Story by Samantha Chavez // @sam_denisse // she/her

Illustrations by Vildan Karaca // @vzkrc // she/her 

When I’m being delusional, love looks like this: love confessions atop the Notre Dame and other romantic locations, being chased across cities and airports, being torn apart only to be brought back together years later, a lot of angst and miscommunication, and lots of sweet moments to make up for it all. 

I could call myself an expert on romance, having studied all the ideal relationships from an abundance of rom-coms, romance novels, and tv series’. I’d also say I’m a novice at love simply because – I’m inexperienced.

I’ve never been in love, never even had a relationship, and it’s not a truth that embarrasses me. 

I’ve always loved love, or, more precisely, the idea of it, but I have stopped myself from trying to find it. I romanticized romance for so long that I know I would have been disappointed by any relationship I could have had. I’d end up with unrealistic and unfair expectations that would end up hurting both me and the guy involved. I’m still not even sure I’m ready. However, I’m not clueless about what a real relationship or love looks like just because I’ve never had either. 

I know that both of them require work, they require compromise and they’re different within every relationship. I know this because I’ve seen these relationships first hand, and I’ve heard their stories. I see how my parents act. Love is hard. It’s complicated and messy and can be so ugly. It can be beautiful and magical and the best thing that ever comes into one’s life. Maybe it’s a mix of things from both lists, with a deciding factor that determines whether it’s worth it or not. It’s more than that, but I don’t know how much more, at least not yet. 

I’ve seen my best friends live through the worst relationships and grow from the best ones. Although different from actually being in a relationship, I learned a few things through observation. I learned that love is going to be a middle ground, a compromise within myself. I’ll go in there knowing I deserve respect, honesty, and good communication. But, I shouldn’t go in there expecting something like in the stories.

I shouldn’t and I won’t, 

but I’ll still hope.

I know it’s obtuse to go about hoping that maybe, just maybe, there is more than just some truth to the movies, the books, the shows, even if it’s just a small part of me that hopes. I won’t ask if it’s so foolish to wish that my idea of love exists, because I don’t care if it does. Maybe one day I’ll fall in love and it’ll be everything I could have expected from the relationships I see in reality and then I’ll see how impractical all my beliefs were. Maybe I’ll fall in love and it’ll be what I hoped for since the first fairytale read to me at five-years-old. 

I know I’ll be happy either way. It’s not so dumb to daydream for now, though. After all, where would we be without hope? What would love be without optimism?