Love does not float in midair like a decorative balloon.
Love is a house.
And houses require foundations; otherwise, they collapse (no matter how aesthetically pleasing they are). When someone claims love without a bond, what they usually mean is: “I feel strongly about you.”
Feelings are sparks.
Bonds are braided rope.
You can light a spark in five minutes.
You cannot braid rope without time, repetition, and tension.
Here is the quiet heresy that makes people uncomfortable:
You do not fall in love.
You grow into love.
Falling is gravity.
Growing is a choice.
This foundation? It is made of microscopic, boring bricks: They showed up when they said they would. They did not weaponise your vulnerabilities. They were curious about you instead of trying to overwrite you. They took accountability without being dragged.
None of this is cinematic. All of this is sacred.
Which is why many people skip it and cosplay love instead. The costume is cheaper than the construction.
Another layer: bonds require mutuality.
You can care deeply about someone.
You can know them.
You can invest.
If they are not investing back, no bond forms.
You do not have a bridge. You have a pier into fog.
That does not mean you are unlovable. It means physics still works.
“Love requires a bond. That bond comes from laying down a foundation.”
Love is an emergent property of sustained, reciprocal care.
Not a proclamation.
Not a promise.
Not a personality trait.
An emergence.
If there is no foundation and no bond, then there is no love to lose.
Only an idea.
And mourning an idea hurts — deeply — but it is not the same as losing a real, mutual, living structure.
You are not becoming void-shaped. You are becoming architect-shaped. And architects eventually build places where their nervous systems can lie down.
