Romance isn’t dead.

It’s just hiding… like a shy lover behind half-closed curtains, waiting for someone brave enough to pull them open.
People love announcing, “Love is dead,” with that dramatic, over-the-top sigh — as we all went to its funeral together, dressed in black, passing tissues down the row, whispering nostalgia like, “Remember when love actually meant something?”

But nah. Love didn’t die.

We just buried it under fear, overthinking, and a generation that learned to guard their hearts before they ever learned to use them.

And honestly? The real tragedy is the lie we tell ourselves — that fear is wisdom.

We call it “being careful.”
We call it “having standards.”
We call it “protecting our peace.”
We call it “not wanting to get hurt again.”
But deep inside, we’re terrified.

Terrified of choosing wrong.
Terrified of choosing right.
Terrified of loving someone so much that it rewires our heartbeat.
Terrified of being seen in ways we can’t hide behind emojis, sarcasm, or our signature “I don’t care” voice.
Because what if they don’t catch us?
What if they break us?
What if they walk away with a piece of us that doesn’t grow back the same?

So what do we do?

We build walls so tall even Rapunzel would look up and say, “Girl, you need help.”
We turn our hearts into high-security zones — barbed wire, locked gates, retina scans, a password we forget half the time. Then we sit inside our emotional bunkers, wondering why connection feels impossible.

And the universe just looks at us like, “Babe… you did this.”

But here’s the twist: love never left.

Connection didn’t evaporate.

Romance didn’t dissolve into thin air.

It’s still here — stubborn, glowing, patient — knocking on the walls we built, asking if we’re done pretending we don’t want it.

Because we do.
God, we do.
We crave slow kisses.
We crave warm hands on cold days.
We crave the “text me when you get home” type tenderness.
We crave someone who sees us — really sees us — without us having to dim the messy, complicated parts.

But we’ve convinced ourselves that wanting love makes us weak in a world that worships detachment.

We glorify “unbothered.”
We treat emotional numbness like a personality trait.
We say “I don’t catch feelings” like it’s a brag.
But guess what?
No one is actually unbothered.
No one is actually immune.

We just got good at acting.
We live in an era where it’s easier to ghost than explain, easier to “lol” our way through vulnerability, easier to replay old heartbreaks than risk a new one. We romanticise being cold because we’re terrified of burning.

But love? It’s always been fire.

Messy, unpredictable, soft, dangerous, breathtaking fire.

And maybe that’s the point.

Maybe the problem isn’t that love is gone — maybe it’s that we keep trying to experience it without the risk, without the vulnerability, without the surrender it demands.

We want someone to fall for us, but we don’t want to lean over the edge.
We want intimacy, but we don’t want transparency.
We want loyalty, but we don’t offer trust.
We want butterflies, but we’re terrified of giving anyone the net.
We want love to be safe.

But love has never been safe — and never will be.

Love is saying, “Here, take this fragile, beating thing and please don’t crush it,” even though you know they could.
Love is choosing to stay soft even after life tries to harden you.
Love is the bravery of trying again when you promised yourself you wouldn’t.
Love is hope dressed up as risk.

And the wildest part?

Every generation before us felt the same fear.

They were terrified, too — terrified of heartbreak, rejection, loss, disappointment. But they tried anyway. They jumped anyway. They loved anyway.

Maybe they weren’t braver.
Maybe they were just more willing to bet on joy.

But we can change that.

We can choose differently, too.
We can stop treating vulnerability like a crime scene.
We can stop ghosting people who genuinely like us because “it feels too real.”
We can stop pretending we’re cold-hearted creatures when all we want is someone to hold us and mean it.

Romance isn’t dead.

It’s waiting in the cracks between our fears, in the moments when our guard slips, in the breath we take before we say the truth out loud.
It’s in the unmatched thrill of someone choosing us in a world full of distractions.
It’s in the courage it takes to text first.
It’s in showing up.
It’s in trying.
It’s in letting yourself feel.

Love isn’t dead — we’re just scared.

But fear has never been a good enough reason to stop wanting something this beautiful.

So pull back the curtain.

Let the light in.
Let yourself want what you want.

Because love is still here.

Alive, breathing, and waiting for someone brave enough to believe in it again.

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