Real love is not just caring about someone when they are easy to love. It is trying to understand them even when they become quiet, distant, flawed, or difficult to understand.
Real love requires understanding. To truly love someone, you must first try to understand them (someone willing to understand what they cannot explain). love without understanding becomes shallow.
If you like a flower, you pluck it. But if you love the flower, you give it the proper conditions to grow by keeping it in sunlight and giving it enough water. If you like a bird, you put it in a cage. But if you love it, you let it out into a better environment. That’s unconditional love.
Loving a significant other so much that you do what is best for them(and healthy for both people), not just what is pleasing for you. Not everyone can love like this. For many people, they love someone when that person helps them, but when the other person is the one needing help, they complain about not being helped instead.
When a person is in a stage of life where they need help, they do not shout for it. Instead, they show certain unusual micro-behaviors. And how you notice them depends on your point of view.
People are quick to label someone as weird, cold, or distant, but rarely stop to consider that the person might actually be dealing with social anxiety. Sometimes, the truth depends on what you choose to see.
Everyone knows this, but almost no one acknowledges it in real-life situations. For a rose to bloom, first its stem with thorns must grow. Everyone acknowledges the rose, but not its stem with the thorns. The thorns are called ugly while the rose is called pretty, even though the thorns are also part of the complete rose.
In order to love someone, you also have to accept their flaws. You cannot only love the good parts of a person while rejecting their flaws, especially when you are not perfect yourself, and then still claim that you love them. That is not love.
But when the rose’s thorns start to hurt you, you also need to have the strength to walk away and accept the bitter truth.