love will rot quicker than the flowers

on egocentric bias and the myth of hard love

many insist that love is difficult. that love must be gruelling, otherwise it cannot be authentic. that if it does not demand suffering, perhaps it is not real at all.

but love is not hard in the way people claim.

what is hard is loosening the grip of your own imagination long enough to listen to what another person has actually asked for. most do not want to. it feels humiliating to realise that love does not orbit around your instincts. so instead they will craft elaborate detours, invent labours of devotion. and transform the act of loving into theatre.

they get handed the map and often throw it away. they can read it, they are perfectly capable. they simply dislike the destination. you want this? no, no, no, you must want what i offer instead. you must learn my language, not the other way around.

psychologists call this egocentric bias, the tendency to assume that what feels true for you must also feel true for someone else. it is one of the brain’s shortcuts, a way of economising energy. if you like reassurance through acts of service, your brain will assume that must be the universal currency of love. it feels natural to project, because projection is less exhausting than curiosity.

another layer to this is attachment. if love in childhood was conditional or unstable, the nervous system adapts. some become anxious, convinced closeness must be constantly earned. others avoidant, teaching themselves that needing less is safer than needing at all. some both at once, craving intimacy while fearing its cost. when instability trained you, the reflexes linger.

and so you tell yourself that love is difficult. when in truth the difficulty you are talking about is the exhausting choreography of your own defences.

love does not need to be invented from scratch. flowers are only one example in a field of countless gestures. some people feel loved when their partner shows affection in public. others feel most cared for when their partner respects their need for space, when solitude is accepted as comfort rather than read as withdrawal. some feel secure through words, others through touch, others through consistent and intentional action.

but even when you understand your own reflexes. the reality of life remains. many times you may enter a relationship and discover that the ways your partner feels loved, are things you are not comfortable with giving.

it is easy to buy flowers. they do not have to be expensive. and they do not ask you to rearrange your entire sense of self. but it is harder if you are someone who constantly needs reassurance, and you fall in love with someone who highly values distance. both of you will enter into the clumsy dance of misunderstanding.

love is not meant to be a performance or endurance. if one person’s need for reassurance is endlessly starved, or if the other’s need for space is endlessly invaded, the relationship will collapse beneath its own distortions. it is not noble to erase your needs and it is not loving to demand the other erase theirs. sometimes incompatibilities are simply incompatibility, and the most loving thing you can do. is to admit exactly that.

here lies the common issue. most people refuse to speak directly about the ways they want to be loved. they fear sounding needy or demanding or ungrateful. so they hope their partner will be able to somehow magically guess. and when the partner inevitably does not, resentment grows.

on the other side, many do hear the request but choose to ignore it. because acknowledging the truth might lead to the pain of admitting incompatibility. they fear the possible messiness of leaving more than they fear the definite pain of staying. but pretending does not protect love.

ignoring the map is not proof that you know someone better than they know themselves. it is only proof that you are unwilling to leave the borders of your own comfort.

people say love is compromise, but often what they mean is love is compromise until it compromises me. they say love is sacrifice, but what they are really saying is you sacrifice and i will applaud.

real love requires recognising when your needs can meet theirs and recognising when they cannot. a bouquet on the kitchen counter, a text that says i am thinking of you, a hand held across the table. these are not cliches unless you are determined to see them that way. they are proof that someone valued your version of care enough to carry it out. even if it was not their own typical expression of love.

the irony is that people who dismiss such gestures often believe themselves to be the most profound lovers. i do not do flowers, they declare, they are just a waste. but the waste is not in the flowers. it is in knowing how someone else wants to be loved. and choosing to do the exact opposite.

humility is the most difficult emotion the ego can tolerate. it means saying my way is not the only way. it means admitting that my habits are not universal law and that my partner is not a mirror, but a world in their own right.

sometimes humility will look like buying the flowers. sometimes it will look like holding the hand in public. sometimes it will look like leaving them alone and trusting the bond will hold. sometimes it looks like admitting that what they need and what you can give will never quite align. and leaving because you love them enough to not pretend otherwise.

so yes, buy the flowers, if that is what shows that you have listened. not because they will last. they will not. but because what lasts is the memory of being heard.

love is not a theatre for your projections.

it is as simple and as difficult as this.

hearing someone say this is how i feel loved and replying i believe you.