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Is it just me or is it starting to feel like romantic love is just an illusion?
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It s not real.
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It s in our imaginations.
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It s just all a dream.
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And once we wake up, it s all over.
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We don t want to wake up from this dream, but we have to eventually.
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Romantic love is just an illusion.
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If you re in love romantically, it s because you re delusional.
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Wake up.
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Is it just me or is it starting to feel that way?
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Listen, I m not trying to be a pessimist.
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At all.
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In fact, I m actually in a really good mood today.
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It s Friday when I m recording this.
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TGIF.
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So I m actually in a really good mood.
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But I m just being real.
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Okay?
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At least in my silly little brain, it s starting to feel like romantic love is not a real thing.
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Okay?
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And I m not just saying this with no statistics to back it up.
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According to the American Psychological Association, approximately 40-50% of first marriages end in divorce.
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The divorce rate for second marriages is even higher, with approximately 60-67% of second marriages ending in divorce.
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Beyond that statistic, though, it just feels like romantic love is destined to fail.
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Like everywhere we look, we see people cheating on each other.
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We see people breaking up.
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We see people getting a divorce.
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We see people going on dates and it not working out.
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We personally experience bad dates, breakups, divorces, cheating.
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It s everywhere we look.
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it can be a little disheartening.
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It can be hard to have hope at times.
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Throughout my life, my opinion on romantic love has changed a lot.
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Growing up, I believed it didn t exist because I m a child of divorce and I didn t have a romantic couple to look up to.
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So I just sort of believed
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It wasn t real.
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I got hit with that reality that romantic love is complicated very early on.
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But the way that I internalized that was, well, it s just not real.
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Everyone wake up.
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It s not real.
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As I grew up though, I started to open up my heart to the idea of romantic love because with age comes wisdom and context.
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And I started to realize that just because my parents got divorced doesn t mean that real love doesn t exist.
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You know, there s a huge world out there.
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There s a whole lot of people in happy marriages, right?
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My friend s parents love each other.
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My grandparents love each other.
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It s totally possible.
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On top of that, I started to develop far deeper feelings towards boys.
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And I was like, well, I really,
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love them.
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Like, I feel like I love them.
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So it was a combination of experiencing it myself and also opening my eyes to the world around me, realizing that there s more evidence to pull from than what s in my direct, immediate life.
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And so I started to believe in romantic love again.
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And I became a firm believer, I d say.
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It became a priority for me to find romantic love in my life.
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And even when I would date and it would fail, I would stand true in my belief that romantic love is real.
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It is rooted in reality.
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It is possible.
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But as I m getting even older, I m starting to sort of go back in the other direction.
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I don t have this blissful naivety around romantic love anymore.
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I ve experienced enough with my own two eyes to now start to question the concept again.
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I don t think I m fully back to where I was as a kid where I m like, this is not real.
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This doesn t exist.
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This is just a complete illusion and it s not something that s worth striving for.
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I don t think I m back there, but I m also not blindly believing in it.
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anymore either.
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I m somewhere in the middle.
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I m starting to question the concept of romantic love and what that experience is for us as humans because of my own life experiences, but also because the statistics,
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are pretty damning, you know?
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40 to 50% of marriages end in divorce.
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Ouch.
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What s happening?
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Like, it s so fascinating that there s something that s so fundamental to human life, finding romantic love, and yet it s so destined to fail.
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What s the disconnect?
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As I m maturing and facing these realities, I can t help but ask the question, why?
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And my brain immediately
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went to, well, romantic love must just be an illusion.
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I m starting to wonder if the failure rate is due to the mere fact that romantic love is, to human beings, delusional.
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And once true reality sets back in, that delusion goes away, the relationship inevitably ends because it was never real to begin with.
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Is romantic love not true love, but rather just an explosion of irrational emotion and sexual desire that is mistaken for love, which is separate from explosive romantic feelings?
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Do we think that we re in love, but really we re just experiencing something else that is not real?
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Well, it is real, but it s not real love.
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Does that make sense?
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Oh, here we go.
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Oh, God.
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Oh, no.
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Let s go down the rabbit hole.
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Let s go down the rabbit hole of romantic love and really, really get to the bottom of things.
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Because let me tell you, if I come to the conclusion that it is just an illusion.
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Great, then we ll do other stuff with our lives, but I need to know that now.
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I need to know that now because it s fucking Friday, so I need to know what to do with my plans tonight.
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You know what I m saying?
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Don t make me explain what I m saying.
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Okay, so let s really dig in and dive in.
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Let s really dig, dive, and zoom in to this simple yet complex question.
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Is romantic love an illusion?
