Benjamin Otu Effiwatt“I thought real love was supposed to feel like fireworks.” I said this to my boyfriend the other day over coffee. You know — the kind of crazy feeling you see in movies all the time. When two people meet across a room full of strangers and just know. When you can’t eat, sleep, or think about anything else. When you spend all day making googly eyes at each other across the coffee shop.
I grew up thinking that was what love was supposed to feel like. That was THE standard. That’s what I thought I was supposed to be chasing.
Boy, was I wrong. The older I get, and the more relationships I’ve witnessed firsthand (hello, eight years of marriage with my own husband), I realize that most of us were sold a bill of goods about love.
Why We Learn To Recognize It SO Wrong From the Beginning
Listen. We pretty much have it drummed into our heads from a young age that love “should” feel a certain way.
Remember every love song you’ve ever heard? Every love movie you’ve ever sobbed through? Every childhood fairytale where two people meet and instantly fall into each other’s arms?
Yeah, no wonder we think that love should feel huge and epic and WOW when it happens to us.
When your brain is conditioned to believe that love “looks” like intense passion and emotions from the very start, it’s no wonder that a lot of people freak out when that intensity starts to die down in a relationship.
They assume love is gone. They start questioning whether they made the right choice in their partner or whether something is broken.
But here’s the thing.
That feeling isn’t love — it’s simply lust, chemistry, and early attraction settling into something deeper. It’s called falling into true love.
When you first meet someone and feel that burst of fireworks, a lot of that intensity is driven by brain chemistry.
What True Love Actually Feels Like Day to Day
I’m going to be candid with you about this, because I don’t think we talk about it enough.
When I say true love isn’t what you think, it’s because real love isn’t ALL WOW feelings all the time.
It’s hundreds of little mundane moments that people miss because they’re searching for something HUGE to happen.
True love isn’t the fireworks. It’s what you feel after the fireworks burn out.
Sound good? Let’s dive in.
1.It Feels Safe, Not Intense
When you’re around the person you KNOW you’re meant to be with, you don’t feel like you’re constantly on edge.
You feel safe. You can show up exhausted, stressed, crabby, or overwhelmed, and love will STILL be there for you in the form of your partner.
A lot of people mistake anxiety for excitement and passion. If you find yourself constantly questioning whether they love you anymore, monitoring every little thing they do to make sure they still care, or feeling like you have to be ON YOUR BEST BEHAVIOR around them all the time — that’s not love. That’s anxiety.
True love is what lets you breathe.
2.It Shows Up in the Tiny Moments
The person who loves you will be there to wipe your tears when you’ve had a bad day.
They’ll sit with you while you vent about work or listen to you talk about your family drama. They won’t get bored walking around the supermarket with you when you’re searching for milk. They’ll kiss you goodnight when one of you gets home before the other, and make you breakfast on the weekends when it’s just the two of you hanging out together.
Love isn’t something you reserve for the grand gestures. It SHOWS UP in the small moments.
3.It Includes Fighting — and Knowing How to Fight Fair
One myth about true love is that you’ll never fight with your partner again. You just magically understand each other and everything is hunky-dory.
News flash. Two perfectly imperfect human beings with their own traumas, hang-ups, and personalities ARE going to fight.
Heck, you’re going to fight with yourself sometimes.
The point is, learning how to disagree without tearing each other down is what’s called TRUE love.
Knowing how to handle disagreements in a healthy way will be the best gift you’ll ever give your relationship.
4.It Makes You a Better Person
Real love wants to see you thriving, not just surviving.
When you know someone loves you for your BEST self, you naturally want to rise to the occasion and be that person for THEM.
Your partner should want you to be the best version of yourself possible, even if that means growing apart from them someday.
The RIGHT love will encourage you to become more of who you’re meant to be, not less.
5.It’s a Decision, Not Just a Feeling
I can’t stress this enough.
Yes, love is an intense feeling when it’s brand new. But what happens when that feeling inevitably fizzles?
Do you stay and be loving anyway? Or do you run for the hills because “things aren’t the same anymore”?
Love is something you have to DECIDE to show up for each day.
Some days are going to be rough. You’re going to want to pull away. But true love is choosing each other anyway, even when it’s hard.
6.It Allows Both People to Shine
True love doesn’t require either you or your partner to lose their identity to make the other person happy.
Both you and your partner should have room to grow as individuals, pursue your own hobbies, and spend time alone without feeling guilty or obligated.
Security in yourself and in your partner is key.
Dependency masks itself as crazy passion and intensity, but it’s not love. True love is when both you AND your partner can stand on your own two healthy feet — and still want to choose each other day after day.
7.It’s Consistent More Often Than It’s Passionate
Let me clarify something. I’m not saying passion doesn’t play a role.
OF COURSE it does! You should feel attracted to your partner on a physical level. But what you come to realize about passion when you’re with the right person is that it doesn’t HAVE to always feel like fireworks.
Deep knowing and friendship CREATE passion that’s sustainable in the long term.
It’s quiet, consistent passion — not all intense emotions and anxiety.
One of the most underrated traits you can find in a partner is consistency.
Someone who shows up for you day after day in little ways will outshine anyone who forces grand romantic gestures on you every other month.
Signs You Could Be Overlooking True Love Right Now
OK, so let me ask you this.
What if true love isn’t complicated?
What if it’s smiling at your partner when you come home from work because you’re just genuinely happy they’re there? What if it’s working through a disagreement with the person who knows you better than anyone else on the planet, and STILL choosing each other in the morning?
True love could be waiting for you right now, and you’re arguing over who gets to order dinner on Seamless. Sometimes love is RIGHT THERE and we’re too busy searching for fireworks to notice it.
Are you so focused on how healthy relationships “should” feel that you’re missing the good thing that’s right in front of you?
The lack of drama isn’t the lack of love. It’s the complete opposite. It took my husband and me a long time to find a good balance of consistency and stability in our relationship. We both came from families with a lot of ups and downs, so being calm and grounded felt foreign to us.
Why True Love Is Important (And You Should Care)
When you know the difference between true love and lust, attraction, and infatuation, you stop RUNNING toward the wrong things.
You prevent yourself from walking away from good people because they didn’t meet your outdated standards. You’ll stop settling for less than you deserve, because no one can love you HOW you want to be loved until you understand what that actually means.
Once you understand what love really is, you can attract it into your life. The minute you stop accepting mediocre love, you’ll start seeing opportunities for something truly great everywhere you look.
Final Thoughts
True love isn’t what we’re taught to believe it is as kids. It’s deeper than kissing under the stars and rainy-day quotes. True love is comforting. It’s knowing. It’s understanding on a level that scares most people into running.
If you find THAT, hold onto it. Let someone who truly gets you show up for YOU every day.
Your person is out there. Now go love them like they’re the last person on earth who truly understands you. okie dokie?
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