THE ART OF LOVING IN A THROWAWAY AGE

When connection becomes a product and the other person a disposable experience.

There is an abyssal difference between being in a relationship and experiencing a romance. Although the words are often used interchangeably, not every bond reaches the depth of a true encounter, just as physical intimacy does not necessarily represent emotional intimacy.

A relationship may arise from attraction, convenience, loneliness, desire, or the need to share one's life with someone. It may even mature into love. Romance, however, requires something that the mere existence of a bond does not guarantee: the willingness to know the other person beyond what they awaken within us.

Romance is an encounter between two individuals, not the fusion of two unmet needs. It is recognizing in the other person an existence that does not belong to us, a consciousness that does not exist to satisfy our expectations, a universe that remains whole even when they choose to walk beside us.

To love someone deeply means accepting the discovery that this person was not created to fulfill our fantasies.

And it is precisely at this point that many relationships begin to crumble.

Some people crave the exhilaration of conquest, the intoxication of novelty, the euphoria of messages, and the magnetism of first encounters. They crave the feeling of being chosen, the validation of their own power of seduction, the pleasure of awakening someone's interest. Yet when novelty loses its sparkle and intimacy begins to demand presence, responsibility, and emotional availability, enchantment gives way to restlessness.

The other person ceases to be a novelty and becomes a reality.

And reality demands more than desire.

It demands care. It demands attention. It demands the willingness to keep doing for the other person what once seemed so natural during the pursuit. A flower on an ordinary day, an unexpected surprise, an affectionate word in the middle of a devastating day, a message capable of bringing a smile when the entire world seems determined to extinguish every trace of joy. Small gestures for those who offer them, yet immense to those who feel remembered.

There is an emotional laziness that is difficult to conceal: the laziness of those who wish to receive enchantment but consider it too much trouble to create it; of those who demand attention yet fail to notice the needs of others; of those who believe that winning someone over once grants them the right to never nurture the bond again.

Time may transform passion, but it should never serve as an excuse for indifference. Intimacy is not a license to neglect. Familiarity is not permission to stop caring.

Love does not demand a perpetual spectacle, but the absolute absence of gestures communicates something, too.

It is within this landscape that one of the most pernicious faces of contemporary relationships emerges: emotional consumption. People are sought out as experiences, desired as conquests, and abandoned when they cease to provide the initial excitement. Connection becomes a commodity; attention, a currency; affection, a service whose continuation depends on immediate gratification.

People want to feel intensely without necessarily building anything. They want intimacy without vulnerability, exclusivity without responsibility, presence without commitment. The other person must be intense enough to feed their desire, yet convenient enough not to disturb the freedom of those who wish to keep them close.

It is the logic of consumerism applied to something that should transcend it: extracting from another person everything that feeds one's own emptiness without accepting responsibility for the life one touches.

This is not about condemning casual relationships, individual choices, or bonds that were never meant to become romances. Superficiality does not lie in the absence of promises, but in the dishonesty of offering depth where there is nothing beyond convenience.

The problem is not desiring without loving. It is pretending to love in order to gain access to someone else's desire.

The problem is not leaving. It is turning another person's vulnerability into entertainment and abandoning the wreckage as though no consciousness had been touched by the experience.

A genuine romance does not demand eternity, but it demands truth for as long as it exists. It does not promise an absence of conflict, nor does it turn staying into an obligation. Its depth lies in the quality of the encounter, the reciprocity that is possible, the freedom that remains intact, and the courage to recognize the other person without reducing them to the role they play in our lives.

The greatest form of emotional poverty may lie in the inability to understand that care does not end when the conquest is complete. One must continue discovering the person who changes, embracing the one who faces hardship, and recognizing that the other carries battles that remain invisible on the surface. A relationship is sustained not merely by the intensity of what is felt, but by the responsibility with which that feeling is lived.

In the end, some people collect relationships as proof of their desirability, while others understand that a profound encounter is not measured by the number of emotions it provokes, but by the quality of the transformation it makes possible.

A relationship may place two people in the same story. Romance begins when two individuals cease to be mere sources of stimulation for one another and start recognizing the humanity that exists beyond desire.

And emotional consumption?

It is what happens when someone mistakes the privilege of being cared for for the right to consume the person who offers that care.

J. Kasra — All rights reserved.

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