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Let s start out with some definitions.
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What is love?
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Wow.
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Wow.
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Emma.
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So cringe.
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Oh, it s cringe, but I do have to read the definition of love and I personally prefer the Buddhist definition.
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So I m going to share that with you now.
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Love is unselfishly wishing others to be happy, to be delighted to be in their presence, to offer our affection and smiles and hugs and help freely without wanting anything in return.
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The first time I read the Buddhist definition of love, I had an existential crisis because it really showed me that love is being selfless.
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That s kind of what it is.
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And I just never thought of it that way, but I think it s especially interesting in the context of romantic love, which in theory is just this definition of love in addition to sexual attraction and romantic gestures, right?
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That s the only difference.
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This definition of love immediately made me realize how
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Rare romantic love really is, if it does exist.
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If it can t exist, it s definitely really rare because love in itself is challenging.
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To truly love someone.
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in a way that is selfless and genuine is already challenging.
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You have to be in a certain place in your life to be able to love other people in a platonic way, in a familial way.
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It gets even more complicated when romance enters the picture because romance
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adds a whole other level of emotional turmoil.
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Being able to love someone platonically or familially is actually kind of complicated.
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Even that is challenging.
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It s even more challenging to romantically love someone.
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There s something about romance that is a bit more,
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challenging on the ego.
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I think the reason for that is you and the other person are choosing each other because you think that the person that you chose is better than other people and the person who chose you chose you because they think that you re better than other people.
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It s like the initial union of a romantic relationship is rooted in ego in a weird way.
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It s like, it s an ego boost when you both choose each other, both of your egos get boosted from that.
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Now imagine how complicated that becomes because the whole idea of love is that it s deeply selfless.
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It s about the other person feeling loved and feeling happy and feeling supported and expecting nothing in return.
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While a romantic relationship fuels your ego, which kind of doesn t go hand in hand with selflessness, right?
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A lot of times we re selfish in relationships, romantic relationships, especially.
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We don t want our significant other to be happy without us.
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We don t want to do things for our significant other without getting things in return.
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The definition of love really proved to me how rare real romantic love is.
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Now, what s the definition
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of illusion.
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What s an illusion?
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An illusion is a distortion of the senses, which can reveal how the mind normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation.
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Let s really try to figure this out.
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Is romantic love an illusion?
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In my opinion,
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Yes, most of the time.
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Let s start with the honeymoon phase.
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What is the honeymoon phase?
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It s the first few months to few years of a relationship where everything is sunshine and rainbows.
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Everyone s on their best behavior.
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Everyone s still excited.
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It s sort of this dreamy period of the relationship.
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It s the very beginning when things are fiery and hot and exciting and everyone s just sort of happy to be there.
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In the beginning of a relationship, you may think that you love the person you are with.
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you may think that this is the love of your life.
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And the reason for that is because you re experiencing an extreme amount of happiness and excitement due to the chemicals that your body releases when you re in love.
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Researchers have scanned the brains of people who are madly in love and found a heavy surge of dopamine, which is something that I ve talked about quite a bit, even though I m not a scientist and shouldn t be.
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Dopamine, along with other chemicals, gives us energy, focus, and obsession.
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So when we re in a new relationship, our brain is releasing a bunch of dopamine and we re just on top of the world with this other person.
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We re in love.
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We re excited.
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I would argue that being in love is different than loving someone.
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And I know that that s sort of confusing.
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I just feel like truly loving someone is so much deeper than being in the honeymoon phase with somebody and being madly in love with someone, but you don t necessarily love them.
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Because going back to the Buddhist definition of love, it s like the idea of that is being deeply selfless.
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And I just, I don t know.
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I think being in love is a feeling that s somewhat irrational at times.
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I think truly loving someone is rooted in reality and selflessness.
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I don t know, I might be missing the mark here.
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You guys can let me know on various social media platforms if you disagree with me.
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Back to what I was saying, all of this dopamine distorts reality.
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You re experiencing almost a high from being in love, from falling in love, and you re experiencing unnatural levels of excitement and focus and obsession, and it s inevitably going to end.
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But the feelings are so strong that you can convince yourself that you ve met your soulmate.
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when in reality you re just experiencing the normal high that comes with falling in love.
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That s it.
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This is the honeymoon phase, when your brain is still releasing all of these excited chemicals.
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The problem is, once those chemicals die down a little bit, once your brain stops releasing them, what happens?
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Well, the rose-colored glasses that you d been wearing for the entire honeymoon phase come off.
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And now you re being faced with reality, the reality of the relationship.
