What is Love ?

My Dear Stranger,

Tonight, I’m sitting with a question that has no clean answer.

What is love anyway?

People talk about love like it’s a decision,

like we can pick a person the way we pick a song, or a color, or a job.

But the truth feels more complicated than that.

For me,

Love moves like a hidden energy.

An unexpected invansion.

Quiet at first…

then suddenly strong enough to rearrange the whole inside of you.

My Dear Stranger,

I keep wondering how people fall in love.

What is it that makes two souls collide and stay?

A voice?

A presence?

A familiar energy that feels like “I’ve known you before,”

even if your mind can’t explain it?

And then there’s the cruel,

confusing part—why love doesn’t always go where it is welcomed.

Why is it that no matter how hard I try,

I can’t force my hearts to love someone who is already ready?

Someone who chooses me clearly.

Someone who stays, who shows up, who look at me like I'm the answer of their prayer.

My Dear Stranger,

Sometimes, we receive a love that is good—steady, kind, safe—and yet… we feel nothing.

I feel nothing.

No matter how hard I try, I feel nothing.

And instead, I turn my eyes to someone who barely cares.

Someone who doesn't even look at me.

I chase the unavailable love.

I run after a door that won’t open.

I keep returning to an empty chair hoping it might suddenly become a home.

Why?

Maybe it’s because some part of me thinks love must be earned ?

Like love needs a struggle, a chase, a test, a distance—to feel real.

Or maybe I'm drawn to what mirrors my wounds.

Not because I enjoy pain—no.

But because what is familiar can feel like fate, even when it’s only repetition.

Still… It’s strange.

How can the heart ignore someone who truly loves us

someone who would never abandon us

and yet feel so alive for someone who doesn’t even hold us with care?

I don’t understand it.

I don’t understand why my heart can be loyal to a feeling that doesn’t protect me.

Why the simplest love can feel invisible,

And the hardest love can feel like a magnet.

For me,

Love is a mystery.

And maybe that’s the point,

that love is not a formula, not a checklist, not a reward for being good.

It’s a pull.

A whisper.

An energy.

A language that only the soul can translate.

I wish I could explain it better, but I can’t.

All I know is,

There is someone I keep hoping for.

Someone I still believe in, even when reality tries to hit me.

I still believe,

that one day…

That person will finally look at me.

Not briefly.

Not accidentally.

But truly—like they finally see what has been here all along.

And maybe that day will answer the question I keep asking,

What is love?

Maybe love is the moment when the mystery finally speaks back.

**— Yours,

A Stranger Who Still Hopes