

Perhaps the person we should be falling in love with is not always another person.

Perhaps it is just our own life.

Because when we become obsessed with finding love, we can become blind to everything else that makes life beautiful.

And maybe that is why we keep returning to people who are wrong for us.

Because we have convinced ourselves that being loved is the destination.

It isn’t.

Being loved should be something that adds to a life you already love.

So perhaps we need to stop asking, “When will someone choose me?”

And start asking, “Why am I not choosing myself?”

Perhaps the most romantic thing we can do is walk away from the person who keeps hurting us.

Perhaps it is refusing to chase someone who has already shown us that they will not meet us halfway.

Perhaps it is accepting that sometimes you can love someone fiercely and still know that you cannot build a life with them.

That does not make the love fake.

It makes the decision to leave courageous.

Because sometimes loving someone means letting them go.

And sometimes falling for someone you never expected can teach you something too, that love does not always arrive in the packaging we imagined. It does not always follow the timeline. It does not always make sense.

But the right kind of love should not require you to lose yourself to keep it.

Maybe we have spent too long romanticising relationships when we should have been romanticising life.

We should want the flowers, but we should also buy them for ourselves.

We should want the grand gestures, but we should also celebrate our own achievements.

We should want somebody to choose us, but we should become comfortable choosing ourselves first.

Because the greatest love story does not necessarily end with finding someone.

Perhaps it begins when you realise that you were never incomplete without them.

And maybe that is what modern romance needs more than anything.

Not less love.

Just a better understanding of what love is supposed to feel like.

Not desperate.

Not confusing.

Not something we have to chase.

But consistent.

And if someone keeps screwing you over, let them leave.

Give second chances.

But don’t give someone a third opportunity to teach you the same lesson.

Fall in love.

Fall hard.

Be infatuated.

Take risks.

Let yourself be surprised by the person you never expected.

But never romanticise being mistreated.

Never mistake inconsistency for passion.

And never become so besotted with someone else that you forget the person who has been there all along.

You.

Because perhaps the relationship we should be working hardest on is the one we have with ourselves.

And perhaps the most romantic life of all is not the one where someone finally comes along and saves you.

It is the one where you realise you never needed saving in the first place.

Written by, Poppy Gibbs