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A lot of times the honeymoon phase ends and couples break up because what they thought was true love was just an illusion.
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That s all it was.
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And the reality of the situation,
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is not what they thought it was going to be.
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They thought that they had something different.
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They thought that they had something explosive.
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They thought that they had something kindred.
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When in reality, it was like, no, that s just a lot of dopamine and being excited about a new thing and being on your best behavior and having the time to give to one another and maybe temporarily being selfless because it s easy to do that for a few months to a year.
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It s hard to do that for the rest of your life.
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You see what I m saying?
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The honeymoon phase is, it s like playing house, you know, when you re a kid and you and your friends would pretend that you were all, okay, that s such a niche reference.
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Now I m realizing that nobody s gonna know what I m talking about.
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My friends and I used to play a game where it d be like, okay, you re the mom, you re the dad, you re the older sister and you re the younger brother.
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And now we re going to play house.
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And then, you know, the parents would boss around the kids.
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It s such a weird game.
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Did anyone else do that?
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It s almost like the honeymoon phase is like mimicking what romantic love is or should be.
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Honestly, I think the honeymoon phase is a whole lot of pretending.
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And I don t think that we do it on purpose, but we have the energy to dress up and pretend like we re in the perfect romantic, loving situation, but it s not real.
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And it always comes to an end.
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And so I think it s safe to say that the honeymoon phase of the relationship, the first few months to a year,
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is an illusion.
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It is rooted in delusion.
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And you know, the last point I ll make on this is, according to science, this is no coincidence.
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This honeymoon phase serves a biological purpose.
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Some experts believe that our brains release
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these intoxicating chemicals to help us pass on our genes.
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It s a biological mechanism that s innate in us to become attracted, become excited, and need to connect romantically.
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Humans also have a tendency to put their partners on a pedestal in a way that is irrational.
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I look back at my first few relationships when I was younger, and it boggles my mind in retrospect, boggles my mind that I put them on the pedestal that I did.
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Now, this is not to insult those boys, but I looked at them like they were godly to me, because I was so in love with them, or I thought I was.
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I was infatuated.
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I was obsessed.
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I couldn t even see their flaws.
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I was blind to their flaws because I was so obsessed with them.
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You know what I mean?
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I was just like, Oh my God, they re perfect.
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But in retrospect, I look back and I m like, those are just normal boys, my love.
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Those are just normal boys.
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And they were absolutely
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Absolutely flawed, as am I, by the way.
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I m also flawed.
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We re all flawed.
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But they were very flawed in many areas.
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And I completely ignored their flaws and put them up on this pedestal and convinced myself that they were God s gift.
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Why?
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I honestly think the reason why we put our partners on a pedestal is number one, probably because of the way that they make us feel all that dopamine probably plays a role in how we elevate them in our minds.
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But I also think that a lot of humans have this innate desire to find the one we want to find.
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the person.
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We want to find our person.
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I think part of that is probably biological, but I also think part of that is societal too.
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There s this pressure to find your partner.
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You know, it s feels so good to go home on Thanksgiving and say, grandma, I found the one bitch.
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So you can shut up now.
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It feels so good to do that.
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And I think that pressure can give us selective vision.
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We only see what we want to see.
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and we ignore what we don t wanna see.
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Every relationship I ve ever been in, casual, serious, doesn t matter, I ve put those boys on a pedestal without fail.
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Actually, there s maybe been one or two times where I didn t.
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Okay, maybe twice I didn t put boys on the pedestal.
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Weirdly, that was intentional, though.
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I wanted to experience
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a romantic experience with somebody who I didn t put on a pedestal to see how that made me feel.
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Spoiler alert, not great, but it was still fun.
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If I don t have regrets, but majority of the romantic relationships I ve experienced, I ve put the people on a pedestal and only years after have I realized what the hell was going on.
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What the hell was I thinking?
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Like, they re fine, but it s also like, I really put them on a pedestal, like in a way that was so delusional, like delusional and weird.
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But only when I look back can I realize that.
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I think there are a few reasons why we might put our partners on a pedestal, whether it s our own low self-esteem manifesting in where we put these people in our minds, or it s the rush to find the one.
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So you sort of just put this person up on a pedestal.
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in a way that doesn t really make sense, isn t really rational because you just want to put someone there.
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You know what I mean?
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You just want to have a significant other that you put up on a pedestal.
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So you just kind of put someone random up there because you re hurrying to find your person.
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Whatever it may be,
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It s definitely delusional because all humans are deeply flawed and due to the fact that everyone s flawed, no one belongs on a pedestal.
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I mean, I do think that we can admire other people.
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We can appreciate other people s strengths.
