Yep, they are different! Take a rapid fire round and answer these four questions with complete honesty.

Love is:
1.       Champagne, candle light and high heels
2.       Crockery breaking fight with a passionate all night tango
3.       A continuous nagging feeling with insecurity
4.       None of the above

I started my journey as a girl, believing the tried and tested path of happily ever after with my prince charming. Next, I realized love as a woman that is a bit more practical and doesn’t confront with my fantasies and failures. So there were a lot of possibilities and some disappointments with some beginnings and other sudden ends. I soon understood love and romance has nothing to do with each other.

Today, I am a woman who seems to rebel against almost everything I see, hear and read about love via media. Life is not Mills n Boon and love is more than half baked romance. Media makes us believe that there are two sides of love or more appropriately put romance. There is the tragic side with concepts of love, obstacle, separation, loss (Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Erich Segal’s Love Story). And there are the fairy tale romance i.e. loves obstacle, triumph and happily ever after (Cinderella, My Big Fat Greek Wedding).

In reality, I find romance scary and fleeting than it is actually portrayed to be and love is a promise that is made every day to be broken tomorrow. These two inseparable concepts are in our heads rather than in front of us.

For love you don’t need one true soul mate, who understands every bit of you without your saying anything. For most of us we look for that one man who is rich and handsome, that someone special who will shower us with attention, give us our identity, read our mind and be aware of our needs. But ladies, do you need another dad or a partner?

Mind reading is important between a mother and an infant, not between couples. If you expect your partner to understand everything said and unsaid, you are looking for one person who is the combination of your mom and dad. Of course, you will end up disappointed. You want your man to treat you like a ‘doting daughter’, but in an adult kind of love. You want daddy’s strong arms and your mom’s sweetness and tenderness, assuring you, everything will be fine. And when that doesn’t happen you feel lost.

Relationship with Thyself

Before you get into a relationship with someone else, have a good relationship with yourself. It’s only when you view yourself as powerless, then your worth gets dependent on how someone else treats you and the concept of love gets tainted. Letting men decide who we are is the negative bend in our lives. This can turn desire into vulnerability, pleasure into betrayal and solitude into loneliness. The next time you find yourself sitting in one corner, sobbing your heart out and thinking you are all alone, repeat this mantra…

I am not alone; I am on my own….

It Works!!!