Hope is a red flag

in today's dating world.

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I recently finished watching Bridgerton season 4 which focuses on Benedict and Sophie, and the end really left me with too many thoughts. Benedict's request to Sophie came from his belief that he is unloveable, from a place of unfathomable emotions. Out of fear – of being too much – and it just made me ache. Unfortunately, that fear feels painfully familiar. It’s the same fear modern dating has quietly taught us to hide.

We say we want love, but we don't want the attachment. We say we want somebody to yearn, but we won't do the same for somebody else. We fuck around enough to find out, but not truly what our heart wants because somehow the head always has to win the battle? We want romance, but we don't want to hope. Because hope builds ideas. Ideas that could feed your brain like ants on sugar, multiplying, crawling into every thought, slowly driving you mad with possibilities that may never happen.

So we learn to chill. Oh don't double text. Oh don't expect must. Hey, just go with the flow. BULLSHIT.

Somewhere along the way, love stopped being something we felt and became something we managed. We study response times like strategy. We calculate interest. We pretend to be busier than we are. Detachment has rebranded itself as maturity. Emotional distance is now self-respect. And caring deeply? That’s seen as weakness.

As a proud romance reader, this realization makes me both angry and heartbroken. Stories taught me that love was about grand feelings, about yearning, about the ache and the poetry of wanting someone. But the real world hands you rules instead. Don’t be too available. Don’t show all your cards. Don’t fall too fast. Don’t hope too much.

So it really love then? If it makes us want to look it as a game, or is it just a tournament of unresolved emotions? For a really long time, I thought I was a hopeless romantic but over the last one year I realised I was wrong, I've been quite the opposite all along. We’ve been made to believe we need to perform, to be practical, to act like we don’t need anyone. And yes, independence matters. But there’s a difference between not needing someone and refusing to feel for someone. We deserve unfiltered, unpretentious love. We deserve to feel loved.

We deserve to have a connection that isn’t built on strategy.

Because here’s the truth no one really talks about: you cannot experience deep love with half your heart. You can’t have intimacy without risk. You can’t have connection without attachment. You can’t ask to be loved fully while offering only the parts of you that are easy to lose. So maybe this is my rebellion.

Maybe maturity isn’t emotional distance, maybe it’s emotional honesty. Saying, “Yes, I like you.” Saying, “Yes, this matters to me.” Saying, “Yes, I might get hurt, but I still want this.”

So with all due respect to the ones who believe being detached in a relationship is ideal, fuck you and your detachment. Written by, Vanshika Patil. @oneshika.jpg