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We can,
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That s it.
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Just those two.
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I think admiring other people, looking up to other people is different than putting people up on a pedestal.
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Because the thing about putting someone up on a pedestal is that by doing that, you re ignoring their flaws.
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When you see someone for their positives and their negatives, you can sort of keep them on your level in a way.
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You re looking at them as a well-rounded person, similar to how you look at yourself.
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Well-rounded person, flaws, shortcomings, but also strengths, et cetera.
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It s so, it s so bad to put bae on a pedestal.
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Let me tell you, I need to stop doing it.
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I can t do that anymore because I m clearly dealing with something else, you know what I m saying?
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I think for me it tends to be actually a combination of both of the reasons I mentioned, challenges with my self-esteem as well as being in a rush to find the one.
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That s why I think I put them up on the pedestal.
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I got the clean sweep.
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My reasoning is both of the reasons.
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And that just means I need to work on my self-esteem and I need to not be in a rush.
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Moving on.
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I also think we can confuse security with love.
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Sometimes being with someone can bring us a feeling of security.
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And in a lot of ways, that s selfish.
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If you re in a relationship just to feel secure about yourself, that is not love.
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Because love, in theory,
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is selfless.
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And so if you re in something for your own personal comfort and that s it, that s not real romantic love.
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That s something else.
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You know, it s easy to stay in a relationship to avoid being lonely.
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It s easy to stay in a relationship to help keep our egos and confidence up.
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It s easy to stay in a relationship to provide security for the future.
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Like I know I m going to have someone when I m old and gray.
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When deep down, you don t really love them.
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You re in it for some other sort of selfish reason.
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But you might convince yourself that you re in love because the security that you get from that person makes you feel good in a way.
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And that good feeling can be mistaken for love.
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You might think you re experiencing love, but you re not.
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You re experiencing security.
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And that s different.
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That s not real love.
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I think the reason why I feel like romantic love is an illusion is because a lot of times it is.
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Simply put, a lot of times it is.
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Is it always an illusion?
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No, I don t think so.
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I do think that romantic love can be completely real.
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I just think it s really hard to find.
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Let s go back to the honeymoon stage for a minute here.
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At the end of the honeymoon stage, when all the butterflies and rainbows and glitter have gone away and you re left with the reality of your situation,
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You and this person being partners in crime, you two against the world, it becomes a choice every day to be with this person.
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You re sacrificing the sunshine and glitter and rainbows that could come with the next person for this person that you re with now.
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You might have to make serious decisions with this person.
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Like, are we going to move in together?
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Are we going to have a child?
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You have to start considering, well, what happens if they get sick?
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Am I the one who s going to take care of them?
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At the end of the honeymoon phase, shit starts to get serious.
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Reality hits.
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And there are two ways it could go.
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Number one, one or both people freak out.
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They re like, nope, can t do this anymore.
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I m out.
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The spark is gone.
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Nope, I m out.
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This is over.
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This is getting too serious.
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Or it didn t end up feeling the way I wanted it to feel.
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I m done.
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Option number two,
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Both members are aware that the relationship feels different, but they re actually okay with the next stage of the relationship.
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They re actually kind of excited about the next stage of the relationship.
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It s not going to be as fun or sparkly or exciting as it was before, but it s going to be real and it s going to be solid and reliable and deep.
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And that is exciting.
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So let me introduce to you the concept of consummate love, the ultimate form of romantic love.
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This is the romantic love I ve been speaking of all day that I thought was an illusion.
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Turns out it was, it is kind of an illusion, but not always.
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Consummate love is the complete form of love representing the ideal relationship toward which many people strive, but very few achieve.
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It is represented as a triangle.
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Intimacy, passion, commitment.
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Those three things make the perfect relationship.
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Now you might be thinking, Emma, okay, obviously that s so fucking obvious.
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Literally like stop being a podcaster now because that was the dumbest shit you ve ever said.
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It s the dumbest thing you ve ever said.
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Obviously you need intimacy, passion and commitment in a real, in a romantic relationship.
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Like so many people have that.
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Okay.
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Not really though.
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Think about it.
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Think about it.
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Actually sit.
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for me, sit and think.
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It s much more rare than you think.
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Most relationships only have one or two out of those three.
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How many relationships do you know where there s intimacy and there s commitment, but there s no passion?
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The passion s just not happening.
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How many relationships do you know where there s commitment and there s passion, but there s no intimacy?
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Where s the intimacy?
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It s gone.
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How many relationships, you know, where there s intimacy and there s passion, but there s no commitment.
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Oh wait, that s literally all of them.
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Great.
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That s quite literally all of them.
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Actually, that s not true.
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Like for me personally, that s not true.
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But for so many people that I know, that is true.
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It s the commitment part that I think is the hardest in the 21st century.
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To achieve real romantic love, you gotta have all three.
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You need to have the intimacy, not only physically, you know, seeing each other s boobs and stuff, but also verbally, verbal intimacy.
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Having intimate, vulnerable, deep conversations, crucial.
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Passion.
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you need to be passionate about your partner.
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I mean, it s unrealistic to feel passionate 100% of the time, but you should be deeply passionate about your significant other in a way that is so automatic.
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You know, you re passionate about what they re doing.
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You re passionate about protecting them.
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You re passionate about being a shoulder for them to cry on.
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You re deeply, deeply invested in this person.
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I think passion also relates to sex as well.
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Like, I don t know, having passionate sex, I guess.
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Something about the word passionate for me, like in terms of sex for me, for me that s like a turn off for some reason.
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Like not actually, like not in real life, right?
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Like not in real life, but the word passionate for me makes my vagina invert.
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Personally, for me, it makes my vagina go back up inside.
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I m not excited.
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Dries it up.
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That word, for some reason, it s gross to me.
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Passionate.
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Ew.
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Ew, that s gross.
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Maybe that just shows my immaturity, to be honest.
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And last but not least, commitment.
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Not being a cheater, okay?
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Having discipline, committing to your significant other to the best of your ability.
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I think that one s pretty self-explanatory.
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you know, when I think about my past relationships, I realized that with all of them, at least one of those things was missing in all of the experiences I ve had this far.
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In every single one, one of those things has been missing.
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And what s interesting is if I would have been aware of this concept, I would have been able to analyze my situations
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And I would have realized very quickly, I m missing a whole lot of shit that s needed for real romantic love.
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I mean, let s put things into context.
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I m 22.
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So all of my relationships prior in my life have been when I was a teenager, really.
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I was a kid.
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So it s like
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Okay, like the ones that I m able to speak of because they re so far in retrospect are all when I was a teenager.
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So who knows how helpful this would have been to me back then.
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But I know it s going to be helpful for me in the future.
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Signs of consummate love, the ultimate form of love.
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include acceptance, emotional support, commitment, calmness, respect, caring, kindness, friendship, and consideration.
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Two people are together because they want to be together and not just because they feel an irrational desire or need to be with one another.
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It s rooted in reality.
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It s rooted in the fact that neither people are perfect.
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It s rooted in the fact that we only live once and we prefer our lives with this person than without them.
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It s rooted in the confidence that we d be okay if we were by ourselves.
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So all of that to say, I think romantic love is possible, but wow,
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Is it a bitch to find?
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Because I m wondering, like, I don t know.
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I don t know if it s something you can find at my age.
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Like, I m 22.
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I m not 100% sure it s something that can be found at my age.
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I m not sure.
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It might be possible, but I am not certain.
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That s why I m in no rush, personally.
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It s like, we don t need to be in any rush.
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That s just what s been on my mind.
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To be honest, it s probably been on yours too.
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I feel like romantic love is always on all of our minds.
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Not all of our minds, but a lot of our minds.
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It s particularly relevant for people in their 20s, but it s just relevant in general.
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I don t know.
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I feel like the hunt for romantic love is something that never ends.
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I don t know if it ever ends, but that s all I have for today.
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Thank you all for hanging out.
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I had the best fucking time as per usual.
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It was amazing.
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It was fun.
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Did you have fun?
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You did.
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You had fun with me.
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We have fun together, me and you.
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So we had fun, which is great.
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That s good news.
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We both had fun.
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It was mutually fun for both of us.
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Right.
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I appreciate you all for hanging out.
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You re all the best.
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And if you enjoyed this episode, new episodes every Thursday and Sunday, stream Anything Goes anywhere you get podcasts.
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But for video, you have to come to Spotify.
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Follow Anything Goes on Instagram at Anything Goes.
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Follow me on Instagram at Emma Chamberlain.
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Check out my coffee company, Chamberlain Coffee.
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Today I m drinking a matcha that s all melted.
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I had an iced matcha latte and now it s melted.
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Okay, delish though.
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We have coffee, we have tea, we have accessories.
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Go check out chamberlaincoffee.com.
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Order something or use the store locator and see if we re in a grocery store near you.
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I hope you all have a phenomenal rest of your day.
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And I can t wait to talk to you soon.
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I just love and appreciate you all.
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SPEAKER_00
Okay, and I ll talk to you soon.
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Don t worry, I ll talk to you soon.
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Okay?